W. M. Thackeray. By G. K. Chesterton and Lewis Melville.
(Hodder and Stoughton. ls. net.)—This is one of the " Bookman Biographies," and is as conspicuous as the "Tennyson" lately noticed in these columns for the number and excellence of its illustrations. This is, and should be kept as, the strong point of these little books. As to the biographical part, we should be content with something simpler than what is here provided for ns. Mr. Chesterton's magniloquent essay is out of place. It requires nothing less than a folio adequately to house such grandeurs as "it may be questioned whether it is good for a people excitedly to articulate their own inarticulate disposition," and "the immeasurable and almost unbearable emotion that is involved in the mere fact of human life." Mr. Chesterton has had something less than six small quarto pages allotted to him, and he discourses in this fashion about Man in general, and English Man in particular.
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