tion from the Deity; that at the crucifixion Christ went forth out of the person of Jesus, Jesus died. The author of the Fourth Gospel narrates the descent of the form of a dove upon Jesus at His baptism; he says nothing of the dove's going forth. And here it is that Mr. Sense, breaking boldly away from the traditional respect for the written word, proposes to supply (in xix. 34) for "forthwith came there out blood and water ". . . and a dove." This startling suggestion he backs by a reference to the authentic history of the martyrdom of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna in the second century, which throughout preserves a remarkable parallelism with the Fourth Gospel. There it may be read-for despite the ingenuity of mystified commentators the phrase has survived-how, when the flames failed to consume the old man's body, the executioner pierced it with a sword and "there came forth a dove and a quantity of blood." Having made his emendation, Mr. Sense goes through the whole Evangel with a blue pencil, scoring out the passages inconsistent with his hypothesis. These inflations he attributes in bulk to a revision "committee " assembled under Irenæus ; and a good deal of rather intemperate language is poured out upon the head of these unscrupulous clergymen. At this point Mr. Sense works himself up into hot anger against a principle which he designates, by a vocable unknown to Dr. Murray, Credonism. This nefarious spirit he discovers at the root of most social evils. He proposes, therefore, the foundation of a society for the practice of Christian virtues (we seem to have heard of something of the sort before) from which even bishops and deans shall not be excluded, but only their distinctive dress. Also that the practice of confession among Roman Catholics shall be created a criminal offence. Mr. Sense thinks "there would be no difficulty" in enforcing this regulation. In spite of his many lapses from good taste and practical wisdom, from correct grammar and orthography (the habit of writing "impassable" when he means "impassible" does not inspire us with confidence in our theologian), Mr. Sense has written an interesting and suggestive book.

Of a very different temper is Dr. Godet's Introduction to the New Testament, of which we have from the hand of Mr. William Affleck a tolerable translation of a part of the second volume. Dr. Godet's first volume comprised the Pauline Epistles. The present instalment discusses the origin of the four Gospels, and treats in detail that according to Matthew. Dr. Godet rejects the theory which, in various forms, is generally favoured by exponents of the Higher Criticism both in this country and upon the Continent-that, namely, which derives the Synoptic Gospels mainly from two sources: the writings of Mark for the narrative parts, and the " Sayings " of Matthew for the teachings of Jesus. Also, with Zahn (History of the Canon of the New Testament), he attributes the formation of the four-fold Gospel, not to the second half of the second century, but to the end of the first. He sees the three authentic biographies emerging from the crowd of more or less puerile documents in which the wilder spirits had clothed their fancies, and receiving at Ephesus the seal of the last of the apostolic band. In the fourth he discerns a document from the hand of the Beloved Disciple himself, designed especially to supplement from the treasure-house of his memory the scanty record of those three years' teaching. Thus the universal Church, by a kind of instinct, singled out those pictures of her Founder which the corroboration of 1800 years has approved. In the quadruple Gospel is revealed the Christ in four several aspects:

That Christ of Matthew, in whom are revealed the riches of the work of God in the past of Israel; that Christ of Luke, a living germ of the future of the regenerated world; that Christ of Mark, acting, speaking, living before our eyes in His glorious and incomparable present; in fine, that Christ of John, hovering above the past, the present, and the future, like the eternal God whose image He is.

care.

The Decadent Cuckoo.

