Professor George Gordon of Oxford has written a delightful introdUction
to the latest 'volume of Times Third Leaders (Arnold) in which he gives us a most attractive picture of the " composite author " of these anonymous essays. The latter, we find, is " a south-country Englishman of middle age, though with spurts of youth. His work has made him a Londoner and a loyal one, and he cannot pass St. Paul's without a momentary exaltation," yet " he is full of country hints and can tell you where a primrose or a strawberry may be gathered in any month of the year." He must, indeed, be very like Professor Gordon's idea of him, " hard only on the vulgar, on that disease of wealth which he calls the life de luxe," for he writes on any other subject, from Dragons to Figs; with a charming ease and distineticin. The Times third leader is certainly one of the best features in daily journalism.
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