in not expecting her readers to be omniscient. We have noted some misprints, e.g., on pp. 66, 97, 297, 299, which might be corrected in a future edition.

In one sense the book is disappointing; for in its 400 pages we have found scarcely a story than can be termed new or a witticism worth remembering, unless it be the translation of the famous answer to the question, Is life worth living? "Ca dépend de la foi (foie)," which Lear attributes to Lecky. Nor in the course of this lifelong correspondence with a Cabinet Minister is there any contribution to political history. The nearest approach to an indiscretion to which Carlingford could be goaded by the pinpricks of Lear's vehement denunciations of Gladstone's later manner is the admission that "in foreign affairs I sigh for Palmerston." The main interest of the book, then, is purely personal-the self-revelation of the fascinating and versatile individuality of the author, artist, and musician, Edward Lear. It is a sufficiently absorbing and interesting one. Through the medium of these whimsical letters of his with their quaint conceits, their outspoken comments on men and affairs, their humorous turns and verbal witticisms -for Lear was the most inveterate of punsters-the artist portrays himself.

He describes his travels and troubles, his work and plans, his mode of life, his financial difficulties, his visitors, and his views upon men in extraordinary detail. He could suck humor out of what would have been to most artists an unforgivable offence. "In one [of his pictures] is a big beech tree, at which all intelligent huming beans say 'Beech!' when they see it. For all that, a forlorn ijiot said-'Is that a Palm-tree, Sir?' 'No,' replied I quietly, 'it is a Peruvian Brocoli.'" But the scene we like best to remember is that in which he describes his delight at

seeing in the paper the announcement of Fortescue's appointment to the Irish Secretaryship. He was breakfasting at the Hotel Danieli in Venice.

Being of an undiplomatic and demonstrative nature in matters that give me pleasure, I threw the paper up in the air and jumped aloft myself-ending by taking a small fried whiting out of the plate before me and waving it round my foolish head triumphantly till the tail came off, and the body and head flew bounce over to the other side of the table d'hôte room. Then only did I perceive that I was not alone, but that a party was at breakfast in a recess. Happily for me they were not English, and when I made an apology, saying I had suddenly seen some good news of a friend of mine, these amiable Italians said, "Bravissimo, Signore! We also are delighted, and if only we had some fish too, we would throw them all about the room in sympathy with you," so we ended by all screaming with laughter.

Such was the delightfully spontaneous and infectious vivacity of the man. But, above all, this paradox emerges from the perusal of these letters: the Father of Nonsense took himself very seriously, and, in spite of his devotion to frivolity, worked exceedingly hard and conscientiously throughout his long life of seventy-six years. He labored indefatigably, partly because his life was a long struggle to keep the wolf from the door; partly because a man of his temperament and active brain must so labor, willy-nilly; partly because of bis delight in his. work and his ambition to excel in art, shown, for instance, by his lifelong labors upon pictures intended to illustrate the works of his friend and much-admired poet, Alfred Tennyson. Mr. Congreve tells us that, apart from his published and purchased works, he left at his death over ten thousand large cardboard sheets of sketches. A few of his water-colors and drawings are reproduced in this book. Yet in spite of his industry and

enthusiasm, the world is pretty well agreed that Edward Lear was not a great painter. Few, indeed, in this generation think of him at all as an artist, except perhaps the heirs of those numerous and generous patrons of his who figure largely in this book, "swells," for the most part, sharply distinguished in the artist's mind from those "beastly aristocratic idiots who come here and think they are doing me a service by taking up my time." Lear was, by nature and habit, a Whig in politics, equally disliking violent Radicals and virulent Tories, but his correspondence suggests that he was not without some affection for the peerage or, at any rate the purchasing portion of that much-abused munity.

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"If I hate anything, it is a race of idlers," he says. As a matter of fact, his dislikes were by no means confined to drones. He had a full-blooded dislike of Popes and narrow-minded parsons, which gave rise to several vigorous and amusing passages; but, above all, he loathed the whole race of Germans, "Germen, Gerwomen, and Gerchildren," whose unforgivable sin was the erection of an hotel which ruined the view from his Villa Emily at San Remo. He was equally blind to the charm and loveliness of London, since discovered by Whistler and some others: "If I were writing a new 'Inferno,' I would make whole vistas of London lodgings part of my series of Hell punishments." But he made up for his lack of appreciation here by his enthusiasm for the beauty of scenery in other more fortunate parts of the world-Corfu, India, Malta, Corsica, the Riviera-which he spent so much of his life in visiting and "topographizing." This enthusiasm he expresses thus in his nonsensical way: "The Coast scenery [of Gozo] may truly be called pomskizillious and gromphiberous, being as no words can describe

The Athenæum.

its magnificence." His dislikes for certain persons and peoples he balanced with a liking for others equally wholehearted. Tennyson, the Turks, Holman Hunt, the Italians, and Bishop Colenso-he was as constant in his devotion to these as to Marsala itself. His kindly and generous affection for his faithful servant Giorgio, with whom, indeed, these letters are largely concerned, shows the man's large heart. "I am a queer beast to have so many friends," he remarks to Carlingford, one of the few who, like Sir Franklin Lushington, really "understand this queer child." But those who can appreciate the whimsical humor and wayward fancies of a truly original character will easily gather from a perusal of this volume how lovable a character the author was, and why his many friends agreed that it was "pleasant to know Mr. Lear."