Our Common Cuckoo, and other Cuckoos and Parasitical Birds. By Alexander H. Japp, LL.D., F.R.S.E. (Burleigh. 6s.) DR. JAPP has here fulfilled an ambition he shares with other modern naturalists-viz., to write a long book about the cuckoo. To our elders it was a poet's bird: "Loud crieth cuccu 99 was spring's unmistakable symbol, and this went on till past Wordsworth's day. But Dr. Japp's interest is more scientific than literary, and he doubts if the bards of old would have dared to glorify the bird had his history been known. It is testified by infallible signs that the nation of cuckoos is in decay. First, the males outnumber the females to the tune of seven to one, say some naturalists; others have it twenty. This saps all virtue, for as is well known the domesticities count for as much among the citizens of the air as among us poor plumeless ephemerals. The most affectionate of birds is the bullfinch -tender to his wife, kind to his children, faithful even to a human friend, and, as might be expected, he mates for life. When the last scarlet hips are rotting on the bare hedgerow, you may still see him and the wife he courted in the greenwood eating and roosting together. But the cuckoo is at the other end of the scale. He has not the decency to stick to his wife even for a season, and she spends summer flirting with a succession of males, and laying eggs from about the 9th of April to the middle of June. A lady robin or hedge-sparrow, knowing that she will have to feed and nurse her offspring, takes care that they shall not number more than four or five. The cuckoo doesn't Without making a nest she lays her egg at the hedge root, and then flies with it in her mouth to the first home that comes handy. She does not even inquire into the character of the nurse, since her egg has been found among those of over a hundred species, ranging in size from the wren to the wood-pigeon. From so careless and disreputable a parent is it reasonable to expect any but a monstrous progeny ? But the young cuckoo, though wicked, is interesting. Indeed he presents to students of evolution a problem that becomes more difficult and fascinating as the facts become more fully ascertained. When newly out of the shell, the naked, feeble, sprawling monster proceeds to shoulder his foster chicks or eggs out of the nest. Long after Jenner's famous observation naturalists refused to believe a story so contradictory of nature's usual methods. If true it meant that an incȧlculable number of our sweetest and most harmless birds are annually sacrificed to preserve the worthless cuckoo. Further, it is a cardinal doctrine of evolution that a counter instinct is developed to meet every destructive Here there is nothing of the kind. Mr. Japp is not only able to reproduce the testimony of witnesses like Mrs. Blackburn and Mr. Hancock, and Mr. John Craig and Mr. Scot Miller-who show the process by a series of instantaneous photographs-but he furnishes proof that the mother acquiesces in this murder of her rightful progeny, and lavishes her kindness on the usurper. So much is now placed beyond the region of controversy. There are naturalists who go further, and say with Tom Speedy that a little bird like the wren will sometimes starve itself to feed the big foster-child, and though this is probably an over-statement, it is certain that many species take kindly to nursing the young cuckoo. Equally well known is it that little birds will sometimes mob an old one, as they do a hawk or an owl.

one.

There is much about the cuckoo that, though curious, is open to plausible explanation. The present writer is of opinion that in regard to variation in cuckoos' eggs there has been much exaggerated writing. Within limits, variation occurs in the eggs of every species of bird; but a collection of nearly two hundred cuckoos' eggs made in the Home Counties during the last three or four years shows no such difference in the markings as a merely book student might expect to see. That a cuckoo can

adapt her egg to match in colour those of a particular nest we believe to be a fable. Many of those referred to were placed in the home of the hedge-sparrow; but not one is blue. One cannot dispute that a cuckoo might produce eggs of this colour, but, though Dr. Japp fully accepts it, the evidence of Messrs. Seebohm and Elwes is not conclusive. It amounts to this, that they believed that on breaking one they found on the embryo the characteristic zygodactile foot of the species. But how easy to make a mistake when dealing with the very tiny foot of a chick found in an egg remarkable for its smallness! At any rate, a blue cuckoo's egg is most rare.

But the murderous instinct of the nestling leaves a question unsettled in natural history. It cannot be inherited. If, as is generally supposed, the migration of the cuckoo shows that its original habitat became unsuitable, we may assume that in prehistoric times it hatched out its own young. In India and America the species does so still, though Dr. Japp insists on the evidence that parasitism is growing among them too. At what period, then, in this decaying process does the nestling begin to eject those who would otherwise shorten its food supply? To say that the instinct is supernaturally implanted would be tantamount to asserting that, with one bird at least, the spirit of evil had had his way; and the evolutionary hypothesis is equally at fault. There is nothing to fit the case. Perhaps some brilliant Darwin of the future may be able to suggest an adequate explanation. In the meantime, Dr. Alexander Japp has done excellent service by getting together this body of definite and trustworthy information. We are sorry not to be able to congratulate him on his illustrations-some of the more interesting are badly reproduced, and the list at the beginning is incorrect. There are no pictures on p. 28, and Mrs. Blackburn's drawing is on 13, not 15.

