We regret to record the death of Sir Rider Haggard,
which occurred on Thursday, May 14th. He was a story- teller by nature—and that is a considerable and fortunate thing to be. He never, therefore, had any difficulty with his plots. He never failed in imagination, and he could give a kind of verisimilitude to what was preposterous or incredible. He did this by instinct and not by art. His art indeed was rather poor, and the most sophisticated of his admirers—for many sophisticated persons did read and like his books—found his avoidance of just the right word and the heaviness and unreality of his dialogue rather trying. All the same, with books like King Solomon's Mines and She he thrilled a generation of Englishmen whose romance had not yet begun to be expressed in terms of mechanism. He was a keen agriculturist, and did admirable public work in con- nexion with land development, rural industries and over- sea settlement.
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