Brighton. By Lewis Melville. (Chapman and Hall. 10s. Gd. net.)—The
"history" of Brighton—Mr. Melville writes of its "history, follies, and fashions "—practically begins with the sixteenth century, when a map was made of it ; its "follies and fashions" may be dated from 1750, when an eminent physician of the time, Dr. Richard Russell, brought it into notice as a resort for sea-bathing. The maximum, at least of its follies, was reached in the days of the Prince Regent, who is, of course, the principal figure in the story. But other notable persona appear in it, among them Phoebe Hassel, who served as a private soldier in the 6th Regiment of Foot and died at the age of a hundred and eight in 1821. No place in England, it is probable, the seats of great industries and manufactures excepted, can show so great a growths in 1760 it numbered some two thousand inhabitants ; it must now contain not far off a hundred and fifty thousand. It is a varied narrative which Mr. Melville relates, and he tells it well, though he cannot make it into anything of groat interest. What interest it has is largely of a discreditable kind. "Follies and fashions" predominate, and follies are naturally more promi- nent in anecdote than fashions.
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