CURRENT LITERATURE .
OBSERVATIONS. By Max Beerbohm. (Heinemann. 25s. net.) Mn. BEERBOIIM is a literary critic of high distinction.
political, social and philosophical matters he appears to have no real interest, and we have little interest in his observations thereon. In matters of purely intellectual comment his wit is piercing, and it is above all a pictorial wit. The best carica- tures in this volume are those of the Brothers Sitwell, of Mr, Lytton Strachey, and of the old and young selves of Mr. Bennett confronted. In each the drawing speaks for itself, the design is harmonious, the satire is included, and the legend serves merely for temporal identification of a universal trait. Most people are too busy reading the elaborate descriptions attached to the cartoons to give any attention to the some- times magnificent and always careful drawing. The study of accessories, in particular the use of interior backgrounds, wall papers, and the expressive variation of hands should teach much to those of our younger caricaturists who deal entirely in versions and perversions of photographic likenesses. The " Old and Young Self " series, excellent as the idea is, fails in practice because we seldom see anything of the processes connecting the two ages. Something of this evolution, how- ever, is to be seen in Mr. Cunningham Grahame's progress from rocking-horse to centaur, and Lord Oxford's from the Craven to the Cabinet. There is wit in Professor Rothenstein's stern command to his younger self to remove his ridiculous hat and quit the room, and the two George Moore's form a deli- cate picture while the elder confesses that there have been no painters since Monet, no composers since Wagner, and only one novelist since Balza.c. Dare we hope that Mr. Beerbohm will give us a " Spirit of the Age " or a modern " Poet's Corner "
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