Tue Days Berors Yestervay. By Lord Frederic Hamilton, (Hodder and Stoughton. 12s. 6d. net.)
Lord Frederic Hamilton is, in the language of the Turf, a "stayer." He follows up "The Vanished Pomps of Yesterday" with another book just as full and delightful. Many of its stories will become known by quotation, but the stories are only one manifesto tion of his gift of reproducing social atmospheres. Some of the most charming passages have nothing outstanding in the way of anecdote, and yet give the sense of a perfect and living picture. This applies particularly to the chapter describing life in a small town of Southern France in 1874; the self-containment of the "bonne bourgeoisie," the fastidious finish to which it can bring the art of living, and the delicacy and grace of its humour, have rarely been better conveyed. There is another section of almost equal merit furnished by a sojourn in Brunswick Has the supremacy of schoolboy custom: ever been better illustrated than in the following recollection Some time' it the summer term the head boy would announce that "The Three Sundays" had. now arrived, and must be duly "oh. served " according to ancient cus. tom. We all obeyed him. implicitly The first Surday was "Cock-hat. Sum day," the second "Rag Sunday," and the third (if I. may. be pardoned) "Spit-in-the-pew Sunday." "On the first Sunday we all marcied to church with our high hats at at extreme anele over our left eves: on the second Sunday every boy had his handkeeailing out of his pocket; on the third, Tam sory to sav, thirty. one little boys expsctorated surrepiiviously in the pews, a3 the first. words of the Litany were repeated. I think that we were all convinced that. these were regularly appointed festivals the Church of Eogland. I know that T wes, and I spent hours hunting fruit-losely through my Prayer Book to find some allusion to them.
Lord Frederic's memory has been a fine gleaner. catching up the odd and the significant in life everywhere and converting it into the finest brand of pen-and-ink conversation,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.