LEAVES OF PROSE.* A VOLUME of essays by Miss Matheson
is a book to take up in an idle ten minutes—the minutes will pass quickly and -very pleasantly. These short papers, most of which are reprints, deal with all sorts of subjects, from " The Feeding of Necessitous Children" to "The Ideal Woman as Wordsworth and Shelley knew her." Miss Matheson has an excellent use of English, and her literary criticisms, dealing for the most part with the near past, are clear, sympathetic, and common- sensical. We would specially recommend to our readers the -chapter entitled "An Early Victorian Novel" (John Halifax), which contains an excellent character-sketch, and will bring to the minds of the middle-aged a delightful recollection of the glamour which Miss Mulock's masterpiece has thrown over several generations of very young people.
Two studies placed alone at the end of the book are con- tributed by Miss May Sinclair. One is a humorous and rather touching picture of an old labourer ; the other an appreciation of George Meredith, which is crisply written, but contains no new ideas.
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