17 SEPTEMBER 1927, Page 21

Mr. Selwyn Brinton is one of those writers—happily their number

is increasing—who can clothe the dry bones of history with living reality. Few novels are more fascinating than The Gonzaga—Lords of Mantua ; and yet we feel that Mr. Brinton, a true scholar, never sacrifices fact to picturesque- ness. His account of life in Mantua under the great Gonzaga dynasty, which kept that city for four centuries in the fore- ground not only of humanism but of Italian history, is as full of original research and sound learning as it is rich in descriptive colour. (Methuen. 15s.)