abandoned by her friends, and loathing the fruits of her conduct. Even now, "Maldo" offers to marry and make a respectable woman of her, and she is half tempted to consent. But she hears that Laurence has returned. She will tell him everything. He must understand how she has got into this trouble. She tells him the whole pitiable little history with its sordid details, which the audience now learns for the first time, and confidently awaits his forgiveness. She even mentions "Maldo's" wish to marry her. This (the revelation) is false step number four! Laurence says good-bye and forsakes her, one must charitably suppose, with the idea that "Maldo” will carry out his intention of marriage. But "Maldo," who has found the letter in which she appointed the meeting with Laurence, has been waiting for the result which he anticipates of their interview. He has had his revenge, and is now only bent upon asserting his mastery of himself and of her. He orders her out of "his" house, that very night. Half-stunned and wholly heart-broken, she obeys, and goes out without a word-one shudders to think to what inevitable fate! It will not be suicide-yet!

Iris is a fine play! The principal character strikes one as a real creation. As a sex play, it endorses the conventional view that woman's immorality is damnable, and man's virtue immaterial. Both the men despise Iris, pitilessly, for her weakness, of which each of them has taken advantage. Of course, the sympathy of the audience is enlisted for her, as one who "suffers much," but she is to be condemned, however pitiable. Such seems to be the playwright's verdict. There is no pretence, that she remains, in spite of all, a pure' woman! Mr. Pinero is too sensible a man to admit such an absurd idea for an instant. Society is cruel to her, but her own character, or want of character, is the cruellest influence in her fate. It is a tragedy of temperament, not of destiny. From one point of view, the play might be taken as a terrible indictment of latter-day luxury. Love of luxury, the refusal to look the facts of life in the face, to accept the lot of the workingday world, is at the root of Iris's misfortunes. To onlookers, accustomed to a strenuous life, there is something almost absurd in her trivial difficulties. And yet, one knows that of such stuff as she, are made, essentially, all the "unfortunate" women, who nightly swarm the streets of our great cities. One may be as indignant as possible with "conventional" Society-its cruelty to women, its condonement of the fault of men. But, until the whole Wesen (the German word expresses it) of a certain proportion of women is radically altered, no change in laws or social habits, can benefit them much. As a moralist, Mr. Pinero holds up an awful warning to women of this soft, sensuous, good-natured, self-abandoning type. An alternative title of the play might well be "The Harlot's Progress." But the warning need not be assumed to belong only to women.

The curse of luxury eats into the heart of man, and brings destruction in one form or another to the whole community, regardless of sex. Lifeless as the other characters in the play are, there is a hint, in the young girl, Aurea Vyse, the only one to whom it occurs, at the time of misfortune, to be up and earning an honest living, of the direction in which salvation lies. To sum up, then, Mr. Pinero's work in social drama. In "Mrs. Tanqueray," he shows a woman, of a more robust conscience than Iris, it is true, but with the same basic nature, and inevitably, a tragic end. Her inherent excitability and restlessness such as shows itself often in women who are technically "respectable" is the rain first of happiness-and finally of life itself. No refusal to "recognise" on the part of Society-an evil, by the way, to which every one in whatever position is more or less subject -has anything to say to her misery. "Mrs. Ebbsmith" is a rebel against society, of malice aforethought, and suffers definitely under her breach of the conventions. The dramatist is again, we take it, more concerned to show, that under existing conditions, a rebel is bound to suffer, than either to defend her, or to condemn the conditions. He depicts the natural consequences of such conduct, and leaves you to draw your own conclusions. In all this, he is very different from Ibsen, who for the most part invokes admiration, or at least sympathy, for the rebels. Again, in "Lord Quex," Mr. Pinero displays as cynically as possible, but again without express condemnation, the wild-oat-sowing man, reformed, as such as he can he reformed, and not suffering as women do, from his past life-apparently! The moral lesson here, if one must be drawn, is what we all know well enough, that the respect of the world does prevent a man from falling as low as he might otherwise. Quex, though a fallen man, is able to recover a certain measure of decency, because Society does not insist upon pushing him further down. The subject is treated in a lighter vein, and must be recognised as representing truthfully certain sides of life. That such things should be possible may well cause indignation, but indignation is not Mr. Pinero's métier. "You see yourself!" he would appear to say. "If you think that admirableWell, you do!"