jubilee day, on the 1st of December, all the cherished reminiscences of the campaign, of the kindness and hearty sympathy which was shown me in every quarter, and especially by the Crown Prince, came back to me and found expression in words of heart-stirring joy and deep gratitude. The wreath of laurel which my most gracious master sent me at Chatenay, by his Excellency General Blumenthal, lies in my room, on a vase made by Benvenuto Cellini, and the Prince's honour-conferring words, carefully framed, are hung up near it. I thank the Almighty for this beautiful evening of my life, and my prayer is that it may in no way be embittered.

Night has closed over the glorious old man, and in the day that has since dawned his Wörth seems as obsolete as his Waterloo. Nearly thirty years ago a child pored over a slight contemporary record of the war, full of pictures. Now the same eyes explore the pages of this weighty history, again in search of pictures. There is a riotous abundance of them, and they are so much alive as to supply the vitality we sometimes miss in the text. But as combat after combat is disclosed, one is haunted by the notion that one views the battles of a lapsed warfare. Cataracts of sabre and cuirass rave around clubbed masses of men fringed with fire and volleying multitudinous smoke. Hundreds of acres are ridged with bayonets, and at the centre of each frantic line dance the delirious colours. Armies face armies with a turnip-field between them, and blaze away like princes at a battue. Officers cross blades at the head of their battalions like champions in a ballad. And while the majesty of the catastrophe is Miltonic, huge bodies of troops move, as troops probably will never move again, save in destined error, in Miltonic "rhombs, and wedges, and half-moons, and wings." For it is more than possible that the Arcadians of the Veldt are teaching the nations a new Art of War.

"Battles Long Ago."

The Franco-German War, 1870-71. By Generals and other Officers who took part in the Campaign. Translated and Edited by Major-General J. F. Maurice and others. (Sonnenschein. 21s.)

AFTER the arid Official History of the Campaign of 1870-71 had sufficiently bored even ardent soldiers, a desire arose for a popular account, in which the living forces, national and individual, that "rode the whirlwind" should be more vividly realised. This book, now first made English, is the result. It is an admirable performance, resplendent with knowledge, dignity, and conscience. It must take a foremost place in every military library. But we cannot say that even this book, despite its many and crying merits, appeals to us primarily as a plastic human record. For its human agency is occasionally as impersonal as its events, and both, amazing as they are, astound us with a sense of Brobdignagian machinery. We are oppressed by the whirr and clang of innumerable wheels and hammers doing their appointed work with the god distinctly out of the contrivance.

But here and there souls whom one can visualise take shape in the crowd of mere names. General von Hartmann, Commander of the Second Bavarian Corps on the field of Wörth, presented the painter Bleibtreu with an unconscious portrait of himself that challenges comparison with the choicest of its kind. He wrote:

It was a heart-stirring thought for me that I had been present at the battle of Waterloo in 1815, and that I had in 1870-71 led an army corps against the enemy, on the 6th of August, in my seventy-sixth year; that I had remained on horseback for fully seventeen hours, at Fröschweiler, Reichshofen, and Niederbronn, and had had no food all day except a piece of the privates' black bread. I was enabled to do this by the great cause for which I fought. On my

History for the General Reader.

The United Kingdom: a Political History. By Goldwin Smith, D.C.L. 2 vols. (Macmillans. 15s. net.) SOME years ago a team of English cricketers had returned from a tour in Canada, in the course of which they had spent a few days at Toronto. An Oxford tutor asked his pupil who had been of the company, whether they had met Goldwin Smith. "Oh," said the ingenuous youth, "we did meet an old fellow called Smith, who talked a fearful amount of rot." An older generation recalls the brilliant Professor of Modern History at Oxford, and the Joint Secretary with Dean Stanley of the first Universities' (Oxford) Commission of 1854. The present writer remembers with delight a chance meeting with a stranger who turned out to be the quondam Oxford professor, one of the most brilliant talkers of his time. Mr. Goldwin Smith has given the world far too little literary work at any period of his life, and much of what he has done is avowedly of an ephemeral character. His most substantial achievement in point of bulk, to use the writer's own expression, "has been performed by the hand of extreme old age."

