CRITICISM AND LETTERS.
Talks and Traits. By H. C. Minehin. (Dent. 6s.) Mr. Minchin browses in those pleasant pastures that lie around the dark tower of literary criticism ; he gossips in the friendliest fashion about the books and authors of his acquain- tance, and displays everywhere a sensitive and well-stored mind. These literary essays, on such subjects as Milton in his Latin Poems, Fielding, Thomas Fuller, and so on, do not occupy all the volume, for there arc besides a number of imaginary dialogues, in which Shenstone talks to Reynolds and Johnson, Mrs. Elizabeth visits the Doctor in Bolt Court, Vespasian and Domitian argue by the Styx. Unfortunately for the writer, such dialogues only provoke a comparison that is by no means in his favour, for they remind us of the fine things (notably the dialogue between Dr. Johnson and Coleridge) that occur in H. D. Trail's New Lucian, a neglected book by a very neglected writer. Mr. Minchin has the knowledge necessary to sustain his dialogues, but has nothing like the wit and mimicry of style that Traill had. His Dr. Johnson is not the equal of several to which we have been treated lately.
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