BELLES LETTRES.

MR. ANDREW LANG is an agreeable writer but not a good critic. His volume, Alfred Tennyson,1 does not "hit off" the strong points of the poet. If we regard it as mere biography, it is readable; but really the world already knows quite enough about Tennyson's life.

1 Alfred Tennyson. By Andrew Lang. ("Modern English Writers.") Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood & Sons.

Mr. Lang introduces some long prosy pseudo-theological discussions as to Tennyson's faith or unfaith which will interest nobody except a few clergymen and "cranks." The closing chapter, in which an attempt is made to define Tennyson's "precise rank in the glorious roll of the poets of England" (what an example of the twaddling style this is!) is singularly lame and impotent. Let us give Mr. Lang's own words: "We do not, or should not, ask whether Virgil or Lucretius, whether schylus or Sophocles, is the greater poet. The consent of mankind seems to place Homer and Shakespeare and Dante high above all. For the rest, no prize list can be settled. If influence among aliens is the test, Byron probably takes among our poets the next rank after Shakespeare. But probably there is no possible test. In certain respects Shelley, in many respects Milton, in some Coleridge, in some Burns, in the opinion of a number of persons Browning, are greater poets than Tennyson. But for exqui site variety and varied exquisiteness Tennyson is not readily surpassed." Could a more glaring proof be afforded of Mr. Lang's utter incompetence as a critic than this absurd passage? To compare Milton or Shelley with Tennyson is something like lunacy—or at least imbecility. Why ring the changes on Tennyson's "exquisite variety" and "varied exquisiteness?' Why waste precious words in this reckless fashion? Tennyson is really a great poetic artist, though not a great poet. Mr. Lang-who thinks Mr. Rider Haggard a novelist-does not appreciate such distinctions. In his criticism of Maud, Mr. Lang has made a great discovery. The hero. of the poem is "merely the Master of Ravenswood in modern. costume." This is Mr. Lang's incidental tribute to his literary idol, Scott. Now there is nothing in common between Scott and Tennyson. Scott's poetry would be tolerable, and so would his literary personality, if he had never written the Waverley Novels. Mr. Lang is just fifty years behind the age as a critic. His, indeed, is the criticism of fogeydom.

A Man, a Woman, and a Dog1 is one of the most amusing books that we have ever read. Mr. Robert B. Sathers sees the absurd side of things very keenly. His onslaught on the follies of vegetarianism will make even vegetarians laugh. The humours of matrimony have never been better illustrated than they have in this exceedingly clever book.

We

The Celtic Temperament 2 is a fascinating volume of essays. do not entirely agree with all Mr. Grierson's views. He is too severe on modern materialism, but there is much truth in his severe estimate of the music-hall. The readers of THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW are familiar with Mr. Grierson's style, which is lucid, forcible, and convincing. Every essay in the volume deserves to be studied 1 A Man, a Woman, and a Dog. By Robert B. Suthers. London: Walter Scott. 2 The Celtic Temperament and other Essays. By Francis Grierson. London: George Allen.

VOL. 156.-No. 6.

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carefully. Mr. Grierson's "modernity" is one of his great charms. He has the power of saying exactly what he means and of seeing into the inmost truth of things. His exalted view of the Celtic temperament will win for him much sympathy, but he has scarcely done justice to the masculine qualities of the Teuton. Some of the "Reflexions" at the end of the volume are really profound. For instance: "Nothing revives our waning illusions like the promise of a life which flatters our weaknesses.'

An Album of Adventures1 is a good collection of boys' stories. There is not much of the adventurous element in some of them. "Dagnerous to Cyclists" is a misleading title, for the "danger" is more imaginary than real. "The Knight of the White Ribbon" is perhaps the best story in the book. All the narratives are entertaining if not original, and the book will sustain Mr. Hope's high reputation as a writer of boys' stories.

Tom the Piper's Son 2 is an old-world child's story. Mr. George Allen has brought out a charmingly illustrated edition of this nursery tale, and the artist, T. Buller Stoney, has produced some most amusing and ingenious pictures. The book ought to be welcome to the young at Christmastide.

