* * Mr. Belloc was never one to deliver the
goods in a plain van. His writing has an individuality as strongly marked as (say) Sir Thomas Browne's. It is one of his chief merits that he never exploits that individuality ; so that his latest collection of essays, -4 Conversation with a Cat and Others (Cassell, 7s. 6d.), can be hailed, but not dismissed, as " good Belloc." His explosive and uncompromising wit remains fresh because it is not content simply to earn those epithets. His mannerisms are only an incidental delight. The matter of these essays, as those who read them in the New Statesman will remember, is too various to catalogue briefly ; but whether it is a king, or a valley, or a prejudice, or a wine that Mr. Belloc writes of, one has always the impression of a generous, forceful mind, backed with a rare depth of knowledge and experience. In comparison with some of his earlier work, these essays seem almost subdued in tone. But it is not the fire that has gone out of his attack, only some of the fireworks ; he uses less often, for instance, that rhetoric of mockery of which he is a master. Those who have not read these essays before will regret it if they miss this book : but not so much as those who have.
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