FICTION.
JEREMY.t
Tins record of a boy's life from his eighth birthday to the day of his going to school a year later belongs to that quasi-auto- biographical department of fiction in which Tolstoi's Souvenirs d'Enfance stands conspicuous. Jeremy Cole was born in the same year as Mr. Walpole, and though the story is not written in the first person, the frequent use of the pronoun " our " suggests at any rate an intermittent identification of the hero with the narrator. Many of the incidents bear a stamp of • The. Natural History of the Child. By Dr. Courtney Dunn. London: Sampson Low. [7s. ed. nerd 14story. By Hugh Walpole. Boudoir; Caeseilt [7s. net.' veracity which seems to rule out invention; but the point .need not be laboured, and the charge of egotism fails in view of the fact that Jeremy is very far from being a paragon of ingenuous youth or juvenile beauty or lovableness. He was a tough, obstinate, self-centred little boy, who generally got his own way ; he was redeemed from commonplaceness by a vein of imagination, a love of adventure, and a disregard for the con- sequences of his insubordination. He tyrannized over his little sisters, routed and got rid of his nurse, and completely subju- gated his governess. Jeremy was not altogether happy in the choice of his parents. Mr. Cole, his father, was a worthy but narrow-minded and conventional clergyman ; Mrs. Cole was kindly and genial, but her strongest point was her placidity, which does not make for romance. Of the two little girls, Mary was the ugly duckling of the family, studious, sensitive, and desperately jealous ; Helen was sensible, normal, affectionate, and good-looking. The most interesting character in the book is Uncle Samuel, an unsuccessful artist, slovenly, eccentric, and unconventional ; despising his sister and brother-in-law while living on their bounty ; endowed with a sardonic humour tempered with spasms of generosity ; bored by the children, yet understanding them better than their parents. And there is a delightful dog, a mongrel rescued by Jeremy, and named Hamlet by Uncle Samuel, because "Hamlet was a prince who was unhappy because he thought so much about himself." For the rest, Aunt Amy is a rather odious spinster, and Miss Jones, the governess, excites compassion rather than affection. The progress of Jeremy's self-assertion is traced with considerable minuteness. The episode of his first pantomime is an excellent piece of reconstruction ; so too are the family visit to the sea- side, the adventure at the fair, and the boy's misery during his mother's dangerous illness. Mr. Walpole has a real gift for making us visualize the scenes he describes. It is not always life as it is seen through the eyes of a child ; the standpoint of the grown man obtrudes occasionally, and the vague aspirations. fears, and hopes of childhood are coloured with the precision of a later experience. And we confess to finding more entertain- ment in the intrusions of Uncle Samuel and the vagaries of Hamlet than in the development of Jeremy's character.
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