Circumstance, by Dr. Weir Mitchell, is a very interesting study of American life. The character of the adventuress, Mrs. Hunter, is admirably portrayed. The heroine, Kitty Morrow, is a goodnatured but weak and impressionable girl. The story is told with great esprit, and there are some striking scenes here and there, but the dénouement is rather unsatisfactory.

A Friend with the Countersign is another good American novel. It deals with the period of the Civil War. Mr. B. K. Benson has succeeded in depicting General Meade's camp with much vividness, and the adventures of the hero, Jones Berwick, are most dramatically related.

Mr. Rudyard Kipling is one of those writers who have won popularity by pandering to the basest and most vulgar instincts of the English people. His new book, Kim,5 is perhaps his most ambitious effort as a novelist. The scene of the story is laid in India, and it must be acknowledged that Mr. Kipling knows more about Indian than about English life. Nevertheless, as a novel, the book is a ghastly failure. The boy Kim and the Lama are the only two characters in the story that have the slightest resemblance to human beings. The construction of the plot is wretchedly defective. In fact, a schoolboy who had read a dozen standard works of fiction, could easily have fashioned a more coherent and harmonious plot. 1 An Album of Adventures. By Ascott R. Hope. London: A. and C. Black.

2 Tom the Piper's Son. Illustrated by T. Butler Honey. London: George Allen. 3 Circumstance. By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd.

4 A Friend with the Countersign. By B. K. Benson. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd. New York: the Macmillan Company.

Kim. By Rudyard Kipling. London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

But, of course, even Mr. Kipling's warmest admirers-for he has many admirers amongst the great army of the illiterate and halfeducated-would not claim for him the gifts of the late Wilkie Collins. The question remains-does Mr. Kipling possess the higher faculty of character-painting or psychological analysis? In our opinion he does not. If he understands the bizarre habits and ideas of the Hindoos, he has failed to grasp the "true inwardness " of Hindoo life. He is a superficial observer and a slipshod writer. His short stories of Indian life are his best productions, but, taken as a whole, they are too sketchy and unfinished to give him any real claim to a place in literature. He is not an artist in the true sense of the word. His ideal of life is a very low one-the notion that physical strength and the love of domination constitute heroism. Such a view of man's destiny and aspirations is only worthy of a hobbledehoy or a Hooligan. Kim is a crude, inartistic novel, but it is, perhaps, the best that Mr. Kipling can write.

Seule,1 by M. Henri Ardel, is a novel in which there is, perhaps, a little too much overstrained emotion. The sorrows of the beautiful Ghislaine are certainly not unreal sorrows, for poverty and friendlessness are the hardest ordeals that a girl of good family may have to face in a plutocratic age. The story is written with great power and tenderness, though it tends too much to produce an impression of gloom on the reader's mind.

La Colonne 2 is a thrilling story of the Commune. The scenes describing the excitement produced amongst the old soldiers at the "Invalides" by the Communist outbreak are splendid in their simple realism. M. Lesclaves is not blind to the faults of the would-be emancipators of France after the "débâcle" of 1870-71, but he presents us in these pages with some of the nobler aspects of the struggle in which the Communists played such a striking and dramatic "rôle."

The new section of the Oxford English Dictionary (Vol. V., KAISER-KYX), concludes the letter K, and completes the fifth volume, of which it also contains the title-page and preface. In the letter K there are no less than 3569 words recorded in the dictionary. In Johnson's Dictionary there were only 205 words in the same letter, and in Funk's Standard Dictionary there were 2071. Some of the words in K are of very great importance. Take, for example, the word "King." More than two pages (making about seven columns) of the dictionary are devoted to this word. There is some obscurity as to the relation in form and sense of "king" to "kin," and the explanation given does not throw much light on the subject.

1 Seule. Par Henri Ardel. Paris: Librairie Plon-Nourrit et Cie.

2 La Colonne. Par Desclaves. Paris Librairie Plon-Nourrit et Cie. The Oxford English Dictionary. A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. Edited by Dr. J. A. H. Murray. (KAISER-KYX.) Vol.V. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.