Mr. Eden Phillpott's latest book, A West Countt y Sketch
Book (Hutchinson, 7s. 6d.) is more like an old-fashioned photograph album than its title leads us to hope. He depicts Dartmoor faithfully (that would be his own word), but he shows us nothing that the most ordinary of us could not discover for himself. His long stretches of descriptive prose make weary reading ; the places he describes are " " nigh," " sylvan," or " wind-kissed." He writes delightfully of the Devon people, though, and the book is relieved by anecdotes. There is a grim little tale of a " Cheat-The: Boys-Tree " (" a proper cruel cider apple so called because the robber boys will be at it, and they cheated when they're stole it "). This tree became the gallows of a young wife, and there is a sinister touch about the tale that makes us believe in the tradition that the devil lives on Dartmoot. Then there is the story of a Belstone parson who was given " a gert barrel of cider for love " by twelve apple-growers whe had each promised to pour a gallon into the cask. When it wag broached there was only water in it for each man had thought that his own meagre share would be strengthened by the rest.
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