Few departments of literature enjoy such magnificent editions as the department of Sport. Even the poets scarcely surpass sporting writers in glory of binding and illustration. Another sumptuous volume on African sport now reaches us - - the record of the big game expedition of a foreigner. Mr. Joseph Potocki is a young Pole who left England in the autumn of 1895 to go hunting in the "Horn of Africa," otherwise Somaliland, a country which was not long ago unknown and utterly inaccessible, but which is now, thanks to English and Continental sportsmen, quite a fashionable resort for those who wish for wilder shooting than the rest of the world provides. Mr. Potocki

started from Berbera, and worked his way due south to Hargeisa and Farfanyer, and then, marching eastwards, struck north again by way of Hodayu to Berbera and the coast. The book, which is an excellent record of sport, is translated from the Polish by Mr. Jeremiah Curtin; and, as far as can be judged by one innocent of the Polish tongue, is smoothly and readably done. But the illustrations are the most valuable part of the book. The frontispiece is a coloured portrait of the author, and there are fifty-eight coloured illustrations, eighteen pagephotogravures, seven text figures, and a map. The pictures are wonderfully good, and the studies of lions, leopards, rhinoceroses, elephants, and such like, are drawn with far more knowledge and truth than is usually the case in books on shooting. volume which no one who has ever gone pursuit of big game will care to be without. Ward.)

PICTURES OF TRAVEL, SPORT,

AND ADVENTURE.

This is a abroad in (Rowland

BY "THE OLD PIONEER."

Another good book on sport is this work by Mr. George Lacy, "The Old Pioneer," which deals with hunting in the Amaswazi and Gaza countries of South Africa, the Hot Lake District of New Zealand, the gold-fields of Victoria, the diamond-fields, Basutoland, the Orange Free State, the Transvaal, and Natal. Such a list of semi-savage countries should satisfy even the most exacting appetite, and "The Old Pioneer" has certainly. had no lack of adventure. He calculates that he has travelled about 190,000 miles, of which five thousand were done on foot, eight thousand on horseback, and twenty thousand in cart or coach. As everyone is now trying to pronounce South African names correctly, it may be as well to record, on the authority of "The Old Pioneer," that the name De Villiers is the Smith of South Africa, and is pronounced "Filgee," for some unknown reason. Mr. Lacy traded a good deal in the Orange Free State and among the Boers, and found that a fine barrelorgan which he had bought from an eccentric Englishman helped him greatly in his trade. He and his companions used to play it after outspanning at a house. The organ was afterwards sold to Moshesh, the great Basuto chief, and it helped to solace his declining years. Mr. Lacy recounts his adventures with a good deal of freshness and spirit, and is altogether a most cheery companion. The book is well illustrated with reproductions from photographs. (Pearson Ltd.)

Fiction.

Shameless Wayne. By Halliwell Sutcliffe. (Fisher Unwin. 6s.)

HERE, in the big way of big passions, we seem to have the genuine market-place article. The book is in the true spirit of romance: the reader is never brought quite down to life, and never taken quite away from it. The pages resound with the shock of the last feud of the houses of Wayne and Ratcliffe; and nature, in her most violent and gigantic moods, fills the background. Each family has a fair daughter: so there is fierce and lawless love. Each is barbaric, revengeful: so there is much bloodshed. In the end the home of the Ratcliffes becomes a shambles; the last fight is vividly described, and the Yorkshire moor would be the sweeter when the carcases were underground. The tale will have an attraction for certain minds. It is diffuse, but that will be no bar to its popularity, for readers of this sort of thing like plenty of it. The work is strong, wholesome, and honest. The slaughtering has a downright manly vigour that makes one think of a thoroughly English stand-up fight; and at least one reader wanted to have a look in at that final splendid rumpus! It is capital reading; but one misses the note of awe. Killing may or may not be tragic, but death always has its own peculiar grandeur; and the act of slaying can surely have no artistic importance unless it appals. In Mr. Sutcliffe's new book men are slain right and left and there's an end of it; the wind wails over the moor, the skies are majestically terrible, but the President of the Immortals seems to be sound asleep all the while. The characters are not analysed they are painted; and with a tragic motive -the feud begins with the dishonour of a woman and the murder of her husband we require something more than surface anguish. Shameless Wayne, on the murder of his father, sobbed as men sob once only in their learning of life's lesson." We are not moved: a strong man sobbing is an awful sight, but it is not enough to tell us that he sobbed. And Wayne never learned life's lesson except through the operation of his animal instincts, which scarcely make for intelligence. In short, in Shameless Wayne we have the fabric of both tragedy and romance. The romance is very good, but the tragic veil remains unlifted.

