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Sergeant (to recruit who has neglected to salute when leaving officer). "'Ere, my lad, come back! You've forgot something. You've forgot to shake 'ands with the orficer!"

Hugh: Memoirs of a Brother (Smith, Elder) is naturally a book that even the reviewer approaches in something rather different from the critical spirit. This remark must not be taken to mean that it stands in any need of apology. On the contrary, Mr. A. C. Benson has carried out his task not only with tenderness and affection, but with real biographical skill. The result is a character-picture of extraordinary interest and charm, both to those who had the rare pleasure of knowing Robert Hugh Benson personally and to those who only recall him by his books and sermons. The story is intimate to a degree very seldom attained in published writing. No man is a monster of perfection either to his valet or his brother, however deeply they may love him, and the memoir abounds in shrewd touches of gentle humour at the expense of those admirers of Hugh whose hero-worship led them into misinterpretations—those, for example, who spoke of the "rapt and far-away look in his eyes," from which Mr. Benson sagely concludes that his brother was probably bored, and wondering how he could courteously escape to society that might interest him more. It is on these lines that the memoir has been written; one might call it, not too flippantly, biography in a morning coat and slippers. Throughout one gets that impression of high and distinguished courage that for me is always present in the work of Robert Hugh Benson; the scene of his death, almost intolerably poignant in its detail, is a most noble proof of this. Of his humour there are many to many characteristic examples. I like especially the account given here of the pleasure which he used to take in the words of an Anglican who would appeal for charity towards one lately "reconciled" to Rome on the ground that he had never fully recovered from a bicycle accident. A dignified, gentle, and most interesting book.

If I were retained as counsel for the defence by Mr. Ford Madox Hueffer, accused of conspiring to waste your good nature and his own talents (both equally undeniable) by producing The Good Soldier (Lane), I should be very little at my ease as regards the dismal story itself, but eloquent enough in referring to the way in which it is told. I say "told" advisedly, for by a studied neglect of chronology or any kind of consecutiveness, coupled with free licence to change his opinions as he goes along, the author succeeds in transforming himself into a living narrator, presenting as they occur to him, evening by evening at the fireside, the different aspects of a history gone by. It is well done and it could not have been easy to do; but after all there remains something solid in the schoolboy distinction between matter and manner, and the plain fact is that, when all the jig-saw bits are finally fitted in, the picture is so little pleasant that, but for the fun of seeing them drop into place, one would hardly have read to the end. In quiet times I should very much resent the writer's putting forward of Captain Ashburnham as "The Good Soldier." To-day one feels that the title is really too ridiculous, the existence of such a person in the British army, or indeed anywhere else, having become unthinkable; while the narrative of his dealings with the other equally impossible characters of his circle, though set out with a deliberate grace of diction—through which, however, the ugly word