SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
iNsties in this column does not mustard/ preclude subsequent reetce.1 Two Months in Russia. By W. Mansell Merry, M.A. (B. H. Black- well, Oxford. 2s. 6d. net.)—Going to Petrograd in July, 1914, to take up the duties of the English Chaplaincy for two months, Mr. Mansell Merry (vicar of St. Michael's, Oxford) was lucky enough—or unlucky, according to the taste of the reader—to have a holiday full of exciting and often most uncomfortable experiences. The earlier chapters giving his impressions of the Russian capital before the war are attractive reading, but naturally they altogether pale in interest beside the later portions of the book. Twice after war broke out Mr. Merry tried to get back to England, first by steamer from Petrograd and thence vid Stockholm and Copenhagen, and second vid Odessa, Constantinople, and Marseilles. Both efforts were fruitless. The journey to Odessa and back is particularly interesting and full of amusing incidents, much more amusing, we imagine, to the reader than to the luckless travellers. For the first few days of the war Russian opinion held that Britain meant to " sit on the fence," and when we declared war on Germany Russia was jubilant. One of the pleasantest things in a very attractive book is tho musical evening given to Mr. Merry on the wearisome journey from Odessa to Petrograd by a party of cadets as " some expression of their extreme admiration and affection for England . . . a tiny demonstration of the gratitude and devotion that all Russia feels towards your great and glorious land." The musical evening must have been most enjoyable, for it was " tune- fully, joyously, un-self-consciously given," and consisted of "airs from Opera, quaint Russian volkslieds, mournful Tartar melodies, crooning -Cossack love-ditties." Mr. Merry gives the events from Juno 28th, 1914, the date of the murder of the Austrian Heir-Apparent and hie wife at Sarajevo, till July 30th, when the Russian Army was mobilized, in synoptic form. The reader would specially like to know what was the feeling in Petrograd during this critical period.
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