THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. The Decline
and Fall of the British Empire : Appointed for Use in the National Schools of Japan. Tokio, 2005. (Alden and Co., Oxford. 6d. net.)—This curious little book professes to be "a brief account of those causes which resulted in the destruction of our late Ally, together with a comparison between the British and the Roman Empires," written for Japanese school-children a thousand years hence. The same idea has been worked out in
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• decline of intellectual and religious life; municipal extravagance and excessive taxation ; and the neglect of the Volunteers and of true principles of national defence. There is much cleverness and some sound criticism in it; but the artistic value is a little weakened by the ill-considered selection of signs of decadence, many of which cannot be said to be on the same plane of import- ance. As a philippic it has many good points, as a jets d'esprit it is too serious and diffuse. But it may set some people thinking, which, we take it, is its author's aim.
TWO BOOKS ON NELSON.
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