have forgotten, to the medieval thinker, artist, and worker for their triumphs; in Law, Philosophy, and Education; in Architecture, Sculpture, the decorative and industrial Arts; in Literature and most else of the major influences which have beautified civilisation and made modern life liveable. Always there is a tendency when this world of rush and materialism is too much with us to revert to that older, younger chapter when men wrought in beauty and made it permanent without thought of reward to themselves; and through this book that tendency should be furthered as through this book it is well justified.

As different from each other as might be are the following two volumes, both published by Messrs Batsford. The first is a fascinating and instructive study of 'Early Life in the Old Stone Age,' written and illustrated by Mr and Mrs Quennell with lucidity and a frequent humour. It is a book for the young which the not-soyoung might profitably read to them; because our human origins, our complex ancestry, the slow development of the personality and intellectual powers, the domestic implements and circumstances of mankind, are generally unknown to the vast majority even of the grown-up, who in the come-and-go of every day have little leisure for the study of a subject which appears at first sight to be only of dusty concern. Yet such an interest opens the mind wonderfully; and no better doorway to it could be found than this little book, which gives life and individuality to prehistoric man and permits us to see the hardships and dangers of human life at and before the dawn of civilisation. From the primitive we spring to the highly artificial. In 'Life in Regency and Early Victorian Times,' Mr Beresford Chancellor presents a varied and comprehensive picture of habits and manners a hundred years ago-high life at Carlton House and low life at Covent Garden; and in moral and some other respects there was little to choose between them! Brummell and D'Orsay, Scott, Thackeray, and Dickens ; artists, actors, and sportsmen; the famous, the notorious cross these interesting and admirably illustrated pages. The good old times' make attractive reading for most of us; even although they were not so very old and generally were the reverse of good.

So deeply engraved in the hearts of the British people is loyal love for their Sovereign that it is natural for the human and domestic aspects of Court life to interest them closely. The fierce light that beats upon a throne has revealed the great truth that, at least since the accession of Queen Victoria, the personality of the Monarch has been brightly reflected in the well-being of the people. There is an intimacy between the Royal Family and the humblest of the King's subjects which sets a pattern, and has promoted the actual unity of all parts of the Empire. The 'Letters of Lady Augusta Stanley' (Gerald Howe) reveal aspects of Queen Victoria's life and character which certainly were overlooked by the many. She had a warmth of heart, a power of sympathy and womanly unselfishness, which were a strength to all who had the honour of association with her; and from that association were spread through the nation. Lady Augusta's relations with the Queen were especially intimate. After the great bereavement, when the death of the Prince Consort seemed to those at Court the end of all things, she alone with the royal children was allowed to share the intimate life of the heavily-stricken widow. This volume is a contribution to the inner history of the Victorian Court; and its revelations are entirely honouring.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of Dr James Kerr's voluminous work on 'The Fundamentals of School Health' (Allen and Unwin), for it deals with a subject much in the public mind at present, and treats it not only with authority, but also with humour and warm humanity. Obviously, the health of the child must be the first consideration if his brain is to re-act to the teaching given; and yet how little these truths were regarded long after Dotheboys Hall-no solitary enterprise of corrupt pseudo-scholasticism--was dissolved into a bad memory and a mistaken impression of grotesque exaggeration! Laziness, for instance, which not so long ago brought a rap on the knuckles, a poor encouragement to excellent calligraphy, is now seen to be probably a habit having some physical cause, a nervous symptom needing thoughtful consideration and treatment. Dr Dr Kerr is thorough and far-reaching. Nothing concerning the physical and educative well

being of the school-child is disregarded by him; the light and air of the rooms, the position when writing, the child's vision and playtime; teeth, tonsils, and adenoids; nutrition. Those casual references picked at random, suggest the wide scope of the book. Also, he brings out the fact, which the dominies and schoolmarms of yesteryear blindly missed, that every child is an individual with his variations, and should be so considered. Some pupils have an apparent dullness which sympathetic teaching can turn to light; others, of course, have limits of intelligence which cannot be advanced; yet there is sometimes genius among children which should not be deadened as pompous stupidity must often have done; though such a record child as Christian Heinecken of Lübeck is greatly to be pitied. This prodigy knew the whole of the Bible at fourteen months, and was not weaned until a few weeks before his death at the age of four, when he displayed the utmost firmness and resignation."

