... . A sumptuous, beautifully produced, and exceedingly valuable work, not without bearing on stage matters, is that on British Costume during Nineteen Centuries (Civil and Ecclesiastical), by Mrs. Charles H. Ashdown, published at 12s. 6d. net by T. C. and E. C. Jack. Mrs. Ash down, who is a lecturer upon costume and medieval ncad-oressco, ana nas aaviscu upon costume at several of the ...

... It was a perilous honour to be a tradesman to the Court of Philip II of Spain. His son, Don Carlos (of whose eccentricities Dr. A. S. Rappoport tells in his Ma ...

... The Rose of Dauphiny One is sometimes tempted to believe that French history was expressly made for novelists. It is, at any rate, certain that Mr. Philip L. Stevenson is among the no ...

... It was New Year's Eve, and I, sitting lonely by the fireside, was thinking those thoughts which must needs come to every man who has played his little part ...

... One does not usually conceive Louis XVIII as a humorist, but in her book on him, published this week by Hutchinson, Mary F. Sandars recounts some of the practical jokes of his e ...

... .£.60,000 for a Seat Less than a century ago seats in Parliament were regularly bought and sold. Flood, the Irish politician, purchased a seat in the English House of ...

... . 1. KIDER HAGGARD. (C asset I.) Had Mr. Rider Haggard's genius been com pelled to keep its native land, it would surely have found no congenial home in English town or country outside His Majesty's. Fortunately, there has been no such restriction, and its happiest ground has been Africa Africa old and new. His latest romance, , belongs to the past. Ancient Thebes and the great unmolested ...

... . By Marie Van Vorst. (Mills and Boon.) American towns, American ways, and American expressions place in what may at least be regarded as a bracing atmosphere. Should a lover meet his lady after long absence, and meet her married, Bully 1 he breathes in ecstasy. Bully the remark finds an English reader cold to the fine moment. But once hardened to the gosh and gollys and corkers, ...

... . By Alan R. Haig Brown. I KNOW of no sound more peculiarly suited to the stately country homes of England than the cawing of the rooks as they circle above the lofty elm trees. I know of no bird more cordially detested by agriculturists and game preservers than the sable pillager of grain and nests. And yet even in this matter-of-fact world of to-day, the good which the rook does, albeit of ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. EAST AND WEST.-- THE BAD GIRL OF THE FAMILY. WHY should folk smile when one mentions The Bad Girl of the Family'! I do not know, unless we are supposed to assume that Mr. Fredk. Melville's play, be cause it comes from over the water, is to be regarded indulgently by the world west of Temple Bar. Does not this however, raise a question which will allow of a great deal of ...

... . MR. FORHMAN has started his Repertory Theatre at the Duke of York's with a production in most respects typical of such a venture. The Justice of Mr. John Galsworthy is a play well worthy of presentation, and sure to com mand the interest, of a certain thoughtful section of playgoers. But it is emphatically not a play for every one's money, and it is thus suited for production only under ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC, THE TENTH MAN, AT THE GLOBE THEATRE. ACCORDING to George Winter, M.P. for Middlepool, in Mr. Maugham's play at the Globe Theatre, Nine men out of ten are either rogues or fools, and it is only The Tenth Man who is what-- well, different from the other nine, There are so many ways in which such difference may be manifested that we ought to be obliged to Mr. .Maugham ...