The Fly - Wheel. By the Rev. Peter Anton. (Alexander Gardner.) —Mr.
Anton is a not unworthy successor of "A. K. H. B." There is less of the not unengaging egotism of the " Country Parson," but the qualities of humour, wide reading, good sense, are conspicuously present, and there is no attempt to sermonise. One of the beat of the essays is "Luck." The banal moralist cries : "There is no such thing." Our essayist recognises its existence ; it is an unexplained phenomenon, possibly the com- bination of obscure or incalculable causes, but a solid fact. The Romans, who were an eminently practical people, recognised it. To be fortunate was one of the things which they looked for in a general, yet generalship would seem to have as little to do with luck as anything. " When the Heart is Sick " is another excel- lent paper of the more serious kind. The same may be said of " The Company of the Broken-Hearted." We do not always agree with Mr. Anton's literary judgments. There is an obiter dictum (p. 202) about Macaulay being the "most unreliable of historians" from which we altogether dissent, but The Ply- Wheel may certainly be read with much pleasure and profit.
Previous page
