6 AUGUST 1927, Page 18

Mr. A. L. Hayward, who has already edited Ned Ward's

London Spy, now brings forward another specimen of out- at-elbows seventeenth-century journalism in selections from Tom Brown's Amusements, Serious and Comical (Routledge, 25s.). Brown, said Dr. Johnson, " seems to have thought it the pinnacle of excellence to be a merry fellow." He is, but a merry fellow in rather a foul way. Still, his writings supply a living picture of low-class London life—of the trulls, tosspots, and rakehells with whom a large part of his

life was spent. * * * *