devotionalism. His best piece is, perhaps, the actual verses. Naturally enough, the Mr. Shepperley s little volume contains much that is worth reading. His poetical Once we felt at parting lonely, Meetings were so sweet; zeal, it is true, does not serve him with Mr. Zangwill's comment on this is that he 66 Mr. Raskin's Songs of a Jew' are simple and sincere; they bear marks of beginners' work in their derivative nature, and in a few infelicitous endings. Yet Mr. Zangwill hails Mr. Raskin as if, indeed, a new planet had swum within his ken. In his anxiety to belaud the unfortunate object of his goodwill he does not even stop to consider whether Mr. Raskin is simple" or "complex." In one part of his short Preface he says: His is not even that simplicity which has been defined as the last refuge of the complex" elsewhere, comparing him with Mr. W. H. Davies, he says: "How complex is our poet in comparison!" A few lines further on, however, we find a reference to the "psychological disunity" of Mr. Raskin, "whose work affords a happy hunting-ground for the student of dual personality." This alleged dualism may possibly explain Mr. Zangwill's inconsistency, but in point of fact we confess we are unable to perceive any traces of it in national This type of criticism is not good for any young author. Mr. Raskin obviously possesses a considerable part of the necessary intellectual equipment of a poet, but he is at present deficient in technique and distrustful of his own powers. We may look forward to seeing verse by him which will command something more than respect, but he will be wise if he produces his work by itself, and leaves it to critics without commenda tions within its covers. 66 We welcome the first five volumes of the Oxford Garlands." Admirably "got up " and printed, at a price within the reach of every one, they testify also to the taste and skill of the selector, who has ranged over three and a half centuries and more for his choice. 66 6 In the Religious Poems' Mr. Leonard God be in my head, The selection of the Love Poems ' 'Fish have their Times to Bite,' by "Unknown," is admirable as a parody, and excellent in itself; and it is followed by Donne's equally telling parody, "Come live with me and be my love." Many old favourites figure in the Hunting Section,' and not a few pieces that will be novelties to most readers. Golf and curling are not forgotten. The last stanza of Norman Macleod's poem should appeal to all lovers of the "stane by the tee" that dispels the rivalry even of Whigs and Tories, who Maun aye collyshangy like dogs ower a bane. We regret the absence of one very good racing poem, Sir Francis Doyle's good racing poem, Sir Francis Doyle's St. Leger of 1886,' which should cer tainly have been included in a collection where even Badminton' has its place:Near me a Musalmán, civil and mild, And he said, as he counted his beads and smiled, "God smite their souls to the depths of hell." The collection entitled 'Patriotic Poems, received various other collections-not 'Lord God of Battles' includes M Chappell's poem of which we spoke la week, also the Coronation Hymn from th Yattenden Hymnal, and Fletcher's J of Battle,' a fine model for present an future writers. The compiler has do well to insert Sir A. Conan Doyle's ‹ Iris Colonel' and his apt reply to sovereign: "LA QUESTION DE DIEU." THE time has passed when a supercilious editor could commit himself to the state ment that "la question de Dieu manque d'actualité." La question de Dieu,' whether for or against, whether explicitly or implicitly, whether in a Christian or a non-Christian aspect, occupies in greater or less degree most of the leading minds of the present generation. It even seems to be mingled somewhat more vividly and sincerely than in the immediate past with the conduct of practical affairs. Thus a journalist of to-day, describing the "vie intime" of a great city during a long and disastrous siege, could hardly, we think, leave the religious disposition of the besieged entirely out of account, as Sarcey does in his Siège de Paris.' The first three of the books before us illustrate rather aptly both the function and the very definite limitations of literature with regard to this question of questions. They illustrate also anew the wide gapwhich separates the religious classic from books of the second order on religion. The most useful and the deepest-going of the three is Prof. Rufus M. Jones's study of a group of thinkers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-several of them now almost forgotten to whom he gives the name of "Spiritual Reformers." The writer shows, as running through these, certain lines of spiritual preparation which, in his view, find their consummation in the establishment of the Quakers. In his Introduction he discusses mysticism sympathetically, but also with penetration and judgment, though a more comprehensive and original consideration of the raisons