Folly Corner. By Mrs. Henry E. Dudeney.
(Heinemann. 6s.)

ONE reads this book under the insistent impression that it is the work of an extremely clever woman. As a story it is really interesting, and its interest does not depend upon the surprises of an intricate plot, but on the adequate development of a dramatic theme. The dialogue of the chapter in which the mysterious gaol-bird (a fascinating degenerate) suddenly confronts Pamela and Jethro at Folly Corner might be used almost bodily on the stage. The writing is generally vigorous and often brilliant; the comedy is first-rate. Gainah is a remarkable creation, and the dullest reader will realise Mrs. Clutton as a living being. It is, in fact, in the objective medium, a successful novel. The scene is laid in the Weald of Sussex, and the natural scenery is admirably done. Mrs. Dudeney wisely refrains from trying her hand at the Sussex dialect. The people, however, do not appear to have been so intimately studied; the present writer knows the county from end to end, and he finds it difficult to believe that during Pamela's drive with Farmer Jayne "every small girl they met bobbed her little skirts in the dust." Mrs. Dudeney is rather hard on cockneys; but this is cockneyism, stark, staring. Had the story appeared anonymously, the sex of its author could easily have been guessed. A young man is "hideous in his Sunday clothes" (he is merely driving past, and there is no reason whatever why his

clothes should be mentioned), and Pamela is one of those mercurial women who can be made happy by a bar of French chocolate, and miserable by a shabby hat." Does it need a mercurial temperament in woman to be made miserable by a shabby hat? A graver objection is that this does not at all harmonise with what we are told about Pamela. And let Mrs. Dudeney try to imagine George Eliot (say) writing about a countryman's "hideous clothes"! Which brings us to the gulf between subjective and objective art. Nor does Mrs. Dudeney's dashing fancy seem to take kindly to the simile: "Her basket was three-parts full of seed-pods-like the fingers of dainty gloves stretched over bones," is not felicitous. She nevertheless reaches at times the expression of insight, or at least of poetic observation: "The anemones were widely blown, with the quiet watchfulness which comes before death." Sometimes she comes near to spoiling her picture by an excessive use of adjectives: "They went up the path to the brooding house in its tangle of ivy and its unpruned jungle of ancient plum-trees." This house is overdressed; and what kind of a thing would a pruned jungle be? Cleverness, indeed, exceptional cleverness, is all that can be assigned to Mrs. Dudeney's new novel. It is deficient in the highest qualities of imaginative creation. Her people compel a considerable interest. But one is rarely caught up in that fervent sympathy which makes one feel that all hearts have been opened, and that there is no more to be said.

The Man's Cause. By Ella Napier Lefroy ("E. N. Leigh Fry"). (Lane.)

MRS. LEFROY's book belongs to that almost obsolete category, the novel with a purpose-oh, but quite naked and unashamed. Need we say that the purpose, in this case, is to educate public opinion in the matter of masculine continence? A very laudable purpose; and seeing that the public at large dislikes tracts and is greedy for stories, who shall blame the vehement propagandist who selects the more appealing mean? Also from the day when a man wrote the lamentable history of Job this has been so. Besides, Mrs. Lefroy does apologise. "I know," she says in effect, in the person of Mrs. Chesney, the amiable and accomplished widow, recently set free from the "smothering horror" of an uncongenial marriage-"I know I am in the way to bore you, but what can a poor woman do who has had it laid upon her to say these things and, if possible, to make herself heard?"

