The obvious criticism of Mr. Maurice Baring's Hildesheies (Lemerre, Paris)
is that it is a tour de force, and for once the obvious criticism is also just,—Mr. Baring's Pastiches is a tour &force. , We know not which is the more remarkable, the skill wherewith the task is accomplished, or the fact that the task is accomplished at all. There are few English- men who can write any sort of French without fear of reproach or correction. There are fewer still who express the shades which separate one delicate style from _another. Yet in Bildesheim Mr. Baring has attempted to mimic the prose of four distinguished writers, and he has succeeded so well that there never could be even for a phiase any uncertainty as to the model. Nor has Mr. Baring chosen those writers whose extravagance makes imitation simple. Flaubert, for instance, or Baudelaire, or Victor Hugo, would have proved easier masters. But the gentle irony of M. A nat ela France, the sensibility of M. Pierre Loti, the cosmopolitan legance of M. Paul Bourget are qualities which might elude the moat "sedulous ape." And yet with these three Mr. Baring has' irioeeeded perfectly. The imitation of Bourget, above all, is so just that it is difficult to believe it not from the novelist's own hand. The touch is deft, and perhaps a trifle malicious. But it is Bourget's own touch, and he might easily mistake the echo for the sound of his real voice. With Bolan Mr. Baring is leas successful. In the first place, he challenges comparison with the little masterpiece of M. Maurice Barret;; in the second Renan's style, though readily recognised, is difficult of definition, and we are not sure that Mr. Baring is perfectly conscious of it. How- ever, this little book is, and will ever be, a literary curiosity. The talent of parody is not the highest talent in the world. It is the same talent which enables such scholars as Professor Jebb to write the Greek of Pindar or Sophocles. But if it be rare, it. is a talent of elegance, and Mr. Baring possesses it in the same degree as the scholars whose copies of Latin verse or Greek prose amaze our youth.
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