d'être of religious institutions as such, and of the true nature of dogma, would probably cause him to modify some of his Here and there, too, his generalizations appear extravagant, as when he says that the great mystics" are profoundly sensitive to the aspirations of their time, and to the deep-lying currents of their age"; and, like many writers of the school to which he belongs, he shows himself rather uncritical in quaint confusions of thought—as when he tells us of the "Church of the Spirit" that statements. "its only weapons are truth and light, and these have to be continually re-discovered and re-fashioned to fit the facts which the age has found and verified." Prof. Jones's idea is that these comparatively little-known men, Hans Denck, Sebastian Franck, Schwenckfeld, Weigel, and some others, carried on, though in more or less obscurity, the true tradition of the Reformation, from which Luther Spiritual Reformers in the Sixteenth and Religious Development between the Old and the New Testaments. By R. H. Charles. "Home University Library." (Williams & Norgate, 18. net.) himself broke away through his leaning towards external authority and sacramentalism. These men, albeit they accepted the divinity of Christ in a sense not far from that of the Church, all repudiated external forms and external rule, and taught that the soul lives by the "inward alone-by direct communing with God. Some of them-the Dutch Collegiants are the most notable-further considered that the true apostolic Church had disappeared, but was presently to be restored, until which happy moment the best that could be achieved was the formation of an "interim Church," membership of "seekers" who, having no official ministry and little organization, might hasten things on by their holy living and their longings and prayers. Prof. Jones, keeping his line of argument well in view, portrays these different individualities, and sets out their divergences in doctrine with clearness and skill. a The central figure among them, and the only one who had direct and considerable influence on English thought, is Jacob Boehme. Although much has been written about him, these chapters deserve attention. They summarize adequately Boehme's view of the universe, and his way of salvation," and account for the permeation of his influence into England. To the interesting question whether he was or was not directly a source of inspiration to George Fox, Prof. Jones has found no answer, but the fact that from about 1650 onwards his works were available in English certainly affords strong presumption that he was. The later part of the book, dealing with the confused religious speculation of the England of the seventeenth century, is necessarily somewhat sketchy. It takes the matter chiefly from the academic side, and ignores the well-known difficulties, from the point of view of ' l'homme sensuel moyen," of a method of religious life which provides little or no external discipline, and no permanent standard of doctrine. There is a charming chapter on Traherne. Prof. Jones's work has the modest character of history; Dr. Cobb's study, 'Mysticism and the Creed,' has a more ambitious aim. It is designed to furnish an interior interpretation of the several articles of the Creed. Springing from the new revival of Gnosticism, it allows validity to the theory of reincarnation; to the "æonian" conception of the Deity and the universe, and to similar ideas commonly found in company with these. Gnosticism, as is generally known, stands condemned by the Catholic Church. What, then, is a divine of that Church doing, recommending it? The position strikes one as requiring, at least, its own definite explanation. This Dr. Cobb omits. Perhaps he has arrived at his standpoint by way of much sympathetic reflection upon difficulties confided to him by individuals. At any rate, his work is one of accommodation, and exemplifies as markedly as any we ever came across the literal sense αἵρεσις. Per of The mystical interpretation of the Creed here proposed is not given as the fruit of direct personal experience, neither is it simply an application of the ideas of gnostic or theosophical writers to the data of Christian dogma. Dr. Cobb evidently has read the literature of his subject from Plotinus down to Mrs. Eddy, but he appears to us to have assimilated it somewhat uncritically, and to have worked it over in his own mind, and combined it with native opinions, more eagerly and ingeniously than judiciously. The result is a thing not at unity with itself, and made the more heterogeneous by the introduction of a handful of general notions drawn from biological science. Dr. Cobb's teaching about the person of Christ is, in particular, desperately confused. On the whole, we think he must be pretty nearly an Arian, though there is a page or two which reads like Eutychianism, and we do not deny that there are sentences which have a Catholic turn about