The Thames. By Sir Walter Besant. (A. and C. Black.
le. 6d. net.)—This is one of the most interesting volumes of the series which bears the title of the "Fascination of London." The subject is too big for the space, possibly for the time, allotted to it. Certainly there is a lack of consequence and order about the book. There is an abundance of matter, but it is not easy to get a view of the whole. We take, for instance, the section "From Hammersmith to the Tower." It reads well enough, though we are quite sure that the author might have made it much better, till we get to p.74. Here he digresses to the Fleet Prison (which was not on the river), refers the reader to "London in the Eighteenth Century," but says something about imprisonment for debt, and then gives an account of the City Wall. It seems ungracious to criticise in this fashion one to whom we owe so much, but we cannot but think that the valuable material might have been worked up afresh with no small advantage.
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