The Carlyle Country. With a Study of Carlyle's Life. By
J. M. Sloan. (Chapman and Hall. 10s. 6d.)—It would be unfair to expect new light on the over-discussed Carlyle problems. The general public, and even the Carlyle student, will be all the better pleased with this annotation of Carlyle that its scope is topographical, and the camera and half-tone block have been called in to preserve as much as may be of local colour and history. A very good photogravure of Whistler's penetrative portrait faces the title-page of this attractive gift-book, and its painstaking text, with excellent chronological table and full index, is profusely illustrated. The camera is not always kind and genial, particularly to interiors ; but its occasional "whimsies," as Carlyle would say, have been supplemented by happily chosen extracts from the sage's writings. His best epithets in favour- able moods have been chosen for insertion under the respective blocks, although the writer is by no means deficient in the humour which also records the sage's totally different expres- sions when his porridge had gone unhappily with him. The book is a pleasant one for the Carlyle student to turn over, and it can be recommended as a superior prize or as an " informing " Christmas present.
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