them. He believes in a cosmic process which 66 requires not merely repeated and more or less imperfect formulations of its life and meaning, but also strives for a full and perfect manifestation of that life and meaning which may recapitulate all that is good and true in the many imperfect forms it takes." Then he goes on to say that "the Christian maintains that such a perfect actualization has taken place in the person of Jesus Christ." The greater number of convinced Christians would certainly consider this form of words as rather dubious, and tending towards a nonChristian variety of mysticism; and nonChristians of an unmystical frame of mind might observe that there does not seem to be any better evidence for the truth of such statements than there is for the truth of the despised orthodox doctrines of the Church. It Frankly, we do not see what purpose such a book as Dr. Cobb's serves. is not theology, it is not philosophy; it is not a statement of orthodox doctrine, being, in fact, barely compatible with orthodoxy; neither is it an attack upon this. It may be described as an attempt to report the mystic's vision from the mystic's own standpoint, yet without his characteristic gift. The standpoint precludes strict logical argument; the lack of the gift precludes that inner consistency and assurance which direct intuition supplies to the works of the mystics themselves, while a further difficulty is added by the thwarting demands of accommodation. Neither in literary style nor in the matter of accurate and detailed scholarship is there anything much to make amends for defects. Prof. Eucken's 'Collected Essays,' edited and translated by Mr. Meyrick Booth, strike us as somewhat miscellaneous. It cannot be pretended that they are lively reading. The thickness of expression, if we may use such a phrase, which characterizes all Prof. Eucken's writing, is peculiarly a disadvantage in an essay. Here, as elsewhere, what he has to say a fresh and virtually foreign domain. A loses not only lucidity, but also even remarks on work-for which in its latterday developments Prof. Eucken is no more an enthusiast than Prof. Harnack-in 'The Modern Man and Religion.' The two articles on the German view of religion, and on the Germans of to-day as thinkers, though they are rather meditations than discussions, may serve, at the present moment, to recall to our minds a picture of the cultured and philosophical German as we once imagined him-vanished now amid the smoke of burning cities. It is curious, at a time of acute distress like this, to read pages dealing with conduct, spiritual activity, and judgment so detached as these are from any consideration of pain. Prof. Eucken seems to aim at giving his country something that shall serve both as a philosophy and as a religion, or incentive to religion. The defects, as well as the merits, of his philosophy have often been pointed out; from the religious side it seems to us that one of his principal weaknesses is just this virtual ignoring of pain, a weakness to be observed in the religious scheme of Emerson too, between whom and Prof. Eucken one or two other affinities may be traced. In the theories of the spiritual offered to us by both these thinkers, a great agony seems an irrelevant thing; nor can one tell from what they teach how they would wish practically to deal with it if it came in their way. A philosophy which has nothing to say to agony clearly does as well as another. We doubt if that is so with anything that claims to be, or to interpret, a religion. scholars. A FEDERALIST OF A HUNDRED HARRISON GRAY OTIS was born in Boston "Of pure English stock, strengthened by Nor was the boy less fortunate than the gence and great gifts of oratory made him a force in politics; and something boyish in his whole mental constitution kept happy to the end a career which, in any other man, might have seemed a failure. It was in 1796, after a brief successful career as a lawyer, that (more Americano) Otis entered politics, and for the next twenty years was a personality of note and influence in the Federalist party, to which he belonged as a member of New England's hereditary ruling class. The earlier incidents, and Otis's part in them, may be passed over by us, though the account which Dr. Morison gives of them in the volumes before us is forcibly and lucidly written, and is illuminating in its presentment of men, motives, and movements. The incident with which Otis's name is for good or ill associated, and which it is the object of the book to clear up, arose out of the war of 1812-15. commits a nation to a war (other than a war It is rarely that a government which obviously and unquestionably defensive) is able to carry with it an entirely unanimous people. But seldom indeed has a war been supported and opposed along sectional lines of cleavage as this one was; and perhaps never did a section and party declare itself on the side of the public enemy as New England Federalism did in those years. The reason was that American politics were then but an echo of the politics of Europe. To the Federalist the Democrat was a Jacobin," an enemy law and property, the advocate of mob rule; to the Democrat the Federalist was animated throughout by anti-popular motives and designs, hankering after restriction, tyranny, perhaps finally monarchy; and both parties alike saw in the conflict between France and England the life-and-death struggle of their own contrasted ideals of government. 