25 APRIL 1891, Page 23

George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Browning, Newman : Essays and Reviews

from the "Athenaeum," By Joseph Jacobs. (David Nutt.) —Mr. Jacobs is a thoughtful and kindly critic, but are not those various notices a little too slight for preservation in a permanent form ? So far as they go, they show a cultivated judgment and great good sense ; but then, they do not go very far. They are all of them weekly newspaper articles of merit. But are no weekly newspaper articles of merit to be allowed to fulfil their purpose with their publication in the journal to which they are contributed ? Meritorious and kindly as these criticisms are, we think they might have fulfilled their proper function in the ephemeral shape in which they first appeared. We pile up too many books in the present day.