FICTION.

PERCY AND OltiLbRat Tun appearance of a volume of collected sketches from the pen of Mr. Anstey reminds us of the accumulated debt of gratitude that we owe him for more than thirty years of beneficent and exhilarating industry—if one can apply so heavy-heeled a word to his sprightly pen. Vice-Versd appeared in 1882, after suffering the usual vicissitudes which befall fresh and original work. At least we believe we are correct in saying that more than one publisher declined the MS. and lived to rue his decision. But Mr. Anstey suffered in good company; did not John ingiesent—to mention only one other instance—fail to commend itself to one of the moat sympathetic and experienced of publishers' readers P And in the last resort secures judicat orbis, or at least the world of schoolboys and those who have been at school. One of the most persistent dreams of the recurring type—after the flying dream—is that in which the dreamer returns to school at his present age, not without a certain sense of • no Cal of Dancing Doroadmi. By Harry Marks Lnloch. London Macmillan and Co. [mu fol. not] 1' Percy astd Men allied, lloprintoilfrom "Tuttch..• By F. Azetey. London r Methuen and Co. 16..3 humiliation, but without being detected as an impostor. Like most good things, the motive of the book was obvious; but it was

reserved for Mr. Anstey, by his inspired but logical conduct of an absurd proposition, to lend it a vitality impossible in the phantasmagoria of the dream world. Thu experiences of Mr.

Bultitude are an abiding possession, and they have stood the

teat of transference to the boards more successfully than most humorous stories. The choice of the name was in itself a

stroke of genius: for surely none other could better express the rotundity of middle age. But it is not an invention: elderly Oxonians will remember a College official of great dignity, and with a slight facial resemblance to Mr. Gladstone, who rejoiced in this impressive patronymic. But while Mr. Anstey has abundant claims on our gratitude in his novels and stories, in which, by the way, he exhibits—as in The Pariah and The Giant's Fobs—a notable gift for tragi-comic or serious characterization, he has other and not less notable titles to remembrance. None of Mr. Punch's young men played a more brilliant part in the literary renascence of that journal at the close of the last century. or helped more effectually to make the question "Have you seen Punch this

week P" include a survey of the text as well as of the pictures. Who has ever more happily dramatized the ineptitudes of

mixed conversation than the author of Voces Popedi 7 And where can we find a more comprehensive satire of the mole- dramatic sentiment of the music-balls than in his inimitable series of mock recitations?

All, or nearly all, of the qualities noted above are to be found in the collection of sketches and studies mainly reprinted from Punch in later years. The humour is, perhaps, less exuberant, but it is none the lees genuine, and many of these pages do not merely stand the test of re-reading; they improve on further acquaintance. This is especially true of the series entitled "What the Moon Saw," a set of ingenious modern variations on Hans Andersen's famous fantasies. They are remarkable for their variety, ranging from episodes marked by simple pathos to bizarre studies—such as that of the husband who consoled himself for the loss of a wife with a beautiful voice by listen-

ing to her singing on the gramophone first by himself and then in company with his second wife! In a wholly different

mood we have the touching story of the blind men's dog who was stolen, fell into kindly hands, and on returning to his master failed to secure recognition, and was badly mauled by his successor, backed up by the blind man:—

••• The fight could only end in one way, the luecher was so much stronger, and the original dog seemed to got so much more than

his share of the stiok. He fought on as long as he could, but at last be new that he was beaten, and must give it up. So he die- engaged himself, all torn and bleeding, crept up to his master's side, and liokod his hand once more, in token of forgiveness and farewell, and then limped away, whining into the darkness, while the lumber, still grumbling, coiled himself up, and, after licking

his wounds a little, went to sleep. I think,' concluded the Moon, 'that the defeated dog went back to his new owners, where he was certainly much better off, and he has certainly never returned to the passage again. I was sorry for him, nevertheless, and I wish he could have been allowed to stay.'" But the strangest of all the Moon's experiences is the story of the grateful "Man-Fish," which wo may quote in full

"'I often see very curious sights,' said the Moon, 'and I am seldom surprised now by anything that conies under my observa- tion. But I saw a scene a few nights ago which had certainly at the time a rather extraordinary appearance. I was looking down through the tops of some tall windows into the bath-room of one of your large hospitals. Around the largest bath, which had been

filled quite up to the brim, stood 0 number of persons, attentively regarding the surface of the water, to which bubbles were con-

tinually rising. There were one or two doctors, and some of the

hospital nurses and medical students in the group, but most of the spectators were patients who were well enough to leave their

wards. In deep silence they gathered round, and kept their eyes

fixed on the bath with a placid and solemn interest. I could not imagine what it was all about at first,' amid the Moon, 'and I was not much the wiser even when, on looking more carefully, I noticed that there was something in the bath—a strange creature which glittered and gleamed through the greonuih ripples, as it squatted there at the bottom like some huge frog. Presently I saw that it was a man. He crouched there under water, on all tome, minute after minute, making no sign, and still the spectators gazed, and the silence was unbroken, except for a faint giggle now and then from one of the nurses. I should have thought he was

drowned, if it had not been for the composure of the onlookers, and the air-bubbles. At last, with a splash that sent the water surging over on the floor, the man rose, and I raw that he was dressed in a tight snit of silver spangles, which was

what had made the glitter under the water. For a little

while he stood upright in the bath, smiling benignantly all round him, his chest heaving with conscious pride, and his face wearing the satisfied expression of a person who has conferred a public benefit, but who disclaims thanks in advance, and then, with a little bow and another splash, he leaped nimbly out and made his way to the door, amidst some applause from the medical students. The patients, however, looked vaguely disappointed, as if they had expected something different—though they did not seem very clear what that was. I afterwards found,' explained the Moon, that the man in the bath had been discharging an obligation by the only means in his power. Ho was a performer who got his living by exhibiting various feats in a glass tank and (I suppose became he could drink wine and smoke cigars under water) was known as the "Man-Fish." He had been ill, poor fellow, and had been cured at the hospital—so, being a grateful Man- Fish, he had begged to be allowed to give this exhibition to the staff and his fellow-patients, as some return for all the kindness Ise had received. His entertainment was, perhaps, a little monotonous—bat this, considering that he had nothing but a bath to perform in, was not the Man-Fish's fault. If the bath had been a little bigger and the sides had been transparent, he would undoubtedly have given more variety to the performance. As it was, he did all he could to prove his gratitude; and grati- tude, I am afraid,' concluded the Moon, 'is not as common in hospital patients, that a much more conventional mode of express- ing it would not be in itself quite a remarkable circumstance.'" The opening chapters of the book are a happy example of the stimulating effect on a whimsical imagination of the study of modern bee-lore. In the Vows Populi vein we have a delightful budget of comments on Watts's "Physical Energy," while various excrescences and eccentricities of modern life— social, journalistic, literary, and commercial—are admirably satirized in "The ' Find '-Seekers," "An Unconventional Picnic," "How to Make Poetry Pay," "A Modernized 'Punch and Judy,'" and "Little Shows for Large Windows."