66 of The lengths to which men were carried by this political theory, this obsession of a social fear, make these volumes (founded as they are on primary research, and therefore revealing as well as informing) babe. For on a day in April, 1775, a very interesting literature for to-day. and Boston caused him to be fetched rumour of shooting between Lexington traditional "loyalists," on the first accesThey show how under its influence the hastily from school; to which he returned sion of the Democrats to power, became followed. Four years later, however, he and openly anti-national in time of war no more in the famous upsetting that dangerously disaffected in time of peace entered Harvard, and graduated as head publicly rejoicing over the victories of the of his class and orator of the occasion in enemy, and even seeking to destroy the 1783. This distinction, along with the financial credit of the Government. They In 'Religious Development between the historical circumstance that news of the show the party of Washington and Hamil Old and the New Testaments,' Dr. Charles Peace of Versailles had just then come to ton, whose political fetish was centralized hand, was warrant enough, in the abound-government and a strong executive mainly reproduces in a clear and accepting mood of that time and place, for de- ready to throw these ideals to the winds able form the chief results reached by scribing him as the first scholar of the and take its stand on the sometime ac him in his well-known, though not entirely first class of a new nation "a blazon cursed ground of its opponents, in appeal unchallenged, more elaborate publications. which never departed from his name. to state's-rights, nullification, and seces The reader is thus presented with a very The felicity, if not the flamboyance, of sion. During Jefferson's administration useful sketch of the purport and tendencies of the entire non-canonical literathese beginnings was well maintained in this last extreme purpose was only the conspiracy of a few irreconcilables, fo ture that is more or less loosely associated the subsequent life of Otis. Engaging whom the fall of the heavens or the rui personal qualities made him universally 66 -a with the Old Testament Canon, covering, liked; a vivid rather than strong intelli- of their country would have been the nex roughly, a period which extends from 200 B.C. to 100 A.D. In one chapter, namely, that dealing with Reinterpretation and Comprehension,' Dr. Charles makes an excursus into The Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis, worst thing to democratic supremacy i the state. They were promptly frowne down in 1804 by the more responsibl leaders of the party, though the autho shows that the duel in which Hamilto himself perished arose out of this conspiracy of the fanatics of his own theory of society and government, who wished to use that bad man Aaron Burr as a means to their desperate ends. When, however, to a war politically hateful, Madison added, in 1813, an embargo economically ruinous to the North, the flames of indignation leapt high. The war was denounced as a war on commercial New England, as an attempt to oppress and cripple her at the bidding of other sections of the Union-the Democratic South and West. Common sectional interest proving stronger than political difference, New England Democrats threw in their lot and voice with the Federalists of their region; much as though the Orange and the Green were to unite in resenting an injustice to Ulster. Further comparisons may be suggested by a quotation from one of the thirtynine memorials, all carried in legal townmeeting, that poured into the Massachusetts Legislature during January and February, 1814. Thus spake the town of Belfast, in the district of Maine, exactly one hundred years ago :— "Resolved that the sufferings, the Injuries and the oppressions of the Inhabitants of the District of Maine under the present Dynasty, are tenfold greater than those which occasioned the separation of the Colonies from Great Britain; and, though we have discovered more patience, we ought not to possess less fortitude than our Fathers displayed in their declaration of independ ence. "Resolved that we hold in the utmost contempt the 'Tory' doctrine of 'non resistance and passive obedience,' so warmly espoused by the advocates of the measures of the present administration. "Resolved-should