18 FEBRUARY 1888, Page 22

Schoolboy Stories. By Ascot R. Hope. (Nimmo and Co.)— There

is no doubt about Mr. Hope's schoolboys being real creatures. They are not heroic, they are not extraordinarily virtuous or victims; but they are ordinary human beings, and not at all the less in- teresting for that. Once, we think, the author slips into caricature and improbability. Boys are not admitted into a great Public School in the haphazard kind of way in which Messrs. Bobbin and company were about to be admitted into the school here mentioned.