Later Essays, 1917-1920. By Austin Dobson. (H. Milford. 6s. 6d.
net.)—Mr. Dobson has reprinted in this engaging little volume half a dozen essays on eighteenth-century worthies— Thomas Edwards, who in his Canons of Criticism attacked the redoubtable Warburton ; Dr. William Heberden, the learned physician,. " Hermes " Harris, the politician and scholar; John Howard, the prison-reformer ; the learned Mrs. Carter, who translated Epictetus and, wonderful to relate, made a thousand pounds by her translation ; and the Abbe Edgeworth, who attended Louis XVL to the guillotine and may after all have uttered the famous remark, " File de St. Louis, montez au ciel," though a journalist present said that he invented it for his report of the tragedy. In " A Casual Causerie" at the end, Mr. Dobson gives the story to the effect that Malherbe owed his famous line,
" Et rose, elle a Won ce quo vivent les roses,"
in its present form to a misprint, for Malherbe had written " Et Rosette a Wen," &c. With all respect for printers as a class, we must own our disbelief, which Mr. Dobson shares, in this tale.
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