From Friend to Friend (MURRAY) is the name given, from the first of them, to a collection of eight fugitive papers, prepared for republication by the late Lady RITCHIE during the last months of her life, and now edited by her sister-in-law, Miss EMILY RITCHIE.  Fugitive though they may have been in original intent, these pages are so filled with their writer’s delicate and very personal charm that her lovers will be delighted to have their flight thus pleasantly arrested.  Lady RITCHIE was above all else the perfect appreciator. Horas non numerat nisi serenas; the gaze that she turns smilingly upon old happy far-off days looks through spectacles rose-tinted both by the magic of retrospect and her own genius for admiration.  London, Freshwater, Paris, Rome—­these are the settings of her memories; and we see them all by a light that (perhaps) never was on land or sea, in whose radiance beauty and wit and genius move wonderfully to a perpetual music.  In truth, however, these eminent Victorians of Lady RITCHIE’S circle must have been a rare company; I have no space for even a catalogue of them—­Mrs. CAMERON, with her vague magnificence, pouring letters and an embarrassment of gifts upon her dear TENNYSONS; the KEMBLE sisters, LOCKHART, THACKERAY himself, a score of great and (to the kindly chronicler) gracious personalities live again in her pages.  I should add that the volume is rounded off by a short story, a late addition to the Miss Williamson series, which might be called a pot-boiler, were it not somehow incongruous to associate so gentle a flame with any such activities.  Slight as it is, From Friend to Friend forms an apt and graceful finish to the work of one whose life was given to the claims of friendship.

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Fanny goes to War (MURRAY) should be read by those who also went and those who didn’t.  It is a chronicle of the adventures of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry in Belgium and France—­vivid; inviting wonder, laughter and sometimes tears; fresh and delicious.  The account of the first visit to the trenches awakens memories.  Viewed from this distance it seems all to have been so picturesque, such fun!  The humour of Thomas, the intelligence and tact of the good French poilu, the awful moments and the wild jests in between—­these are all shown.  The splendid humour with which “PAT BEAUCHAMP,” the author, bravely endured her own casualty with its distressing effects is typical in itself of that spirit in the Anglo-Saxon race which made the Teuton race wish it hadn’t.  In my view, the obiter dictum of an anonymous Colonel sums up the values of this ladies’ contingent better than does the preface of the distinguished Major-General:  “Neither fish, flesh nor fowl,” said the Colonel on having the constitution of this anomalous unit explained to him, “but thundering good red herring!” Time was, I believe and hope, when I myself, passing through the Base Port on leave and