11 JULY 1908, Page 24

The New Quarterly. (J. M. Dent and Co. 2s. 61)—This

"Review of Science and Literature" does better, we think, in the first of the two subjects than in the second. Radio-activity, views of matter, and speculations on the nether are subjects we can read about with interest and without vexation, whether or no we wholly agree or wholly understand. But the "Note-Books of Samuel Butler" are really too irritating. The perversity, conceit, and bad taste which they exhibit pass endurance. Some men like to "blow off steam" in this fashion—as when one writes an angry letter to the Times and tears it up—but to publish such things ! Mr. Austin Dobson has a paper, pleasing as his manner is to be, about "A Swiss Critic of English Art in 1750." -