Shorter Notice
Life Among the English. By Rose Macaulay. (Collins. 4s. 6d.) BRILLIANT, entertaining, instructive—such adjectives present them- selves in advance in the case of a book by Miss Macaulay on such a subject, and the reading of the book leaves every one of them justified up to the hilt. Taking the history of England—Scotland has its own characteristics, which are not in question here—period by period, the writer traces the development of social life from the days "of British parties, at which rich Celtic jewellery and brilliant woad were the wear," down to the era of sirens, and blitzes, and evacuees, when "young men and women were put into the forces and factories, enemy aliens (hostile and friendly) into camps ; British Fascists and others into gaol, policemen into tin hats." Miss Macaulay knows her authorities by heart, and her illustrative quota- tions from the Patrons, and Dorothy Osborne and Addison's Spectator are invariably adequate and apt. There is only one omission, but it is rather substantial. Once or twice Miss Macaulay does remember that England was not all Pastons and de Coverleys, but the proletariat as such finds small place in her coruscating pages. Limitations of space may well account for that ; an incomplete picture is often better than an overcrowded one. Life Among the English being one of the "Britain in Pictures" series, it is hardly necessary to add that the numerous illustrations are admirably chosen, and as admirably reproduced.
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