The Wessex of Romance. By Wilkinson Sherren. (Chapman and Hall.
6s.)—This book is in the main an appreciation of Mr. Thomas Hardy. There are digressions to topics more or less directly connected with Mr. Hardy's work, provincial character- istics, beliefs, customs, and traditions ; but it may safely be said that if Mr. Hardy had not been, this book had never been published. We have a quarrel against Mr. Hardy in his later development as a novelist, but on this we need not now insist. Anyhow, his admirers, whether they like or dislike the line which he has thought fit to take of late years, will find much to interest them in this volume. The difficulty is the style. We have seldom seen more magniloquence. " Poppies flaunting their imprisoned flames," waves "curl round the slimy bases of the rocks like sinuous serpents "—the letter " s " is very much in evidence—" visualised spectre of an alien age, seemingly insu- lated against time's corrosion" (Judge Jeffreys). In these ornamentations Mr. Sherren delights. They may be pleasing to some readers, but to many they are a serious drawback.
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