Rambles in Dickens Land. By Robert Allbut. (S. T. Free-
mantle. 3s. 6d )—This is a very thorough book indeed. The index contains between seven and eight hundred names, not all of places, indeed, but covering a wide extent and large variety of localities. The greatest pains have been taken to identify them ; the circumstances of each description and narrative have been carefully considered. Not the smallest merit of the volume is its freedom from verbiage and sentimentality. Dickens sometimes, of course, idealised, but he was a very careful observer, and it is possible for the student of these things to follow him very closely. Nor is such a following at all a waste of time. The introduction, in which Mr. G. Brenan enlarges on the reality which the figures and scenes of romance assume, is an excellent apology for the book.
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