... -The Literary Lounger. By Keble Howard .-f Hobbs. Whenever Hobbs walks out from the pavilion to take his knock at the wicket, I overhear the same remark from everybody in my neighbour hood; and it is this: Well, there goes the finest batsman in the world. He has never been top of the batting averages, yet it is never disputed that he is the finest batsman in the world. A proud achievement, ...

... . . By V. Sackville West. (The Hogarth Press 4s. 6d.) This, probably the shortest novel of the autumn season (74 pages), like Master Bill Primrose's song of the Mad Dog, cannot hold you long in the reading, but you won't get it out of your thoughts easily, for all that. In one way it will hold you long enough, for it is a condensed horror, the offspring of that phase of the author's talent ...

... %The Literary Lounger. By Keble Howard J^=WU The World of Fashion. It is always refreshing to get hold of a book by Mr. Ralph Nevill. He has such a light-hearted, devil-may-care way- with him. His method is to take an enormous canvas-- in the present volume, for example, he ranges with consummate ease from 1837 to 1922-- and fill it with little figures from Mayfair, Bohemia, and foreign ...

... Our Gr05 G*c SHAKE YOUR FEET, AT THE LONDON HIPPODROME. THIS revue is more a triumph of physical than of mental energy. The general who ordered his army to fire at the enemy's feet to blow out their brains would have had a great victory against the Hippodrome troops, whose feet, judging by the light dancing and the heavy dialogue. is the seat of their intelligence. It does not do to say that ...

... O Or0* q*c on THE THREE SISTERS. (The Fortune Theatre.) IF ever I get a thorough knowledge of the Rus sian tongue my first task will be to find out if the queer speech used in the novels and plays trans lated from that language into English is a genuine representation of the original. No doubt the difficulties are immense, the poor translator never knowing where trans lation should end and a ...

... THE STAGE OF THE DAY. Br Ashlev Dokes. wyndham's the dancers. THIS is a good Wyndham's Theatre play. There is sentiment in it, but no sentimen tality. There is a sudden death in it, but no tragedy. There is wit and wisdom, but no comedy. There is a sort of problem, but no particular solution. The thing moves. It is fairly plausible, brisk, and at the same time sincere and likeable. I he ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. IF WINTER COMES, AT THE ST. JAMES'S THEATRE. MR. A. S. M. HUTCHINSON helped on the cult of nature in art considerably by writing the novel, If Winter Comes, for he made the central figure of his work a man stripped of all the outward attributes of what we call dignity. Other authors who have de picted spirits too sensitive and con scientious for the rough traffic of ...

... Qur Oft'0* Cm c ON MANY HAPPY RETURNS, AT THE DUKE OF YORK'S THEATRE. THE newspaper critic, who lives by commenting on other people's work, whereas his Editor is usually too pressed for space to allow other people to comment on the critic's work, has been saying for years past that such and such a revue would be very tolerable but for its execrable book. The girls have kicked and simpered ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. JOHNNY JONES, AT THE ALHAMBRA THEATRE. MR. GEORGE ROBEY as a naughty boy caught the fancy of the town when The Bing Boys was brought out at the Alhambra, and the attraction has to an extent continued to the present time. Although already so well known on other stages, he was a new personality in West End revue, and as he came at a time when the Alhambra had been ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC THE GRAND] DUCHESS, AT THE GLOBE THEATRE. THE fault of The Grand Duchess is that it is altogether too much of a musical comedy without music. Many successful farcical comedies have the same characteristic, but this one has it in too great a degree. The piece positively emits a cri du eveur for a lovers' duet here, a topical song for the heavy father there, and what a ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. AT THE VILLA ROSE, AT THE STRAND THEATRE. IT is a great tribute to the purity and innocence of our dramatists that they seem to know nothing about professional criminals, who are always, in their plays, represented as being caught out first ball from a wretched stroke. Mr. A. E. W. Mason, the author of At the Villa Rose, has been a legislator in his time, yet we never ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. NED KEAN OF OLD DRURY AT DRURY LANE THEATRE. ALTHOUGH Drury Lane calls itself the National Theatre everybody hopes it is not, for if that stage represents the nation then we are a nation of dancers and clowns at Christmas time and a prey to gross exaggerations for the rest of the year. But if its claim to being national rests on its great size only there is nothing more ...