So Mrs. Chesney, "a woman who knows a sight too much," is dumped down in the midst of a house-party of familiar types. The weakly animal is there, the bestial, the ecclesiastical worldly, and some tailor-made young women. There, too, is the distinguished author of "Triumph's Evidences," a collection of essays. To the essayist, as a congenial spirit-to whom, indeed, she owes it that in a fit of revulsion against the " smothering horror "" she had not some years ago made away with herself the lady explicates her views at large. Commonsense views enough, it may be confessed, if a trifle superficial the laws of heredity, for instance, are, to the mind of this reformer, "remarkably plain and straightforward." Having frustrated, by very outspoken remonstrances, a certain number of marriages to which the tailor-made young ladies had been basely tempted, and having been proved absolutely right in those cases in which her advice was disregarded, the sprightly widow winds up the story by forgetting the stain set upon her by her previous loveless union in favour of the author of "Triumph's Evidences."

The book is pleasant to read, and in places comes near wit.

A melodrama redeemel by a light touch, and a sense of gay aloofness that does not desert the author of Mr. Bailey-Martin, even when he is describing tragedy. A dancing girl, a decadent poet, a military hero, a foreign prince, a young woman-plain, rich, good-these are the people of the book, and their love affairs are its backbone. It is all quite readable; it is not in the least memorable; and when you have finished you just want to say to the author: "Thank you for a pleasant evening." (Hutchinson. 6s.)

IN OLD NEW YORK.

BY WILSON BARRETT AND ELWYN BARRON.

A novel founded on a play by the same authors. It tells of the nobility of a young Dutchman who, after a life of self-sacrifice, is slain in a duel by the young man he has done most to befriend. There are, indeed, three duels in the book and a horse-race (in which the favourite is shot dead a few yards from the winning-post). The authors have not quite succeeded in excluding limelight from their pages. (Macqueen. 6s.)

THE CHAINS OF CIRCUMSTANCE.

By T. W. SPEIGHT.

An ingenious melodramatic story by a skilful hand at such fabrications. The central character is our old friend the respectable merchant with a past. A figure from this past visits him in an early chapter, they scuffle, the merchant kills him with a paper-weight, and the merchant's head clerk buries him in a cellar. From that moment the merchant is in the hands of blackmailers, and remains there until it is discovered that the figure from the past was not really killed and buried at all. (Digby, Long. 6s.)

The Book of the Winter Season.

It is red, but it is not Red Pottage. Red Pottage is bulky: the book of the winter is only four and a half inches by three and a half, and a quarter of an inch thick. It has only 138 pages, and it tells no story; has no characters save one -the author; is not written, in the literary sense, at all; and has but one picture, and that a very poor one. And yet within a week or so fifty thousand copies were sold, and it is being sold at this moment at a prodigious rate. It is called Aids to Scouting, and the author is he whose full style is Bt.-Col. R. S. S. BadenPowell, F.R.G.S., 5th Dragoon Guards, but who, by all who know him, and by all who admire him (and who does not?), is called simply "B.P." "B.P.," then, is not merely the invincible and resourceful commanding officer at Mafeking; he is also the most popular author of the 1899-1900 publishing season.

