19 NOVEMBER 1921, Page 25

A Manual of the Dutch Languor. By B. W. Downs

and H. Latimer Jackson. (Cambridge University Press. 6s. net.) —This is an admirable introduction to a language which should be better known in England for the sake of the fine literature that is mostly inaccessible to those who do not read Dutch. It is not an easy tongue but it is less difficult than it looks. The authors give a brief outline of literary history and a skeleton grammar and then wisely devote two-thirds of their space to extracts from the Dutch Bible and from well-known Dutch authors like Van Lennep, " Multatuli," Couperus and Beets, with a glossary. The first extract has an interlinear translation, the second a translation at foot ; then follOws the Biblical passage. After that the beginner is left to make his own way with the glossary and a few notes.