and converted to his view that saintly worldling, the gorgeous Cardinal Camperioni.  A neo-futurist of the most bizarre type prances through the pages upon his head, causing enough “tumult” to satisfy any one.  So why drag in Pan?  Miss VALLINGS can tell a story, cannot keep down the volume of her puppets’ talk, has a sense of movement and colour, and ought to win for herself a good circulating library constituency.

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For myself I have never yet lived in a sailing barge, and under the providence of Heaven trust to continue in this immunity.  There are however those who regard the matter differently; and for their benefit I have no hesitation in recommending most warmly A Floating Home (CHATTO AND WINDUS), written by CYRIL IONIDES and J.B.  ATKINS, and illustrated partly with photographs, partly with water-colour sketches by that various craftsman, Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT.  Let me say at once that you have no need to be an amateur bargee, either by practice or desire, to enjoy this most entertaining volume.  Witness my own case, who read every page of it with delight.  It is a reasonable contention that a writer possessing the enthusiasm, the humour and the persuasive gifts of Mr. IONIDES, with a twelve-and-sixpenny book for their display, could present a case that would give some theoretic and superficial charm to the most uncomfortable conditions of existence.  Not that A Floating Home is a work only of theory; on the contrary, nothing could be more practical than its account of the purchase, conversion and enjoyment of the Ark Royal.  The most prejudiced—­again I speak personally—­will find pleasure in the author’s zestful story of how the dingy, foul-smelling Will Arding, full of cement (and worse things), was transformed into the spick-and-span Ark Royal, with a piano in the saloon and Queen Anne silver on the breakfast-table; while for the persuadable there are added plans, scales of expense and the like, which bring the whole matter to a working basis.  The book, in short, is propaganda at its best (was it perhaps this that attracted Mr. BENNETT?) and as such well entitled to its toll of converts.

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Warriors and Statesmen (MURRAY) is a book selected from the “gleanings” of the late Lord BRASSEY.  Such gleanings depend so largely on the personality of the gleaner that they may be worth anything or nothing; so let me say at once that Lord BRASSEY had too sound a taste to be a collector of ill-considered trifles.  Although warriors have the place of honour in the title they are given but little space in the book.  Still, in these days the soldier can well afford to let the statesman have the advantage in a collection that does not deal with the living.  This limitation may explain the absence of all mention of Lord ROBERTS, who was probably still alive when the gleanings were completed.  Apart from the evidence it gives of a fine mind the book preserves much that is worth remembering and presents it in a convenient form.  For this we have in part to thank Mr. HORACE HUTCHINSON, to whom Lord BRASSEY entrusted the work of selecting these literary sheaves.