Why do we now pick up a modern military novel with only languid attention? Because war, so far as the outsider can judge, is no longer-if ever it was-an interesting pursuit for rank and file. The Commanding Officer, one supposes, has an absorbing enough. time in preparing his plan of action; but thereafter the progress of the campaign is in the hands of men in packs. Emergencies may, of course, arise in which

individual resource will be tried to the uttermost that adventurous man can want; but they are rare, and for the most part the soldier is a cog in the machinery, a thing quite apart from its motive power. That is why one has come to look to stories of modern war without any of that rapture which is excited in us by a romance of courage, cunning, and address such as The Three Musketeers. D'Artagnan, we feel, would be no better to-day, in a melée on Spion Kop, than the stupidest recruit from Little Pedlington. Not all his wit could save him from the true aim of a Boer sharpshooter, nor would avail aught the might of Porthos, the craft of Aramis, or the steel wrists of the Count de la Fère. It is this dread fact which has caused our makers of romance to hark back to the '45 and earlier times, or to invent German kingdoms where hand-to-hand contests and intrigue are still possible.

But the perusal of "B.P.'s" tiny red book reminds us that in excepting the Commanding Officer as the only one who finds in war full interest and full scope for his genius we have made a mistake. There is still another figure, belonging usually to the other extreme of the army-the scout. In modern warfare, it may be roughly said, the Commanding Officer and the scout divide between them almost all the opportunities for individual resource and interest; and perhaps the scout has the best of it. After all, if he fails he is only a scout, whereas the Commanding Officer. . . . Novelists who have their eyes open for the possibilities of the present conflict will do well to give the scout full attention, and by way of paving the way they should read this little book without delay, for though it will go in the waistcoat pocket, most

* Aids to Scouting. By Bt.-Col. R. S. S. Baden-Powell. (Gale & Polden. 1s. net.)

of the romance of modern war is between its scarlet covers. Here is a passage to the point:

Use deep shadows of bushes, trees, and banks as much as possible. In danger lie close to the ground so that you can see anyone moving against the stars. Use your ears as much as your eyes.

By squatting low in the shadow of a bush, and keeping quite still, I have let an enemy's scout come and stand within three feet of me, so that when he turned his back toward me I was able to stand up where I was and fling my arms round him.

D'Artagnan, then, is not yet extinct! There is still use for the strong arms and the stealthy tread, still employment for the brain of the opportunist. Again:

Sleep whenever you can get the chance in safety, because there is no work that is more trying than the continual alertness required in scouting. But when you sleep be careful not to be caught napping. I believe it to be a matter of practice that a man can not only wake himself at any hour he may wish to, but also that he can sleep so lightly as to be awakened by the slightest sound or by the movement of anyone near him. It is a habit with me; as is also that of taking ten minutes' sleep here and there, and waking up as refreshed as if I had had a couple of hours' rest.

When sleeping be careful to have your revolver fastened to you by its langard. Many men sleep with it under their head or pillow, and as that is where a thief would naturally look for it, a better place is under or behind your knees, where it is safe and ready to your hand.

General Buller has been commenting lately in his despatches on the disregard of scouting shown by the ordinary British officer. After reading "B.P.'s" little book it seems to us a marvel that anyone enlists to be anything but a scout. The scouts have all the fun. To use "B.P.'8" phrase, they enjoy the best sport in the world.

But it is not only potential scouts and novelists who will be interested by this book. A man of peace might do much worse than permit Bt.-Col. Baden-Powell to quicken his observant faculties for him. Bloodless scouting might become a popular and serviceable pastime for pedestrians in a dull country. Measuring a river with the eye, after "B.P.'s" rules, would pass half an hour very capably. This is his plan :

Select a tree or other object on the opposite bank and one where you stand. Then move off at a right (square) angle to these and pace a distance-say, 100 yards; plant a mark (your sword will do) and go on half as much again (another 50 yards). Then turn at right angles to your original line and walk away from the river, counting your paces until you bring the sword in line with the tree on the opposite bank. The distance you have paced since turning will be one-half of the distance across the river. Thus, if you find you have paced 90 yards, the river is 180 yards wide.

