Shorter Notices
Comments and Characters. By John Buchan. Edited by W. Forbes Gray. (Nelson. 7s. 6d.) RATHER over thirty years ago John Buchan had general editorial charge for two years of a penny literary journal called The Scottish Review. Mr. Forbes Gray was associated with the paper, which indeed figures more largely in his introduction to this volume than Buchan himself. The book consists of reprints of leading and other articles by Buchan in The Scottish Review. How far the resurrection of brief and essentially fugitive com- ments serves a useful purpose is a little doubtful. Buchan himself, indeed, would have had no doubt on the subject at all. At the same time hardly anything that flowed from that talented pen is devoid of value, and some of the sketches included here have permanent worth, notably the collection on " A Group of Scotsmen," and among these that on Archbishop Lang. written on the occasion of Dr. Lang's elevation to the See not of Canterbury but of York.
Previous page
