Current Literature
AS THE FOREIGNER SAW US By Malcolm Letts Here is a composite picture of the English scene from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century as it appeared to observers from France, Germany, Italy and Spain. There is, of course, a vast amount of material, critical, descriptive, and docu- mentary in the correspondence and books of foreign visitors to England and Scotland, and Mr. Letts has read widely, within certain limits, in his endeavour to make the present anthology, As The Foreigner'Saw Us (Methuen, 8s. 6d.), a repre- sentative and complete account of ourselves as others saw us. The extracts are necessarily short ; indeed, one frequently wishes that the book had been planned on a huger scale. But every good anthology has the effect of arousing more interest than it can satisfy, and this volume should send most of its readers to the excellent bibliography at the end. There are sections on London, the universities, the country, the English character, law and politics, and amusements. We seem to have changed very little : three hundred years ago we filled our theatres with tobacco smoke so that the actors could hardly speak for coughing, and our hotels and cooking were thebutto f the foreign tourist. Proud, honest, and rather stupid-, our women beautiful but neglected, our country rich but dirty, we attracted and offended the more sensitive foreigner. There are numerous illustrations from contem- porary drawings.
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