The title of the second volume under review, which we also owe to Lady Strachey's editorial care, is happily taken from one of the author's own phrases, describing his Queery-LearyNonsense. It contains some poems and drawings lent by several owners, notably those by Mrs. Vaughan, which recall the author's friendship for John Addington Symonds. But the bulk of the book consists of the charming Preface by Lord Cromer, to which we have already alluded, and of some twenty drawings of birds done for Lord Cromer's infant son, by way of introducing him to a knowledge of color. These are delicious. The humor of the Light Red Bird, the slyness of the purple, the perkiness of the spotty, were enough to make us prize this book, even without the photographic likeness of the Runcible bird and the inevitableness of the Scroubious. Yet not the least clever thing here is the caricature of the "Learned and Nonsensical Bird," drawn by Ward Braham, a parody of one of Lear's own drawings of an owl.

7.

8.

Where was it impossible to sleep, and why? Answer: Beulah. Because of bells and trumpets.

What was the relation of Gehazi to Judas? Answer: Grandfather. 9. Who backed what animals? Answer: Giant Grim: the lions.

10. Mention the names of two footmen. Answer: Christian and Hopeful.

If you

You take something less than half a handful of sand. You stoop, set it down upon good turf, pinch it up into the shape of a cone, and press a little hard ball upon the apex. Then you rise erect, put yourself into a studied attitude, and hit the ball violently with a stick which terminates in a spoonshaped club-or you don't. don't, a stroke is scored against you, and the Recording Angel sets down something else because of the words you have used. But we will look on the bright side and suppose you to have hit. The little hard ball flies, or trickles, some distance. You follow and overtake it (it has stopped); you are followed in turn by a small slave who carries an elongated bag full of spoon-shaped clubs more or less different from the one you first used. This employment is extremely bad for him: it is pretty sure to lead him out into the army of the unemployed: it is giving him a twist in that direction all

the time. It matters less that all the time he is making faces behind your back. He has followed you before: often enough to conclude (intelligent imp) that, if this be a pursuit for the gentry, he can despise them, if not it. He has proved this (well enough to satisfy a jury) by a few odd moments' practice, using such balls as you have unaccountably lost and he has been unable to find.

But I delay the exciting narrative. Your little hard ball lies in a horse-rut, or close against a daisy, or (horror!) close behind a bunker. What is a bunker? It is an obstacle created by the envious gods, or else constructed by a groundman under careful instructions. "Haste!" say you. "More sand! A pyramid of sand as high as that of Cheops! that I may smack my pellet across this dreadful bunker." Alas! sir, the rules forbid it. Not all the sands of Arabia Infelix can help you here. Alone, having chosen another

spoon-ended stick (Heaven aid the choice!), you must smack with it, and smack, and again smack, until your pellet lies in a little round sunk canister. You pick it out and proceed as before, ever urging your little round ball from a lump of sand (called a "tee") to a canister (called a "hole"): You do this eighteen times, and go home and talk about it. If there be nothing to talk about, be sure you have talked enough on the road-that is the first consolation of the game. The second is, that in default of making talk over what you actually did you can fall back and discuss what you might have done, what you did on another occasion, and marvel why on this occasion the gods baulked you.

The pastime, as I have described it, was invented in Scotland. It is a capital pastime for elderly men of the upper-middle class.

(1) For Elderly Men: (a) Because it doesn't much matter what these do, anyway, so long as they are not sitting still and scheming to exploit active men's work; (b) because the pastime, while in itself absurd, does engage a man's whole attention and distract it from real mischief for so long as an eighteen-hole round may employ him (often a considerable time); (c) because it gives an innocent turn to garrulity, the besetting weakness of age; and (d) because it coaxes the old boy into the open air; keeps him acted upon by a strong breeze, often a sea breeze, and so tends to prolong existence. (I cast this in to the credit side of the account, without argument.)

(2) of the Upper-middle Class: (a) Because it is expensive enough to rule out the lower and lower-middle class, yet not so damnably expensive as fox-hunting or the preserving of pheasants; (b) because the exertion it postulates while amply sufficient for a retired city man or solicitor, will scarcely keep the blood moving in an old country squire who

has been inured from childhood to field sports; and (c) because its rests, intervals, social functions, whiskies-andsodas, &c., will afford any fat, scantwinded fellow with endless opportunities of talking politics, cursing the lower orders, and pretending to a social position higher than his achievement.

Such, then, is the Scottish and Royal and Ancient Game of Golf. And if anyone urges against it that it encourages in the elderly man, for whom it was invented, profanity-nay, occasional blasphemy-during the brief while of play, I answer, "What does it matter?" It is much better that they should be cursing their Creator in the days of their middle-age-for a couple of hours-than plotting against man created in His image. Golf-beneficent golf-does withdraw them temporarily from that. Curses or no curses, the impartial pit awaits them.

But this "royal and ancient game”— it is not in any true sense ancient, and it was never royal save as an excuse for the talk of snobs-becomes a new and unpatriotic nuisance when it takes hold of the young. It has none of the discipline, the ordered grace of cricket; none of the discipline, the ordered pugnacity of football; none of the discipline, the ordered harmony of rowing. It does not call on beautiful self-sacrifice as do all of these: it equally fails to call, as boxing calls, on straight pluck. Yet some schools permit it.

The worst is that, being essentially an elderly man's game, boys misled into playing it at school easily continue to play it in early manhood. And here comes in the gravamen of my charge. I have been chairman of a Recruiting Committee on a County Territorial Association. The force under that association is short of establishment-and where lies the blame? It lies with the officers, or with the men who ought to be officers. The rank and file are well enough: we could recruit them by the