(It is unfortunate that in the edition of the book which we possess there should be two serious errors on this page. They are, it is true, pointed out in an errata slip, but errata slips are often disregarded. A third error is in the diagram, the measurements of which do not tally with the results.) To measure one river is, however, to measure all rivers. More varied fun will come from the game of deduction. The author gives a specimen pacific morning's work of his own. This is Example II. :

While following the tracks of the rickshaw, I noticed fresh tracks of two horses coming towards me, followed by a big dog.

They had passed since the rickshaw (over-riding its tracks). They were cantering (two single hoof-prints, and then two near together).

A quarter of a mile further on they were walking for a quarter of a mile. (Hoof-prints in pairs a yard apart.) Here, the dog dropped behind, and had to make up lost ground by galloping up to them. (Deep impression of his claws, and dirt kicked up.)

They had finished the walk about a quarter of an hour before I came there: (Because the horse's droppings at this point were quite fresh; covered with flies; not dried outside by the sun.)

They had been cantering up to the point where they began the walk, but one horse had shied violently on passing the invalid in the rickshaw: (Because there was a great kick up of gravel and divergence from its track just where the rickshaw track bent into the side of the road, and afterwards over-rode the horses' tracks.)

DEDUCTION.

The tracks were those of a lady and gentleman out for a ride, followed by her dog.

Because had the horses been only out exercising with syces they would have been going at a walk in single file (or possibly at a tearing gallop).

They were therefore ridden by white people, one of whom was a lady; because, 1st, a man would not take a big, heavy dog to pound along after his horse (it had pounded along long after the horses were walking); 2nd, a man would not pull up to walk because his horse had shied at a rickshaw; but a lady might, especially if urged to do so by a man who was anxious about her safety, and that is why I put them down as a man and a lady. Had they been two ladies, the one who had been shied with would have continued to canter out of bravado. And the man probably either a very affectionate husband or no husband at all.

The Amateur Critic.

An Articulate Colony.

UNDER this heading in the ACADEMY of January 13 the reviewer quotes the following words from Mr. Reeves's book: "Of. poetic... talent. . . there is yet but little sign. In writing they (New Zealanders) show facility often, distinction never." As far as the poetry goes I humbly demur to this sweeping dictum. Chance, nearly three years ago, put into my hands a book of poems, entitled Poems by a New Zealander (Kegan Paul), and it is in this slim and green-backed little book that I find evidence of the "distinction" which has been denied to New Zealand writers of the past and present. I have no idea whether "A New Zealander" is a man or woman, but I have no hesitation in saying he (or she) is a poet, and to support my statement will quote from an "Ode to England," the England called "Home," but hitherto, save in dreams," unvisited by the poet. The difference in the seasons is noted, but

66

A Man and his Work.

A NOTICEABLE feature which may be met with in almost all the obituary notices of the late Mr. R. D. Blackmore is the prediction that his fame will depend solely on Lorna Doone. The fact of this book's great popularity above his other novels is emphasised as if it was the singular fate of Mr. Blackmore to have won the approval of the public but once. Yet, if one reflects, it is by no means a rare thing for an author to be associated with one book. Others he may have produced-as did Mr. Blackmore of even greater merit than the work which brought him his fame; but the public is obtuse in matters of taste, and often as not it refuses to divide the honours of its first choice with late comers. Take the case of Mr. Shorthouse, who continues to be described as "the author of John Inglesant," notwithstanding that there are several other brilliant works bearing his name, but, unhappily for the public, they are too little known. This attempt to summarise a man and his work in a single sentence has the disadvantage of popularising but one book, and that one not necessarily the best. Its origin is not far to seek: when a book first arrests the public attention, its author cannot be more than a mere abstraction to the general; in the second stage he gains a notoriety as its author; the third stage in the author's progress, in which his personality is regarded apart from his writings, is only reached by a favoured few. No doubt, once upon a time it was "Mr. John Milton, the author of Paradise Lost," until his work became duly focussed in the public mind, when he was "John Milton the Poet." Thackeray is still known as the author of Vanity Fair, although he wrote Esmond and The Newcomes; and Charlotte Brontë as the author of Jane Eyre, though Villette is her really great novel. But this I hope, that to future generations the name of Blackmore will bring to mind not only Lorna Doone but a dozen delightful novels.

