THE HAMPSTEAD AND "THE HOUSE" ANNUALS.
• The Hampstead Annual, 1903. Edited by Greville E. Matheson and Sidney C. Mayle. (S. C. Mayle. 2s. 6d. net.)—This is the sixth issue of the Annual. We are glad to see that it maintains its high character for both literary and artistic excellence. The first article gives us a most interesting view of William Blake on his not infrequent visits to Linnell, landscape and portrait painter, at Hampstead. A very curious picture it is, and we are much obliged to Dr. R. Garnett for drawing it. Blake was never a resident ; in fact, he had prejudices against Hampstead, which it required all Linnell's influence to overcome. Another visitor was R. L. Stevenson, whose Hampstead sojourn is described for us by Sidney R. Colvin. J. F. Redfern, the sculptor, lived at Lower Mount Cottage (now demolished) for a few years before his death. The celebrities of Hampstead will furnish material for the Annual for some years to come.—We may mention at the same time a publication which we gladly commend to our readers," The House" Annual, compiled by W. A. Morgan (Gale and Poldeu, 5s.) (" The House," it may be explained, is not Christ Church, Oxford, but the Stock Exchange.) It is proposed to make the publication yearly, and to devote the funds obtained to the "Referee's Children's Dinner Fund," an object for which two volumes on "Sport" similarly put together have realised more than £1,000. Various writers of distinction contribute to the volume, Miss Marie Corelli among them. We shall not be so impolite as to criticise her "Little Kiltums," for she objects, we understand, to praise as much as to blame.. Other writers, however, are not so fastidious, and we may say that we have read the volume with much pleasure. Perhaps we may specially mention "John Bull's Christmas Tree," with "F. C. G.'s " capital cartoons, and " Saki's" letterpress. "The Cavendish sleeping-car, which never went at all, but generally managed to be well placed nevertheless," is a happy stroke.
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