Mr. Goldwin Smith may be described as almost the last of our literary historians. There is little or no trace in his works of that laborious research into manuscript and muniment room, which a more scientific age seems to demand from its instructors. To him the merit of his written work would seem to be not in its appeal to new material, but in its literary dress. There is little attempt at a dispassionate statement of facts: the author's political and religious opinions colour every page. Whatever may be the case in his other writings, the author's avowed intention here is "to give the ordinary reader . . . a clear, connected, and succinct view of the political history of the United Kingdom as it appears in the light of recent

research and discussion," but a list of the chief works and authors which he has consulted shows us that the research and discussion are not his own, but that of acknowledged masters of the craft. It would then be a captious criticism to say that Mr. Goldwin Smith is not absolutely up to date in his treatment of some important periods and subjects. He has nothing to say of Roman Britain. For him the history of the island begins with the coming of the English tribes. The substance of the few pages that he devotes to the Anglo-Saxon period is drawn entirely from the writings of Dr. Stubbs and Mr. Freeman; but the historical student knows that however much we owe to these two great pastmasters in historical craft, recent research has profoundly modified many of their most important conclusions. Dr. Stubbs would probably be the first to acknowledge this. But of any such modifications the reader of Mr. Goldwin Smith's book would be utterly unconscious. Indeed, the very small space of fifteen pages into which the writer has compressed all that he thinks it necessary that the ordinary reader" should know about the six hundred years before the Norman Conquest, betrays a rather unpardonable ignorance of the modern literature on the subject or of the importance attached by recent investigators to this long period in the making of the nation.

66

The question of proportion of treatment in narrative history is always a difficult one. Ordinarily the historian accepts the division of mediaval from modern history at the close of the fifteenth century, and divides in the proportion of one-third to two-thirds respectively.

Mr. Goldwin Smith's work extends to eleven hundred pages, of which three hundred bring us to Henry VIII., and the remaining eight hundred are spent on the more modern period. Apart from his evident predilection for recent centuries, the author would defend his division on the ground that "the histories of Scotland and Ireland now mingle their streams with that of the history of England." But considering the title of the book-the United Kingdom-the space given to the rest of the British Isles is disappointingly small. "The title of the United Kingdom," says our author, speaking of the union of the Scottish and English Parliaments in 1707, "was to be 'Great Britain,' which, however, its want of simplicity, combined with the force of tradition, has prevented from effectually displacing that of 'England' To these influences, in the language of the world. despite his evident intention, Mr. Goldwin Smith has unconsciously succumbed. Again, the only excuse on which, in our opinion, the writer might have based his disproportionate treatment of the medieval and modern period would have been the ground of the imperial growth during the last two centuries. A single chapter of not quite fifty pages, at the end of the book, does not satisfy our sense of proportion. This is not the modern history for the general reader who is filled with the imperial spirit. Perhaps that spirit is of too recent a growth yet to find its historical exponent. We may confidently expect that the English histories of the future, when dealing with the last two centuries, will deal not so much with the obscure and unedifying party politics of the British Parliament as with the marvellous expansion of the nation. Meanwhile, no one would have been so fit as Mr. Goldwin Smith to point the way in which such history should be written. But to our thinking he has lost himself too much in the questions of religion and politics with which historians of past generations chiefly busied themselves. The battles that raged round the names of Arminian and Puritan, Whig and Tory, are too real for him, and he cannot refrain from taking sides. In his hands the great contests of English history far too much assume the form of the "good soldiers" and the "bad soldiers" of our children's games.

