5 MAY 1894, Page 26

Six Common Things. By E. F. Benson. (Osgood, Mclivaine, and

Co.)—These sixteen sketches and essays have no little attrac- tion about them. The first, with its unpretending account of an early experience of the writer—the change from Lincoln to Truro —is particularly pleasing. Some of the sketches have clearly more of the imagination in them,—now and then there is a suspicion of pessimism in them. But their literary ability is beyond question.