31 OCTOBER 1908, Page 26

The Odd Volume. Edited by B. W. Matz. (Simpkin, Marshall,

and Co. is. net.)—This is a volume of contributions voluntarily given for the benefit of a charity, "The National Book-Trade Provident Society." Criticism would be out of place. All that we need say is that its purchasers will get a, capital shilling's-worth, without considering the excellence of the object to which any profit that may be made will go. Mr. W. L. Courtney's "Siesta in Sicily," reprinted from the Glasgow Herald, is one of the best things in the volume. But is the writer not a little hard when he ranks Dion with Thrasybulus and Agathoeles among the "tyrants that bore hateful names" P Dion doubtless failed egregiously when he came to rule, but the last two or three years of his life must not wholly obscure the noble record of the earlier time. Would it not be an improvement to

put all the illustrations together The Sicilian articles are well and appropriately illustrated. Elsewhere the pictures are sometimes curiously inappropriate, and are somewhat marred by their incongruity. Why should we have "Pair Christabel " facing "A Society Motor Dog " ?