New Canterbury Tales. By Maurice Hewlett. (Archibald Constable and Co.
6s.)—In Mr. Hewlett's New Canterbury Tales his large circle of admirers will find all the characteristic features and qualities of his former books,—masterly use of an archaic manner to express an aspect of life in momentary high favour with modern readers ; humour venturing, with fall con- sciousness of the risks it runs, perilously near to the precipice of grossness and profanity, yet held in practical check by a genuine reverence for the mysteries of "the Faith " ; a poignant realisa- tion of human actualities amid historical obscurities and artifices of convention ; an infinitely delicate and dexterous ingenuity of plot construction ; and a style of sufficient nerve and temper to carry safely a cargo of wilful preciosity that must be the ruin of any literary gift not intrinsically of the finest quality. So much for the manner of these stories. Of the matter, much is repulsive to a taste formed by the conventional standards of the best period of the nineteenth century. Yet in the heart of every story there is to be discovered at least one jewel raro and pure enough to give an honourable raison d'i;tre to the invention ; and, at least, the first story in the volume—that of the Scrivener who tells of the noble constancy of the Countess Aloys—is entirely beautiful.
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