10 FEBRUARY 1923, Page 14

THE WORLD UNVISITED : ESSAYS AND SKETCHES. By William Power.

(Gowans and Gray. Os. net.) While it is only the Glasgow reader who will appreciate the full flavour of Mr. Power's witty essays, many people who do not know the Great Western Road or Sauchiehall Street, Port Dundas or the Broomielaw or " Boglesburn," may find pleasure in this lively book. For Mr. Power obviously enjoys writing. He takes pen in hand, and away he goes from one topic to another till he and his reader are breathless with the fun of the chase. One never knows what a title may conceal or what the next paragraph will bring. Those who like the ordered treatise may be warned off ; Mr. Power is informal, inconsequent, but always cheerful and entertaining. In the title-piece he is sketching an imaginary world-tour, directed by literary recollections. In " Midas he laughs at the men who pile up riches but at the same time warns the rest of us that money-making is not so simple as it looks. He discusses " Light in Poetry," and Donne and Thackeray, and the literary treatment of fear. But some of his best papers are strictly local and racy of the soil, such as " Boglesburn " or " People Passing "—an admirable account of the western artery of Glasgow—or " Churchyards." Mr. Power devotes one essay to Greek " Thomson, and includes among his own illustrations of his book several clever pen-drawings of some of Thomson's buildings in Glasgow, notably Great Western Terrace and the amazing church—half Greek, half Egyptian— at Queen's Park. Mr. Power is convinced that Thomson's classic design for the new University buildings should have been preferred to Gilbert Scott's neo-Gothic, which to English visitors seems painfully familiar and rather commonplace. YORKSHIRE REMINISCENCES (With Others). By the