Books and Persons. By Arnold Bennett. (Chatto and Windus. Bs.
net.)—Mr. Bennett in always an amusing writer, and his " com- ments on a past epoch," reprinted from the New Aga for the years from 1908 to 1911, are as entertaining in their way as his novels. Mr. Bennett is candour itself in his remarks on his fellow-authors, and in his denunciation of publishers, the circulating libraries, the British Aeaderisy of Letters, and Mr. A. C. Benson. Of mid- Victorian novelists he has a poor opinion. " There is not one of them that would not be tremendously improved by being cut down to about one-half " ; moreover, " they are incurably ugly and sentimental." Some of us will wonder to find the author of The Old Wives' Tale casting this reproach in particular at Thackeray and Diekene, Charlotte Brente and Mrs. Gaskell ; but it is only Mr. Bennett's humour.
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