more usually associated with the name of the present biographer.  It may be said at once that, if a life of Biffin had to be written, Captain GRAHAM was emphatically the man for the task; indeed, from the preface, with its absorbing account of the inception of the work in certain alleged convivialities between author and publishers, to the final chapter, there is not a page that is not calculated to inspire the reader with profound (and in my own case frequently uncontrollable) emotion.  Nor is the work valuable for the central figure alone.  Of each member of the Biffin circle Captain GRAHAM tells (nay, repeats) some anecdote that forms a tribute at once to the fertility of his research and the industry of his invention.  I should not omit to add that the volume is enriched with some admirably reproduced portraits of members of the Biffin circle, as also by an index that is itself a monument of inaccuracy so subtle that it must be traced to be appreciated.

* * * * *

Mr. REGINALD BLUNT has scored another brilliant success with The Wonderful Village (MILLS AND BOON).  It is one of his Chelsea books of anecdote, gossip and good talk of which he possesses the secret.  He knows how to create the right Chelsea atmosphere and he is most artful in leading his readers on, just as a little dog shows himself every now and then at a decoy and thus draws the inquisitive ducks after him till they drift in with all exit cut off.  At one moment Mr. BLUNT gives you a glimpse of that bloodthirsty butcher, KING HENRY VIII.  Then you pass to ANNE BOLEYN, CATHERINE PARR and the PRINCESS ELIZABETH.  Further on there is a delightfully humorous account by WILLIAM DE MORGAN of his attempt to induce CARLYLE to become a member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings:  “He promised to think it over, chiefly, I think, because Sir JAMES STEPHEN had rather implied that the Society’s object was not worth thinking over.  He added one or two severe comments on the contents of space.”  The various Chelsea potteries are not omitted, and there is an account of the wonderful set designed and executed by the WEDGWOODS for the EMPRESS CATHERINE OF RUSSIA.  Of this, in 1909, about one thousand pieces were surviving.  Who shall say where those are now?  I may add that the author’s profits on this book are to be given for the assistance of our blinded soldiers and sailors at St. Dunstan’s.

* * * * *

The title of Miss F.E.  MILLS YOUNG’S The Shadow of the Past (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) does not refer to the youthful transgressions of any of her characters, but to the cloud which the Boer War left behind it, to burst ultimately in rebellion.  I do not know any novelist who brings to her work a greater sympathy with or a finer feeling for South Africa than Miss YOUNG, and if her moderate methods do not find favour the reason can only be that for the moment moderation is a rather unpopular quality.