ucal verdict quoted
above. So that, if your taste jumps with that of his Grace, you also can
"sigh happily;" otherwise you will perhaps omit the adverb--and select a
story less exclusively romantic.

* * * * *

There is a spirit of Yorkshire and a spirit, I suppose, characteristic of
Suburbia, and on the outskirts of certain large manufacturing towns there
must exist a formidable blending of these two. To express the double
flavour of this essence requires, I should say, a subtler and more
elaborate method than Mr. W. RILEY has attempted to use in _A Yorkshire
Suburb_ (JENKINS). He has imagined for the purpose of these sketches an
architect, _Murgatroyd_, who in planning most of the houses in the locality
has attempted to express in brick and stone the characters of their several
occupants. This is a device which becomes rather monotonous as the book
proceeds, besides imposing a series of strains which neither architecture
nor credulity can easily bear. Since these are rather superior
suburbanites, dialect is for the most part absent, and it is hard to feel
that they are very different people from those who live about the borders
of Manchester or London; a character like _Mrs. Flitch_, for instance, who
is angelic to behold but a spiteful gossip at heart, is, alas! to be found
anywhere. And where the dialect does crop out it does not seem to be
dependent on suburban soil for its raciness. I don't doubt the accuracy of
Mr. RILEY'S Yorkshiremanship, but I do think he has under-estimated the
difficulty of localising the peculiar genius of villadom.

* * * * *

Though billed by her publisher as a merciless analyst, Mrs. MORDAUNT is
really (if you want to fling this kind of title about) an eclectic
synthetist or synthetic symbolist. Her wicked people are prodigiously
wicked, wickedness personified, in fact; her good folk are noble-hearted
without stint or measure. I don't personally think that anybody could be
quite so completely and gratuitously evil as good-looking _Charles Hoyland_
in _The Little Soul_ (HUTCHINSON); or, being so, could possibly be
recommended, still less engaged, as tutor to a sensitive youth; or, being
so engaged, tolerated for two days. He certainly could not hold down his
job long enough to corrupt his pupil, _Anthony Clayton_, by exchanging
souls with him under the nose of mad but perceptive _Mrs. Clayton_ and sane
sister _Diana_. This c