Miscellanies. By Edward FitzGerald. (Macmillan and Co. 2s. 6d. net.)—Perhaps
the most interesting thing in this volume is the memoir of Bernard Barton. He was one of the happy men who get their bread from business and their butter from litera- ture. At one time he thought of cutting himself adrift from the bank ; Charles Lamb dissuaded him in one of the most admirable letters over written. The result was that he stuck to his desk. The first day of his absence was the day of his death. No one reads Bernard Barton now, but a pretty little volume might be made of his good things. He had plenty of humour—he said of himself that for forty years he had " taken almost as little exercise as a millstone and far less fresh air "—and he could, on rare occasions, strike hard. Of some dogmatic, uncharitable Churchman he said that it was no wonder that he thought the voluntary system was absurd
" He well may say so ; for %were hard to tell Who would support him, did not law compel."
The other contents of the volume are " Euphranor," a dialogue on ethics and other matters, set in Cambridge surroundings, and some criticisms of Shakespeare and Crabbe (with a notice of Crabbe's eldest son, one of FitzGerald's dearest friends).
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