What a pleasant, agreeable volume (Longman, 10s. 6d.) Mr. Bryant
has made with his selection of letters out of the latter part of the seventeenth cen- tury. It was to be expected that he would, since it was in that period, from the Restoration to Queen Anne, that the writing of English, easy, natural, familiar in style, reached its best level ; and with Mr. Bryant's eye for the pic- turesque and the human element, it was sure to be interesting. He has set himself in this volume to give us a pic- ture of the life of an English gentleman of the time, in his own words, from the cradle, through school and university, courtship and love, the trials and delights of marriage, the consolations of food, friendship and religion, to the grave. One expected that the Verney letters would be largely drawn upon, and it is pleasant to find again how much the best letter-writers this family were and what charming characters— the younger Edmund Verney, for
example — they produced. Such accomplished rakes as Rochester, Chesterfield and Etherege show up as the most elegant correspondents ; the famous Nonconformist divine, Richard Baxter, is merely boring. But the best discoveries whom Mr. Bryant brings to light in this volume are the witty and delightful Harry Savile (what a good companion he must have been), and the worthy but amusing Dean Prideaux, as full of character as an egg is of meat. Mr. Bryant promises another volume covering the same period, but giving us a picture of public affairs and of the intellectual and scientific life of the time. It may well be 'more important than this ; it could not be more pleasant and readable.
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