the....law, contemplated by the Military Committee of Congress be enacted, that we hold ourselves bound to protect, at all hazards, the rights of our Citizens against its oppressive and unconstitutional provisions.... "Resolved-that the Militia of New England, an impenetrable phalanx of citizensoldiers, are the best guarantee of our political and commercial rights, and will form in the Field, a counterpoise to the mushroom states in the Senate." This condition of public feeling, modified, but not improved, by the disastrous course of the war in the interval, led at the end of that year to the meeting of New England delegates known as the Hartford Convention. One of the most remarkable incidents in American history, and a subject of almost daily reference during the generation that followed, it has been the one incident, perhaps, most inveterately misunderstood. The Convention has, in fact, been identified with the extremest designs attributable to the most fanatical diehards of a Federalism arrogant, angry, and apprehensive of the world's end. Thanks to Dr. Morison, however, no future historian should have any excuse for believing that the delegates at Hartford were waiting for a British success at New Orleans as the signal for revolt," or even that they showed open signs of an intention to secede from the Union." 66 We cannot here follow Dr. Morison, even in summary, through the half dozen chapters in which he traces the history of the Convention, from the first hint of its formation to the anticlimax of its conclusion. He shows beyond question, however, that secession or revolt was the last idea to have been entertained by the men who guided its deliberations, especially Otis; and that their aim was rather to hush all wild talk of that kind and pacify public apprehension in New England regarding what they believed to be a momentary situation. For this last purpose they drafted, for submission to the national Government, certain constitutional amendments calculated, if they were adopted, to secure that section against the risk of being" isolated" in the political system of States-old, new, and oncoming-and so legislatively oppressed. Finally, what made possible the long tradition of misunderstanding about the Convention was the fact that, just after its deliberations were concluded, and while its envoys were on their way to Washington to report, the whole situation was transformed in a day by the victory at New Orleans, and the announcement of the Peace of Ghent. In the immense reversal which then took place in the national mind-a reversal which was more than any mere recoil from the strain of a previous anxiety-the correction of a widespread misjudgment intricately interwoven with the circumstances of the change was hardly to be expected. That sudden transformation makes in itself a most interesting and piquant story, though hardly so piquant as the exactness with which the political agitations of 1812-14 anticipate those of fifty, and still more of a hundred, years later. TWO FRENCH HISTORICAL STUDIES. To most people Francesco Vettori's fame rests Machiavelli, which sheds a more vivid upon his correspondence with light upon the Italy of their day than almost any other document we possess. An impartial reader must have felt that Vettori's letters were little, if at all, inferior, either in literary skill or political insight, to those of Machiavelli himself; and in this exhaustive study he will find a full explanation of the fact. Vettori played a prominent part in the troubled politics of the times. Hence M. Passy is enabled to give us a detailed history of some of the most eventful years of the sixteenth century, profusely illustrated from his numerous letters and other writings. For Vettori's literary fame does not rest only on his letters. His Summary of Italian History' between 1511 and 1527 is a valuable document, and contains some remarkable descriptions of the leading men of the day, whom he knew intimately. Un Ami de Machiavel: François Vettori, sa Vie et ses Œuvres. Par M. Louis Passy. Tomes I. et II. (Paris, Plon-Nourrit, 15 fr.) Danton. Par Louis Madelin. (Paris, Hachette & Cie., 7fr. 50.) abounding, as do his letters, in those shrewd, cynical judgments that we are accustomed to associate with the name of Machiavelli. Heartless cynicism was the natural atmosphere of politics at a time when poison and murder were ordinary political weapons. It merely finds its highest expression in the genius of the author of The Prince.' Vettori's account of his embassy to Maximilian, his first important employment of which M. Passy gives us a translation-is as racy and vivid a picture of sixteenth-century travel as one could desire. We must not attach too much importance to the stories with which it is embellished, and which often call to mind the unsavoury side of the correspondence with Machiavelli. The tales recommended by Baldassare Castiglione for the entertainment of the