27 JULY 1901, Page 22

A History of English Literature. By A. Hamilton Thompson, B.A.

(John Murray. 7s. 6d.)—This work, a solid volume of more than eight hundred closely-printed pages, is based on a manual written by Mr. Thomas B. Shaw. It has been more or less changed and adapted to the wants of present-day readers One notable accommodation is the substitution of a chapter on Chaucer by Professor Ker for that which stood in the original volume. On the whole, it seems well adapted for its purpose. Now and then, one may object to an epithet We should hardly call Thackeray's humour "exuberant." Dickens is "exuberant' in "Pickwick" and ids early work generally ; Thackeray never, except, perhaps, in such trifles as "The Rose and the Rine The "Minor Poets," supplementing chap. 26 on " Victorian Poets," is well done.