4 OCTOBER 1913, Page 43

The Opinions of Jerome Coignard. By Anatole France. A translation

by Mrs. Wilfrid Jackson. (John Lane. 6s.)— This brief sequel to the better known "Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque " is one of M. France's most agreeable works. The author, having cast the book simply in the form of stray conversations reported by the delightful abbEs servant, Tournebroche, is not hampered by the necessity of telling a story, and the lack of incident seems actually to improve the form of the work, for with M. France a story is seldom more than an excuse for digression. Here he is able to give his learned, pleasantly ironical, slightly sentimental humanism full play. Mrs. Jackson succeeds in suggesting not a little of the charm of her original (a most important thing when so great a. master of language as .Anatole France is in question), and her translation, in spite of occasional roughnesses, makes excellent reading.