ladies of his day prove that they are largely conventional. Nor are they all original. The story on p. 70 is a modernized version of the love of Thrasyllus for Tlepolemus's widow in Apuleius; and the tailor of Mündelheim's ghost - story on p. 156 can be found, with slight variations, in a letter from the Younger Pliny to Sura. M. Madelin has given us in this study of Danton a portrait which is not only effective, but scrupulous in its care for justice. Mr. Hilaire Belloc, in his fascinating study of the greatest of the revolutionary leaders, rather glossed over the darker parts, and said nothing about the vexed question of Danton's venality. It may be conceded that Danton, with his tremendous personality and his infectious joie de vivre, is lovable. Few can love Mirabeau, none Marat; but Danton makes appeal to the hearts of us all. And therefore many a writer comes to his task already biased: he searches among the evidence not for the truth, but for proof of his hero's innoM. Madelin, however, faces the Indeed, he brings together a greater array evidence with the strictest impartiality. of witnesses than any previous writer on Danton; and a damning letter from Mirabeau to the Comte de la Marck, followed by a detailed analysis of Danton's personal finances, leaves very little doubt that Danton, too, allowed himself to accept money which was not honestly his. A similar minute investigation causes M. Madelin to affix to Danton a large measure of responsibility for the massacres of September. cence. If we accept Danton then as a hero, we must accept what Acton calls "the crimson hand " ; we must take our stand upon the theory that in time of revolution ordinary morality may be cast aside. M. Madelin's style is enthusiastic, and, like most modern French histories of the Revolution, full of the stirring phrases which the Revolution coined. To have kept a judicial impartiality along with a style of such verve is no mean achievement. M. Madelin himself has a happy gift of phrase-making, and his description of Pétion as Pontius Pilate is really excellent. FICTION. Perch of the Devil. By Gertrude Atherton. (John Murray, 6s.) THE major portion of the action in this story takes place in an American mining town, and we get far too much of technical details concerning metals and the business of land exploitation. Equally boring are the large doses of American slang. What, perhaps, is more depressing is the entire selfishness of the chief cha read a criticism on it by a Social Reformer. He would probably say at once that the cause of all the tragedy in the book is obvious these people who live but for the day and its round of stale enjoyment touch the deeper emotions of life, and are promptly shipwrecked. Why? because of their very idleness. Were they in a humbler walk of life, were they compelled to a daily round of wage-earning work, life in all its aspects would be set in due proportion before them. They might The Garden of Love. By E. Hamilton lonian Dolores acting on a melancholy artist makes this fictitious autobiography as depressing for a materialistic reader as a rainy autumn night. There is nothing pessimistic in the author's intention, for the tragic circumstances of the story serve as an effective frame for the display of ideas-the immortality of racters, especially the two parasitic wives suffer, but to a slighter degree, and with love, and the power of empty hands to who are mismated with their husbands and "do" Europe for a change. Ida is crudely vulgar and slangy, disagreeably proud of her person; Ora is intellectual, or poses as such-the display of her cleverness is not convincing; both are profoundly self-centred and eager to amuse themselves by luxurious living and dressing when they are not luring the male to admiration. The hero is one of those purposeful, ruthless, and intensely businesslike makers of money whom American novelists are apparently attempting to idealize as the real heroes of romance to-day. We cannot say that to our mind Mrs. Atherton makes a success of the romanticizing, or that we can believe in her final solution of the mining magnate's relations with the two women aforesaid. If he was not really fitted for the one who read mines with him for three hours, still less could he hope for a tolerable life with the fine creature who was so much improved in manners by Europe. For she remained vindictive and essentially vulgar in mind. Though inherited Puritanism kept her from actual disaster, she was an adulteress at heart. The whole book is a terrible indictment of the American woman in "rich-quick circles, and the author's own views, so from ours. far as we perceive them, differ widely Apart from the slang, she has elaborated some strange language, and has been led on by her own cleverness to write too much. At half its present length the book would have been more effective and much easier to read. Wonderful Woman. By Dion Clayton Calthrop. (Hodder & Stoughton, 68.) As far as concerns style and technique, language graceful and realistic, composition excellent and well-proportioned, Mr. Calthrop has written an admirable book. He shows us the world of the "idle rich," and one of the idlest figures in it gradually transformed (in part by love, in part by illness, which drives him to an Alpine hillside) into a man of strong, keen spirit and power over self. The girl, loved by this man and courted by many others, fickle to them all and to herself as well, is another vivid picture; indeed, all the characters live to the full in every act and word. As a piece of portraiture it excels. But (here we depart from academic ground) the subject, the whole story, leads to reflection. We should like to far more frequent and effectual chance of cure. Their tragedy is that they have nothing on which to fall back, no sustaining habit or strength against the day of trial. The author might answer, with perfect truth, that he shows this to the full by contrast; and we may add that, in our opinion, the book has merit as much in this contrast as in itself: it contains a fine lesson, finely exposed. hold the priceless treasure of heaven. The way into the humanly interesting part of the story is across a tract of tedious prose-poetry, but compensation is afforded by a certain novelty of scene and characters. The drawing of the five Spanish girls with whom the hero comes in contact in a Spanish seaport town is admirable; the author is skilful in romantic suggestion, and fairly fascinates one, through some pages, by the interaction of love, jealousy, and belligerent propriety incensed by disregarded besketch of a South German who befriends the poetic faculty which can impart psychic the hero; and we detect also a measure of significance to forms that are but outlines to the common eye. It is desirable, however, for an author to acquire better control than is apparent in this novel over a bias of mere temperament towards the The Happy Recruit. By W. Pett Ridge. trothals. Originality is shown in the (Methuen & Co., 6s.) WE do not suppose that this tale of the progress of a German-born youth from the poverty-stricken “ Creek " to affluent pro" restaurant is prietorship of a "swell wholly imaginary; wholly imaginary; but at least it is happily selected, idyllic in its rapidity and freedom from obstacles. Mr. Pett Ridge has a reputation (doubtless wellearned) for realism and knowledge of poverty in all its grades, but in this book, at any rate, he presents it through a decorous veil as it is viewed from the platform of the charity concert or the self-improvement society much as we find it in sub-leaders and middle articles of the press it is the realism that passes the blue pencil of the cultivated editor, not the realism of, let us say, Mr. Arthur Morrison or others who depict slum life as it is. As an idyll it has charm. We cannot help liking a record of unsullied, unhampered conquest. We must, however, protest against the expression, the somewhat elusive and scrappy method of description, which, though humorous at moments, compels overmuch re-reading and turning to back pages before the thread of continuity can be grasped. The account of a trip to Russia, condensed into some eight pages, took a deal" of reading, and even then left much to be desired for clearness. 66 There are certain linguistic efforts that appear to us to be lapses: "She like you better even as she like me " is Teutonic, not Gallic; the Gallicism has been transferred, however, to a use of the word "serviette where most people would have been content to say napkin." Had Mr. Pett Ridge avoided such jarring trifles, and given us more genuine East-End realism and less idealism belonging to nowhere in particular, he would have served himself and-if that matters-pleased us, far better. unreal and fantastic. The Rise and Glory of the Westell-Browns. By Paul Neuman. (Hodder & Stoughton, 68.) is "NOTHING demoralizes like success the main theme of this novel. It tells of the rise and decline of an emporium and those connected with it. It is not an exciting tale, but it is full of a shrewd kindliness and points a moral. The 66 aitchless" Westell, with his simple test of a good and improving book—“ it must be hard to read and impossible to enjoy ❞— is a type of successful business man who deserves to be put on record while there are still a few specimens extant to his sons and the independence of his compare him with. The snobbishness of daughters are all well within the picture. We hope the return to early principles as the result of failure is equally true to life. At least we can gladly state our belief that the contrast drawn between Church and Chapel folk-so vastly in favour of the latter-is not to-day so apparent. Not a great book-not even comparable with the author's Roddles '-but one characterization, and is worth the time it which contains much sound and thoughtful takes to read. |