Mr Frederic Manning has had a sympathetic task in re-presenting Walter Charleton's version of 'Epicurus's Morals' (Peter Davies), published originally in 1656; for the school of philosophy inspired by the temperate, good and pious Epicurus,' appeals to a disposition that views the good things of life at once with satisfaction and equanimity. We could, indeed, do with a little more of the Epicurean common sense in our present existence. Such sobriety and self-mastery would be helpful discipline; though to practise such simplicity as in Epicurus's time could be managed on a halfpenny a day would be beyond the tastes even of our idle poor. Mr Manning's introduction to an attractive volume is excellent; but is it not high time that, instead of these byways, he gave the reading-world a successor to 'Scenes and Portraits'? Because Agriculture remains our greatest industry and in wartime at all events is essential, as the experiences of ten years ago, now becoming forgotten, proved, it is necessary that we keep in mind closely its conditions, and especially the human conditions. Mr J. W. Robertson-Scott confesses that his title 'The Dying Peasant' (Williams and Norgate) was devised rather to draw attention to a need than to meet that blessed infirmity, exactitude. In the older meaning of the word

there are few peasants nowadays. The pity of it! The agricultural worker is no longer so evidently born of the soil as was the case in the golden days of agriculture or in the hungry 'forties. It is, however, necessary to keep him on the land, and it is in this endeavour, through studying the facts of the labourer, the farmer, the landlord, and the conditions of the industry generally, that Mr Robertson-Scott has written this honest volume.

A book of science that is legitimately amusing is so rare a bird that it should not be summarily shot. Mr R. N. Bradley with his conjectures and conclusions on the 'Racial Origins of English Character' (Allen and Unwin) has made bright reading; and although we have no doubt that his theories will bring upon him the disdain, if not the wrath, of some of those who know, we can thank him for putting his views clearly and allowing us to see ourselves in sympathetic colours. We who are privileged to be English so often are selfdeprecatory, that it is pleasant to find the achievements of our race not to have been illusory or mere accidents, but the results of courage, inspiration, and grit, second to those of no other nation. Mr Bradley's talk about Nordics, Beaker-men, Alpines, Mediterraneans, and the rest of the racial bases of modern peoples is certainly open to ample questioning; and with all our admiration for her we are not disposed to take Miss Gladys Cooper as 'our evolutionary woman,' or the Quakers as being necessarily makers of cocoa because they are descended from isolated lake-dwelling communities. Such hasty comparisons and theories do not help the scientific purpose of the book; but possibly that does not greatly matter; for however much it may be contemned by serious students of racial origins, it is amusing and full of suggestion to plain men. The next volume brings the nice example. Such a record as that told in Commander F. A. Worsley's volume on the British Arctic Expedition of 1925, 'Under Sail in the Frozen North' (Stanley Paul), does the heart good, for it shows the irrepressible, irreducible spirit of our race. A few old salts and a body of amateurs sailed in the ship 'Island' to the unchartered seas between and beyond Spitzbergen and Franz Josef Land. Science went with them; but it had to do donkey-work as well. The doctor, the geologist,

and the biologist had to take turns with the sails or the cook's galley, and because every mother's son of them was a sportsman the cruise was a success. It certainly was adventurous. The money to provide the expedition was subscribed, begged, or borrowed by themselves, their only real wealth was in language; and the wonder is that they went through with it and returned without disaster, for they had the narrowest of escapes from the ice-fall of a calving berg, from being entrapped and wrecked in 'Hell's Kitchen,' from fog and floe and the winds that blow. Yet they won their battle against moody Nature; and, doubtless, by this time are renewing plans for another bout with the impossible.

Now that, it seems, the mutual relations of Britain with Ireland are growing more sympathetic, and the old misunderstandings are being relegated, it is hoped, to the darker shelves of history, it is possible, without prejudice, to recall the past and to recognise how cruel often have been the mistakes, and sometimes the good intentions, of the people of the two islands; who, instead of the old hatreds, should have grown together, as the races of northern and southern Britain have grown together. Scotland has had her blood grievances with England; but the union of the two kingdoms now is close and mutually beneficial. Such reflexions as these are inevitable when a volume like 'The Book of the Galtees and the Golden Vein' (Hodges, Figgis), by Mr Paul J. Flynn, appears. The strip of land between Tipperary, Limerick, and Cork with which this work treats is drenched with cruel history. Back to the wildest days of Ireland, through the troubled years of Elizabeth's intervention, when Raleigh and Spenser were 'undertakers' in those parts, it goes; and shows how one small district may be the theatre of an infinite tragical drama.

The recent issue of a part of a report by the League of Nations on the worst of social vices makes comparatively timely Mr Herbert Stringer's book on the 'Moral Evil in London' (Chapman and Hall). We say comparatively because his treatment of the subject, in which he describes well-known facts and some of the curative methods used, is uneven. At the end, instead of offering a series of definite practical suggestions, as is