spouter. No one with a sense of humour who has read that
series can now stand up and recite a poem of a sentimental or an heroic
nature from the pens of Mr. Clement Scott or Mr. G. R. Sims without
genius to back him; and no one who heard it could retain his gravity to
the end. "Burglar Bill" melted almost to repentance by the innocent
child who asked him to burgle her doll's house, and whose salvation was
finally wrought by the gift of the baby's jamtart--killed the Young
Reciter by dint of pure ridicule and honest fun. He has made an
unsophisticated reciter as impossible as a sympathetic and sentimental
audience.

And in "Voces Populi"--the popular dramas in dialogue, in which the
conversation accurately and concisely describes the character,
temperament, and tastes of the speaker--there is a humorous verbal
photography of extraordinary vividness. 'Arry is no longer a symbol and
a type, as he is in Mr. Milliken's hands; he is a definite person in one
particular position in life and no other, and what he says could not, we
feel, possibly have been said in any other way, nor by any other person.
And so along the whole gamut of the classes through which Mr. Anstey
leads us. The humour is penetrating, and it is difficult to say where
the truth ends and the caricature begins. Who can forget the visit to
the Tudor Exhibition, when Henry VIII's remarkable hat was on view?
"'Arry," says 'Arriet to her escort; "look 'ere; fancy a king goin'
about in a thing like that--pink with a green feather! Why, I wouldn't
be seen in it myself!" 'Arry, who is clearly _farceur_, replies with a
pretty wit: "Ah, but that was ole 'Enery all over, that was; he wasn't
one for show. He liked a quiet, unassumin' style of 'at, he did. 'None
o' yer loud pot'ats for Me!' he'd tell the Royal 'atters; 'find me a
tile as won't attract people's notice, or you won't want a tile
yerselves in another minute!' An' you may take yer oath they served him
pretty sharp, too!" And so it is all through; the talk of the people, of
everybody in all sorts of positions in life, is recorded in these
"Voces," and in all there is the same quality of nature.

In "Travelling Companions," nearly as amusing and quite as observant, we
are made to feel that the two heroes detest each other hardly more than
Mr. Anstey detests Culcherd, the more unsympathetic and contemptible of
the two. They are nearly as despicable as they are funny, and their
creator has little pity for them o