Father Archangel of Scotland, and other Essays. By G. and
R. B. Cunningham° Graham (Adam and Charles Black.)—All of these essays are full of quaint knowledge, while such of them as are the work of the male member of the copartnery are distinguished by a perversity of style which is enjoyable, even when he falls foul of what is essentially worthy of praise, as in the assault on the "all-sufficient cloak of Kailyard Scotch spoken by no one under heaven which of late has plagued us," or the declaration that " Nothing is true to Nature but the ways of Brixton, Belgravia, Scotch provincial towns, or French Bohemia duly emasculated." The first essay, for example— that entitled " Father Archangel of Scotland "—is as good in point both of style and of matter as a paper on a subject of by no means primary importance could be. It is the story of George Leslie, that rare avis in Scotland, a missionary of Roman Catholicism, in the days of "Charles of blessed memory" which Mr. Graham bought for a peseta in a curiosity shop in the old Castilian town of Medina del Rio Seco. Leslie was born in Aber- deen. His father, who had abandoned Calvinism for Roman Catholicism, sent him to Paris, and in due course the lad, whose curious career has been told by more than one writer, blossomed into Father Archangel, and as his latest biographer says, " a simple-minded friar who did his duty as he thought he saw it, and did it for itself and not for honour or reward or hope of heaven, nor yet for fear of hell." Perhaps " Father Archangel of Scotland" is the most interesting of the contents of the book to which it gives the title. But there is not an unin- teresting paper in it ; on the contrary, a great deal of out- of-the.way knowledge is given about a great number of out-of-the-way places in an emphatically out-of-the-way style. Mrs. Cunninghame Graham is evidently as much at home in Spain, Morocco, and Spanish America as her husband, and the two write an almost identical style. Her " Yuste," which recalls Spain in what were perhaps its most brilliant days, is so very fine a piece of description—and not merely of natural scenery—as to justify the belief that if she set her mind to it she could write a very brilliant and effectively graphic novel. Altogether this is a book to be read—and enjoyed—in a leisurely way and by instalments.
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