To review one of Mr. E.F.  BENSON’S social satires always gives me somewhat the sensations of the reporter at the special sermon—­a relieved consciousness that, being present on business, my own withers may be supposed professionally unwrung.  Otherwise, so exploratory a lash....  I seldom recall the touch of it more shrewd than in Queen Lucia (HUTCHINSON), an altogether delightful castigation of those persons whom a false rusticity causes to change a good village into the sham-bucolic home of crazes, fads and affectation.  All this super-cultured life of the Riseholme community has its centre in Mrs. Lucas, the acknowledged queen of the place (Lucia = wife of Lucas, which shows you the character of her empire in a single touch); the matter of the tale is to tell how her autocracy was threatened, tottered and recovered.  I wish I had space to quote the description of the Lucas home, “converted” from two genuine cottages, to which had been added a wing at right-angles, even more Elizabethan than the original, and a yew-hedge, “brought entire from a neighbouring farm and transplanted with solid lumps of earth and indignant snails around its roots.”  Perhaps, apart from the joy of the setting, you may find some of the incidents, the faith-healer, the medium and so on, a trifle obvious for Mr. BENSON.  More worthy of him is the central episode—­ the arrival as a Riseholme resident of Olga Bracely, the operatic star of international fame.  Her talk, her attitude towards the place, and the subtle contrast suggested by her between the genuine and the pretence, show Mr. BENSON at his light-comedy best.  In short, a charming entertainment, in speaking of which you will observe I have not once so much as mentioned the word “Cotswolds.”

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Michael Forth (CONSTABLE) will doubtless convey a wonderful message to those of us who are clever enough to grasp its meaning; but I fear that it will be a disappointment to many admirers of Miss MARY JOHNSTON’S earlier books.  Frankly I confess myself bewildered and unable to follow this excursion into the region of metaphysics; indeed I felt as if I had fallen into the hands of a guide whose language I could only dimly and dully understand.  All of which may be almost entirely my fault, so I suggest that you should sample Michael for yourselves and see what you can make of him.  Miss JOHNSTON shouldered an unnecessarily heavy burden when she decided to tell the story of her hero in the first person, but in relating Michael’s childhood in his Virginian home she is at her simplest and best.  Afterwards, when Michael became intent on going “deeper and deeper within,” he succeeded so well that he concealed himself from me.

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