A GOOD many people have doubtless been reading Charles Reade's Peg Woffington lately, incited thereto by the publication of Mr. Hugh Thomson's illustrations. I wonder whether many have noticed two rather curious inaccuracies.

In Chapter II, Cibber, speaking in the green-room of the Covent Garden Theatre, says: "When I was young two giantesses [Mrs. Bracegirdle and Mrs. Oldfield] fought for empire upon this very stage. .. They played Roxana and Statira in the 'Rival Queens.'" Now this contest, which was immediately followed by Mrs. Bracegirdle's retirement from the stage, took place in 1707, not at the Covent Garden Theatre, which was not opened till 1733, but at the Haymarket. The rivals, too, appear to have played not Roxana and Statira together, but Mrs. Brittle, in "The Amorous Widow," on successive nights.

The other is, perhaps, a smaller matter. The date of the tale is (Chapter I.)" about the middle of last century"; and as Mrs. Bracegirdle, who was alive at the time, died in 1748, it cannot be later than that year. In Chapter VII. we find Mrs. Woffington going by coach to Hercules Buildings, Lambeth, pursued by Sir Charles Pomander and Mr. Vane. Other land journeys to and from the same place are mentioned later. But Westminster Bridge was not opened till 1750; and it is very improbable that anyone would go from Covent Garden to Lambeth by way of London Bridge, the only bridge till that at Westminster was built. Water would certainly be taken for part of the way. Of course there was the Horseferry; but it is not likely that it would be used for such journeys.

Such are the pitfalls that beset the writer of romances who brings in real persons, with their fixed and inexorable dates. C.

Correspondence.

Ruskin on War.

SIR,-The opinion of John Ruskin upon any subject must necessarily be of great interest and importance. For the moment the question of War versus Peace is allpervading, and, in addition to the reference to the subject which Mr. Charles Quartermain has pointed out in your last issue, in The Crown of Wild Olive, may I remind you of another in the third volume of Modern Painters? I believe it was written at the time of the Crimean War, and the sentiments expressed therein go far to prove that Ruskin's opinion on the subject was a settled one-an opinion, not a hasty thought. I venture to quote the following:

I believe war is at present productive of good more than of evil. I will not argue this hardly and coldly, as I might, by tracing in past history some of the abundant evidence that nations have always reached their highest virtue, and wrought their most accomplished works, in times of straitening and battle; as, on the other hand, no nation has ever yet enjoyed a protracted and triumphant peace without receiving in its own bosom ineradicable seeds of future decline. I will not so argue this matter; but I will appeal at once to the testimony of those whom the war has cost the dearest. I know what would be told me by those who have suffered nothing, whose domestic happiness has been unbroken, whose daily comfort undisturbed; whose experience of calamity consists, at its utmost, in the incertitude of a speculation, the dearness of a luxury, or the increase of demands upon their fortune which they could meet fourfold without inconvenience. From these, I can well believe, be they prudent economists or careless pleasure-seekers, the cry for peace will rise alike vociferously, whether in the street or senate. But I ask their witness, to whom the war has changed the aspect of the earth, and imagery of heaven, whose hopes it has cut off like a spider's web, whose treasure it has placed in a moment under the seals of clay. Those who can never more see sunrise, nor watch the climbing light gild the Eastern clouds without thinking what graves it has gilded, first, far down behind the dark earth-lines, who never more shall see the crocus bloom in spring, without thinking what dust it is that feeds the wild flowers of Balaclava. Ask their witness, and see if they will not reply that it is well with them, and with theirs; that they would have it no otherwise; would not, if they might, receive back their gift of love and life, nor take again the purple of their blood out of the cross on the breastplate of England. Ask them: and though they should answer only with a sob, listen if it does not gather upon their lips into the sound of the old Seyton war-cry"Set on."