But, after all, this method of treating history is only a drawback in the eyes of serious students. To the general reader, for whom Mr. Goldwin Smith intends his book,

this partisanship, whether conscious or unconscious, will only lend force to the brilliant and incisive style. Such a reader may rather find a hindrance in the extreme allusiveness which seems to take for granted a very considerable knowledge of the groundwork of historical facts; indeed, the whole two volumes are rather a brilliant essay on English history, with the interpretative interest that belongs to the essay form, than a narrative account of events. To the ordinary reader, then, for whom it was written, we may cordially recommend this literary treatment of the story of England's past. Since the appearance of Mr. J. R. Geeen's Shorter History of the English People there has been none with such literary finish. The sentences have all the incisiveness of youth; the judgments, though often ingrained with prejudice, represent the thought of a vigorous and able mind. This History will not take a permanent place in English literature; but we are glad that the author yielded to the importunities of his friends. The result is an eminently readable, if somewhat ephemeral, volume.

Light on Darkest Africa.

In Dwarf Land and Cannibal Country. By A. B. Lloyd. (Fisher Unwin. 21s. net.)

THIS, we believe, is a first book. Mr. Lloyd gives a clear, full, and interesting account of his journey across Africa from Zanzibar to the mouth of the Congo in suitable, natural English. If Mr. Lloyd did not realise when he left England, in 1894, how varied are the gifts that the Gospel vanguard is called upon to exercise, he soon learned that a missionary's life is by no means that of a Sundayschool teacher every day of the week. Here is his own view after a few weeks' experience:

He is a teacher, but he must also be a builder, for houses, cattle-pens, stores, and out-houses have to be constructed by the missionary. He must also be a doctor of medicine and a dentist; he must dose the sick natives, who will trust him implicitly to cure them of even leprosy, and he must be able to draw the most solidly-rooted molar that ever grew in the skull of a black man. More than this, he must be his own cobbler, and when his boots wear out he must be able to re-sole them with good understandings and must be content sometimes with nothing but a few French nails and a piece of cowhide with which to accomplish it. His own socks he must darn, and keep his temper while he does it. . . . He must be his own carpenter and house decorator, as well as furniture maker. But he must also be his own lawyer, accountant, and book-keeper, and when the currency takes the form of cowrie shells, as it does in Uganda (where three hundred tiny cowries make a shilling), it is not easy to keep the accounts right. He must marry and divorce, give judg ments, and baptize. He must be gardener, cook, and dairymaid; grow his own food and look after his live stock. In addition to all this he is the parish minister to help and comfort all who come to him.

Through all these little trials Mr. Lloyd goes rejoicing along. But he faced many real hardships and dangers as well. Fevers and chills, drenchings and exposure to the burning sun, were frequent incidents of his march up country and it can hardly have been consoling to know, as he did daily in part of his march up country, that if any of his bearers dropped out from fatigue or laziness they promptly formed part of the next meal of the tribes on either side of his route. Now and then an unfriendly black was apt to stick his spear through the tent side-as one did to a colleague of Mr. Lloyd's, piercing the very bed on which he lay, but happily leaving him unwounded. But more serious and steady peril awaited him when he reached Uganda, for it was the time of the Soudanese rebellion and he himself was a good deal under fire in the series of fights which happily ended in the breaking

:

of the power of Mwanga and Kabarega last April. This seems a strange entry for a missionary's diary:

I was standing by my men, who were firing volleys at intervals under a very heavy return fire from the rebels, when a bullet struck my hat, piercing the crown and just missing my skull. Then a rush was made upon the left flank, which was occupied by the Waganda, and who retired. It was with the greatest difficulty that I got my men turned in time to meet the attack. My boys, who had accompanied me on this occasion, also displayed great bravery. I was next sent up to the right flank to look after a Sikh who had been badly wounded. I found the poor fellow dying, and while I was by his side another rush was made upon us, and about twenty desperate fellows came charging down upon us, firing as they advanced. However, our Maxim was turned upon them, and they retired a little only to renew their efforts in a similar way; this time the Maxim jammed and had to be carried to the rear; we turned our flank and a second time repulsed them.

