THIS WEEK'S BOOKS
THE packers' strike has delayed the publication of many books ; the table looks bare and uninteresting. It is the strike that has compelled us to cancel the Literary Supple- ment which we announced for this week. A moral lesson could somehow be dechteedfram the books which have been published. The works of imagination are held back ; but suddenly, in this dearth, appears a half-dozen of critical hooks. First, there is Mr. Bonamy Dobree's Essays in Biography (074ord University Press). Mr. Dobree has been gaining a reputation for his knoWledge and suavity in criticism. It is a pity that two of his studies—on Etherege and Vanbrugh—are in the period of the Restoration ; we have a fancy that everybody is growing heartily sick of that age ; it has been explored and explained, praised and apologized for, to the verge of absolute tedium. Still, Mr. Dobree is not to be blamed for this. The Restoration is the period in which he is chiefly expert, and we could not expect him to fling his knowledge away because of the surfeit of the public. It is. good, however, to see the hand of time creeping on : the third study is of Joseph Addison.
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