22 JUNE 1907, Page 24

%eddy a Story of Oxford. By H. N. Dickinson. (W.

Heinemann. 6s.)—There ought to be a book to be made some- where out of the development of a young man's character at a great University, though writer after writer, from the author of "Tom Brown at Oxford" downwards, has failed to make it. Certainly Mr. Dickinson has failed. His picture of Oxford under- graduate life is entirely unconvincing, and almost entirely ugly. The book would not be worth notice if, in spite of its lack of health and perspective, it did not leave an impression of genuine- ness and serious work. Mr. Dickinson has a certain power of character drawing, and Noddy himself is alive, though his clergyman-mentor is preposterously sloppy. The whole affair is too emotional, and assuredly is not Oxford.