For pages, in fact, Mr. Lloyd is acting as a very capable war correspondent as well as a courageous combatant when he has to take his share. The little word-picture of the Soudanese captain who, after his right arm had been shattered, drew his revolver with his left, and despatched the rebel who had killed his white leader, is one that haunts the reader. But to many the most attractive passages will be those in which Mr. Lloyd tells of his brief intercourse with the Pigmies. His introduction to them was nearly fatal, for he was out shooting for the camp pot when, having failed to make a bag, he saw what he thought was a monkey. He had all but let fly when his "boy" stopped him with "Don't fire; it's a man!" Subsequent acquaintance proved the Pigmies to be pleasant, sharp little fellows. They are only four feet in height, but they are

The

broad-chested. with muscles finely developed, short, thick neck, and small bullet head; the lower limbs were massive and strong to a degree. The chest was covered with black, curly hair, and most of the men wore thick, black beards. Each carried either bow and quiver of arrows, or short throwing spear. Round their arms they wore iron rings, and some of them bad these round their necks also. women were very comely little creatures, and most attractive, with very light skins-lighter even than the men, being a light tan colour; the usual flat nose and thick lips of the negro and black curly hair; but their eyes were of singular beauty, so bright and quick and restless they were that not for a second did they seem to fix their gaze on anything.

From these few extracts it will be seen how pleasantly and picturesquely Mr. Lloyd can describe the incidents of his eventful journey; and the photographs and pictures which accompany his text, in spite of the losses caused by stampeding elephants and the like, deserve the highest praise. On the whole it is a light, bright book on a dark land, containing the unassuming record of a great deal of quiet courage and dominant common sense, such as one would expect from one who can traverse Africa practically unarmed.

IT is not to be denied that Mrs. Burnett can tell a tale, and put into it some imagination. This book is better than the author's recent productions. It is of America, and almost of the present time; and we may hope now that she has finished with her excursions into England and the eighteenth century. When we consider His Grace of Osmond, with its ingenious but sterile invention, and then this large, complicated, spontaneous, forcible picture of a national life which she really understands, we lament that Mrs. Burnett has wasted so much time on things British. The story begins before the Civil War, in a remote village of North Carolina, where huge Tom de Willoughby, estranged from his family by their fault, passes his existence in good-humouredly pretending to keep the postoffice and a store. It was inevitable, perhaps, that huge Tom, who had once nearly been a doctor, should usher into the world a helpless girl, and should adopt her-the mother dying and the supposed father deserting. Felicia's queenly life in the rough village is done according to Bret Harte, but done well and sincerely. From such an inception the most elaborate intrigue is made to expand itself, and Mrs. Burnett is obliged, again and again, to throw back in her narrative so that, family by family and group by group, the characters may be fully presented. Felicia ultimately marries a handsome cousin, and the divulging of the mystery of her birth makes a melodramatic chapter in the history of a famous preacher. The whole book is tinged with melodrama, and we are bound to say that the author relies too often upon an effect of pathos, and exhibits a strong prejudice against certain characters. These three defects apart, the matter of the tale is sound, and some of it is brilliant. The recital of Margery's death, and the episode of Susan Chapman are indeed excellent.

Mrs. Burnett writes as crudely as ever, and this is a great pity. She does not always even achieve grammar :

He invested in tons of machinery, which were continually arriving from the North, or stopping on the way when it should have been arriving.

As regards the writing, the most annoying part of the book is the dialogue. When Mrs. Burnett uses dialect her dialogue is quite convincing, but when her characters speak English they usually lapse into something which is as unlike human conversation as it well could be. Thus Margery, describing the minister to her protegée, the millgirl :

He

"There is one gentleman who comes sometimes to see Mr. Barnard at the studio. He is so wonderful, it seems to me. He has travelled, and knows all about the great galleries and the pictures in them. He talks so beautifully that everyone listens when he comes in. . . . You would think he would not notice a plain little Willowfield girl, but he has been lovely to me, Susan. He has even looked at my work and criticised it for me, and talked to me. nearly always talks to me a little when he comes in; and once I met him in the Gardens and he stopped and talked there, and walked about, looking at the flowers with me. They had been planting out the spring things, and it was like being in fairyland to walk about among them and hear the things he said about pictures. It taught me so much."

