... * Rogues have ever the heart of the world. There is a charm about wickedness that one seeks vainly in the white commonplaces of the Blameless Life; one respects Arthur of the Table Round, but one loves Jack Sheppard and his thousand brethren. It was very probably this appreciation of the agreeable and fascinating qualities of all Roguedom which prompted that pseudo-blasphemous roisterer of old ...

... . Mr. A. C. Benson, in his preface to his book of poems (Mathews and Lane), has some wholesome things to say of critics. He is scornful of the sacerdotal tone they have taken to adopting, and as he speaks of them we stop in our reading to applaud: Where criticism of literature diverts our enraptured attention to great masterpieces, it is wholly valuable; wherever it diverts our pleased notice ...

... NOTES FROM. TEE THEATRES. Changes, even revolutions, in dramatic opinion leave the Adelphi untouched. Mr. Henry Pettitt-- certainly the most successful purveyor of melodrama-- might have lived on a desert island these ten years for all trace of modern influence in his new play. I do not think that this will in the least affect the success of A Woman's Revenge. The work shows a return to the ...

... .* It is not many months since Mr. Zangwill complained dismally at a gathering of bibliophiles that he could not have the children of the Ghetto with him always, nor write of Jews for Jews, and others, as the public seemed to desire. If I do not misjudge him, the very wealth of appreciation given to Ghetto Tragedies was in some part a grievance of his, since the success of the book had set ...

... TIIE LITERARY LOUNGER. One of the prettiest books for children to be published during the season is The Little Mermaid, and other Stories, of Hans Christian Andersen. The translator is Mr. R. Nisbit Bain, who is rapidly making way as a competent authority in regions of literature where there are very few experts in this country. The illustrator is Mr. J. R. Weguelin, and, judging of the ...

... . An interesting little book of essays, pretty in outward form, precious in style and thought, but graceful with all its affectations, is Mr. G. S. Street's Miniatures and Moods (Nutt). They are studies in seventeenth- century subjects-- at least, the Miniatures are-- and their cleverness and some of their other qualities bear the stamp of the brilliant periodical in which they ...

... * The dominating note of Mr. William Le Quenx's hero is generosity. There never was a man who enjoyed so unique an experience. I can quite imagine the ashes of Mr. Rider Haggard's She coming together again from the fires of death to protest against Cecil Holcombe's performance. It is true that She could kill a gentleman by smiling upon him-- but this was mere child's-play side by side with ...

... HOES D'CEUYRES. There is no doubt that the Monstrous Regiment of Women dreaded by John Knox is come upon us, in the philanthropic world. The Temperance Women (not always Temperate Women) are in our pulpits, on our platforms, on committees, and on the rampage. Not that anybody need specially object to their presence. If we could substitute young, fluent, and attractive females for many of the ...

... NOTES EEOM THE THEATRES. The Derby Winner has shown such staying power, and proved to be so popular a favourite, that there is no small interest in the photograph which gives the faces of nearly all those who take part in riding it home to triumph every night. Certainly it is a wonderful collection. Mrs. John Wood, gayest, youngest in spirits of our broad comedians, the absolute stage ideal ...

... THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. WRECKAGE. BY HUBERT CRACKENTHORPE. I suppose Germinic Lacerteux is ail old-fashioned novel now, though it is not easy to see what the school of naturalism has gained in the thirty years since the De Goncourts wrote that hook. Mr. Cracken- tliorpe, at all events, is not ashamed to acknowledge his debt to masters who preceded Zola, for he sets in the forefront of his ...

... After School. By Robert Overton. (Jarrold and Sons.) This is a brisk and lively caper through the million madnesses of school and after boy life, as well as various other parts personated by that unruly genus, boy. Two dozen bright, pleasant little stories, with an illustration to the graphic incident which each describes, make the volume an attractive aspirant of the Christmas present order ...

... Out of Reach. By Esme Stuart. (Chambers. A pretty little tale of girl life this, with some orthodox misfortunes, arising chiefly from an absence of that convenient quantity which only poets speak of nowadays as the root of all evil. Two orphan girls are adopted by a stem and mysterious woman of the stepmother in fiction type. Through their appearance in the old, quiet house by the forest ...