THE GOLDFISH. By Robert Lynd. (Methuen. 5s.)— Mr. Lynd once
wrote an essay which opened on a quietly plaintive note deprecating the attitude of a critic who had ` levelled a charge of excessive kindliness " against him, and although he certainly wrote a very charming essay round the subject, we do not remember that he ever definitely refuted the allegation : possibly lie even admitted it, just as he would admit to being fascinated by bottles of patent medicine, or to feeding the mice in somebody else's house when by all the rules of hospitality he should have shoo'd them away. We are not renewing the attack here—kindliness is perhaps a little too unctuous a word—but there is no denying that Mr. Lynd is an extraordinarily friendly writer; and in that respect at least he is of all contemporary essayists the one who most delights readers as Charles Lamb did. He is whimsical, invariably entertaining, and his touch is light as a feather. What more does one ask of an essayist ? This little book, which contains twenty-seven perfectly balanced essays on such subjects as " The Happy Tax-Payer," " Hot Cakes," and of course, the London Goldfish, " astonishing as a firework, and appealing to the eye as a coloured sweet- meat," is the work of an artist, a fine journalist, and a man of wide sympathies.
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