3 DECEMBER 1898, Page 27

Under the Dome of St. Paul's. By Emma Marshall. (Seeley

and Co.)—Mrs. Marshall has made a distinct success with this " Story of Sir Christopher Wren's Days." Sir Christopher is a very interesting, and even noble, figure, and Mrs. Marshall makes him very real to us. As she well says : " Great and noble as was his work, the man who achieved it was greater and nobler." We are sometimes disposed to cavil at the details of his architecture, and to think that he missed his opportunities. His greatest opportunity, a new London, he did not miss, but lost through no fault of his own. His personal qualities were of the highest. All this is well brought out, as is the darker side of his life, his treatment by the authorities of the time. The accessory figures are worthy of the subject, and the story has sufficient interest. It is amusing to see Mrs. Marshall's gentle coquetting with Jacobitism. If it were not for her dislike of Popery she might be joining the League of the White Rose.