Mr. S. C. Roberts, in his preface to The Charm
of Cambridge (Black, 21s.), modestly declares that the justification of his book lies in Mr. Blackall's drawings—which are certainly charming. But the truth is that Mr. Roberts, within the brief limits of his space, has given us a letterpress of exceptional interest. In his short historical notes on each of the Cambridge colleges, he manages to tell us not only everything that everybody ought to know, but also a number of less familiar facts and of those apparently trivial little details which alone can make the dry bones of history live. If old Mr. Cromwell had not died unexpectedly in 1617, so that his son, Oliver, then an undergraduate at - Sidney Sussex, was compelled to " go down " in his second year without a degree, might not the history of England have been different ? Or if Milton had stayed on at Christ's as an M.A., as the Fellows wanted him to ? These are fascinating hares to pursue. And Mr. Roberts adds to his historical and architectual knowledge a pretty trick Of apposite quotation, which is welcome in a book of this kind and would alone have been sufficient to give it distinction.
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