. Mrs. Humphry Ward. By Stephen Gwynn. (J. Nisbet and
Co. Is. 3d. net.)—Mr. Gwynn, in this new volume of the " Writers of the Day " series, shows himself at once a sympathetic and a severe critic. " Future criticism will not overlook the fact that the, almost alone of her contemporaries, avoided dealing in the crudities of passion and won her popularity by a singularly austere appeal ; addressing herself not to the senses or the simpler feelings, but to those emotions which connect themselves with high, and often abstract, intellectual interests," " Sho fails, I think, in the last resort, not because she is too much of the good citizen, but because she is too little of an artist. She would sooner found an intellectual sect than write a supremely good book." Mr. Gwynn describes Mrs. Ward's novels carefully ; his favourite among them is HeIbeckof Banniedale.
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