24 SEPTEMBER 1898, Page 24

Le Verve d'Eau : a Comedy. By Scribe. With an

Introduction and Notes by F. F. Beget, B.A. (Macmillan and Co.)—A good edition of one of Scribe's best plays. The audacious liberties which the author takes with the history of this country are sometimes a little trying to the English reader, but in spite of this the comedy remains one which it is impossible to read with- out pleasure. The notes to the present edition are capital, and should be a great help to the learner. We observe, however, that M. Beget, misled probably by early biographers, makes an error in the date of Bolingbroke's birth, which he gives as 1672. It should be 1678.