25 FEBRUARY 1955, Page 34

IT must be difficult for anyone, however talented, to write

a light essay about law which does not qualify for the comment that Sir Alan Herbert would have done it better. By aiming at his own favourite targets a special brand of gently sustained irony, relieved at refreshing intervals by short bursts of straight- forward charlie-poking, Sir Carleton Allen, in all seventeen essays, renders such a comment irrelevant. He seems to score more convinc- ingly over cosh-boys, international law and the legal definition of a gold-fish than he does on his main target, delegated legislation. This is perhaps because his successes with his secondary targets show so clearly that the law, to be a bit of a crichelly ass, need not invariably first be delegated. A. H. BARTON