Margery never talked so. It is merely that Mrs. Burnett has reported her carelessly.

A Kiss for a Kingdom. By Bernard Hamilton.
(Hurst & Blackett. 6s.)

THIS novel is a different thing from The Light? by which Mr. Hamilton arrived at some sort of reputation. As he says in a quite unnecessary preface, it is founded on simple fancy." The fancy, in truth, is over simple, and

"Well, you're honest anyway," he said, gazing forward at the shore growing quickly nearer, "but that's what I value you for. Other people are bound to me only by money, but you also by honour. Now we're alone I don't mind telling you, there's a girl, a beautiful girl, in the States. She's rich herself, but she says Aniurricans can't do nothing else but pile up dollars. Well, it's pretty bad when a man of my age is took with a girl, 'specially a smart girl like Clorrie, but when she said that, I said, 'I'd do anything. You're my queen.' 'Very well,' says she, smart as you please, make me one. When you can make me a queen I'll marry you.' I couldn't get anything more out of her, but I've got her crown ready, right here in my gripsack, and I guess she won't have long to wait now. Lord, how I've loved that girl. And now we'll be king and queen together, and sit on thrones. In fact, I don't mind being a king myself. It's a great idea of Clorrie's. We millionaires learn how to get, but not how to spend. There's nothing very distinguished in being a millionaire nowadays. There're too many of us. I want to get out of the herd and be a king."

Mr. Jones does, in fact, become king-of the erstwhile Republic of San Marino, but only to be jilted by his Clorinda, and subsequently to be killed. There is much slaughter, of a peculiarly horrible kind, in the book. Ultimately Sir Ronald finds himself king, and then abdicates in order to marry and live peacefully with a lovely creature whom he met at the Café de la Paix in the first chapter.

Taken as a wild narrative, the book is readable and fairly diverting. It is by a clever writer who has yet to learn that few things are more distressing than literary flippancy. The plot is ingenious; some of the descriptions good, some of the situations dramatic; but all is marred by the author's scampering, sniggering method of nar

Mr. Sutcliffe is the novelist of the Yorkshire Moors, and here, as in Ricroft of Withens, we have a story of elemental passions set in a wild country. The terrific feuds of the Waynes and the Ratcliffes yield page after page that holds the reader. The story opens with these significant sentences: "The little old woman sat up in the belfry tower, knitting a woollen stocking and tolling the death-knell with her foot. She took two and seventy stitches between each stroke of the bell, and not the church-clock itself could reckon a minute more truly." (Unwin. 6s.)

FOLLY CORNER.

BY MRS. HENRY E. DUDENEY.

Another strong study of marriage and heredity by the author of The Maternity of Harriott Wicken. The action passes in London and the country, and sombre backgrounds are the rule. A searching eye is brought to bear on sordid social conditions. Says one character: "When I was at the Buttery buying things of the cottagers I had a fixed rule by which I ingratiated myself. If a woman was under fifty I inquired after the baby; over fifty, I inquired after the bad leg. It sounds horrid, but was invariably successful." (Heinemann. 6s.)

A SECRET OF THE NORTH SEA. BY ALGERNON GISSING. A stirring story by the author of The Scholar of Bygate. Wind, and passions rage and range through it. A mother thus prays for her boy: "O mercifu' and powerfu' God! God o' the wind and water, o' the dark as weel as o' the light, have a care o' the lad ye hae taken from me! Guide him thro' the wild waste o' this world, and in Thy ain good time bring him safe back to me." (Chatto. 6s.)

BY ELLSWORTH DOUGLAS. Another novel of Mars. The red planet is reached in a projectile by Dr. Anderwelt and a young broker of Chicago, named Isidor Werner, who had made a corner in wheat. Isidor stayed three years on Mars, and on the whole was distinctly bored, and glad to return to Earth. After again cornering wheat, and marrying Ruth, the author announces his intention of visiting Venus. (Pearson Ltd. 6s.)

IN LONDON'S HEART.

BY GEORGE R. SIMS.