18 DECEMBER 1897, Page 24

Last Studies. By Hubert Crackanthorpe. (W. Heinemann.)—We cannot profess to

feel any great sympathy for the late Mr. Hubert Crackanthorpe's literary methods, but it is impossible to read these studies without admitting his very considerable power of style. He had, indeed, a really marvellous capacity for describing the essential characteristics of scenery. But for his early death it is quite possible that the prediction a of his friends would have been fulfilled, and he would have made a name for himself in our literature. There is no reason why, like other men before him, he should not have dropped the affectations of style and of mental standpoint which sometimes disfigured his work.