17 JANUARY 1914, Page 28

In the Old Paths. By Arthur Grant. (Constable and Co.

8s. 6d. net.)—The literary pilgrim not only has a pleasant time himself, but is frequently moved to communicate his pleasure to others. When we cannot—or will not—go our- selves to visit the homes and haunts of our favourite writers, it is an agreeable pastime for a winter evening to glance over the record of a more energetic admirer. Mr. Grant is a man of good taste, a sturdy rambler, and an agreeable writer. The collocation of these qualities has enabled him to give us a very pleasant book. We are delighted to visit, in his company, the leafy lanes of Charles Lamb's " pleaaant Hert- fordshire"; the woody pleasances among which William Penn passed the leisurely part of his life; Gray's country church. yard; the homeland of the Disraelia ; Shakespeare's Arden ; the fields over which Somervile rode, and the gardens where something of Shenstone's gentle spirit still lingers; Johnson's "magna parens " of Lichfield; the Oxford country of Thyreia and Keble ; the haunts of Cowper, and the Colinton garden to which Mr. Grant himself retires after his wanderings.