Brayhard. By F. M. Allen. (Ward and Downey.)—The author of
"Through Green Glasses" and "The Voyage of the Ark" has not improved upon his former works. Brayhard is not a par- ticularly amusing hook; sometimes it is even a very dull one. The fact of the matter is, that Mr. Allen has this time missed the mark. To write really good nonsense is a gift that is possessed by very few writers. The fun must appear to be natural and spontaneous, or it ceases to be fun at all : certainly it is not suffi- cient to have strung together a laboured succession of absurdities and incongruous extravagances,—that is a thing which anybody might do, and that is all that Mr. Allen has succeeded in doing. There is hardly one real touch of humour in the whole book. The adventures of the seven champions and their magic donkey are totally without interest, and their conversation and re- marks absolutely pointless and devoid of wit. Some good fun might have been made out of the giant who disappoints tradition by being mathematically correct and regular in his life, and in whose castle the only distressed female is a gigantic maid-of-all- work weighing several tone, and only distressed by reason of the. washing-day. But the author only imitates his readers with the endless repetition of a very threadbare joke about "un- decimals," and the witless and vulgar slang of the giant's son. It may be that he intended all his characters to represent the common and vulgar type of a bore,—in which case he has to a certain extent succeeded. It is hardly worth while in such a book to notice any minor points, or we would remind the author that the word to " smile " conveys no idea of speech : had he written "smiled" in the place of "said" once or twice, it would not have mattered; but when he does so on nearly every other page, it becomes exasperating. The book is a distinct disappointment, after the promise that Mr. Allen gave in his other works.
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