LIFE AND LETTERS OF W. J. BIRKBECK. By His Wife.
(Longmans. 15s. net.)—No Englishman had a closer know- ledge of ecclesiastical Russia than the late Mr. Birkbeck, and few have known more than he of Russian life in general. He was a man of wide intelligence, and his letters are engaging and picturesque. He had, too, opportunities for unusual knowledge : he was well acquainted with Queen Victoria, with the Kaiser, and with the Emperor of Russia. The main part of his letters is occupied with his attempt to bring the Church of England and the Orthodox Eastern Church more closely together. He was himself a devout Anglican with a love for ceremonial and very definitely " High Church " ; he said of himself, for example, " I think Modernism and everything connected with it more odious every day I live." He was loved by the people of Russia, who knew him as "Ivan Vassilievitch." Even those who are not interested in, or do not sympathize with, his religious views will find much to delight them in his strange and vivid pictures of Russia ; of the scramble for food at the Coronation of the Tsar, in which more than 1,200 people were crushed to death ; of the Yurodivys, idiots who are regarded with religious veneration ; or of the people of Kamschatka, who live Underground.
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