The Victorians. By /Tata Syrett. (T. Fisher Unwin. 6s.) —If
it is true that all historical novels should be written from the point of view of the characters concerned, it is especially true of novels which deal with the mid-Victorian period. There is nothing easier than to play the critic and pour scorn on the pompous inadequacy of pork-pie hats and Mrs. Mark- ham's history ; and Miss Netta Syrett, from the high pinnacle of modern fiction-writing, condemns with possible justice but with evident enjoyment the whole system of the upbringing of children half a century ago, and shuts her eyes to the fact that its austere methods did turn out great men and famous —greater and more famous than our ultra-sympathetie education shows any signs of producing. In any case, a child who at nine years old goes to look for fairies, and at fifteen is covered with confusion at dancing with a schoolboy, is so abnormal ns to be difficult to understand and deal with, whether . then or now. Our enjoyment of Miss Syrett's fluent and clever writing increases, therefore, as her story proceeds, and as her heroine grows up; for it is open to any one to poke fun at the "aesthetic craze," and Miss Syrett does it sharply and well; and interests us with her story of a girl's adolescence, when once we can forgive her rather undignified irreverence to a most dignified 'century.
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