THE CITIES OF PROVENCE.
Romantic Cities of Provence. By Mona Caird. Illustrated from Sketches by Joseph Pennell and Edward M. Synge. (T. Fisher ITnwin. 155. net.)—This book does not by any means, like some of its kind, depend for interest and attractiveness on its illustra- tions. They are very pretty, and personally we like them better than the coloured pictures so much the fashion. The names of the artists are a warrant for their superior quality. Mrs. Caird'a book is worth reading. She has an easy style, though rather too abundant in long words and adjectives. Some of her pages, indeed, remind us of the plain of the Crass scattered over with stones, which she describes so picturesquely. But this is chiefly when she gives way to a certain love of moralising, rather out of place, one ventures to think, in a book of this kind. However, Provence has laid hold on this one of its pilgrims in a thoroughly satisfactory fashion. She has heard "the song of the Rhone" as well as "the silence of the Crau"; and if there are, as she suggests, many travellers by the rapids who realise nothing of the history and the poetry of the "bare, flat, sun-scorched land"
they are whirled through, we can only hope that her book may fall into their hands and enlighten their ignorance. It is rather a pity that its size and weight make it inconvenient as a travelling companion ; but something has to be sacrificed to good print and illustrations.
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