A Short History of the English Novel. By IT would
be wrong to demand originality from a history of the novel. The facts are legion, but most of them have been mar shalled, and when the newcomers ha..e fallen in, it only remains to review the whole body with impartial but critical eyes. But since even balance, conciseness and accuracy can make a dull book by them- selves, one likes the historian to show a sense of literary style and forgives her for an occasional prejudice. Miss Neill has certainly produced a concise history, ranging from the Grail legend to the modern mystery of Finnegans Wake. and she makes the whole grand tour within three hundred pages. She commits no remarkable errors, and writes well of Bunyan, Fielding and Smollett ; she does not enthuse too much about Jane Austen or entertain us too little with the Gothic romances, and she proves repeatedly that she has a pleasant sense of humour, But here and there her journalese is all Tcio obvious, and though she has recorded most of the necessary facts, she is a little too fond of superlatives and cliches.
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