-I am, &c.
GUY WILFRID HAYLER.
Capenhurst, Chester: Feb. 1, 1900.

The Decadent Cuckoo.

SIR,-Allow me, in thanking you for the excellent review of my cuckoo book, to say that the illustrations are all given in it. That which should have been placed at page 28 was, by the binder, put at an earlier page; and, in the list of illustrations, page 15 is an unfortunate misprint for 13. Your inserting this may save others who already have the volume from being puzzled, and these errors are put right in later copies. I exceedingly regret they should have occurred.-I am, &c., ALEXANDER H. JAPP. National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place, S.W.

"Ariel's Press Cutting Agency." SIR,-Your references, in the current issue of the ACADEMY, to Mr. I. Zangwill's "delicious essays in the difficult art" of parody are so extremely flattering to me, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of writing to say

that it was I, not Mr. Zangwill, who contributed to Ariel the series of "press cuttings" which you praise so highly. They have been attributed to my friend Mr. Zangwill, I know, by a variety of papers of less consequence than the ACADEMY, and I hope I may not be considered unduly vain for not allowing the statement to pass without contradiction in the magisterial columns of the ACADEMY. For I recognise that some people may not think so generously of those bagatelles as your reviewer does. I know one person who does not. Yet it is a gratification to him to know that he is not the only one by whom they are still remembered.-I am, &c.,

Replies received also from: T. C., Buxted; D. H. W., Pwllheli ; R. D. B., London; E. B. V. C., London; E. C. W., Oxford; C. W., London; J. A. S. B., Edinburgh; H. A. W., Portobello; E. L. E., Rochdale; A. S. W., Westward Ho!; A. M. P., Lincoln; C. S., Brighton; G. N., Clifton; M. H. M., London; W. D. E, Wimbledon ; A. T., Reigate; E. T., Manchester; Miss G., Newtown; L. C., Cambridge; F. L., Manchester: R. G. W., Kirkby-Ravensworth; F. E. W., London; L. P., Inverness; D. C. R., Birkenhead; E. E. L. Leicester; H J., London; T. M., Rundle; E. H. Didsbury; D. S., London; Miss G., Reigate; B. G., Barnsbury; H. B., London; Mrs. W. H. P.. Alton; S. C. Brighton; F. M., London; J. R., Aberdeen; G. R., Aberdeen; F. M. D., London; S. S., Cambridge; A. D. B., Liverpool; A. C., Edinburgh; D. C. R., Birkenhead; R. W. D. N., London; M. A. C., Cambridge; G. B., Liverpool; R. W. M., London; C. E., Edinburgh; L. K., Highgate; and R. F. M. C., Whitby.

Competition No. 21 (New Series).

EVERY family where writing games are popular has some game of home manufacture. We offer a prize of a guinea to the description of the best original writing game-that is to say, of the best game for an evening party in which paper, pencils, and brains are involved. The word original would not exclude a good adaptation of a well-known game, which is the form that home-made games often take.

RULES.

Answers, addressed "Literary Competition, THE ACADEMY, 43, Chancery-lane, W.C.," must reach us not later than the first post of Tuesday, February 13. Each answer must be accompanied by the coupon to be found in the second column of p. 132, or it cannot enter into competition. Competitors sending more than one attempt at solution must accompany each attempt with a separate coupon; otherwise the first only will be considered. We wish to impress on competitors that the task of examining replies is much facilitated when one side only of the paper is written upon. It is also important that names and addresses should always be given. We cannot consider anonymous answers.

OUR SPECIAL PRIZE COMPETITIONS.

(For particulars see inside page of cover.) Received during the week: Isis, Grangemouth, The Outsider Erin-go-bragh, Lancet, Unfledged, Kingston, Narcissus, Tredegar.