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The Diary of a Journalist (MURRAY) is a volume of which the title is its own sufficient description, save that it leaves unsuggested the interest that such briskly written and comprehensive comments as these of our old friend, Sir HENRY LUCY, must command.  His book differs from most of those in the flood of recollections that has lately broken upon us in being a selection from “impressions of the moment written without knowledge of the ultimate result.”  In these stray moments between the years 1885 and 1917 I find at least two examples in which this ignorance of the final event adds much to the interest of the immediate record—­the startling forecast of the EX-KAISER’S destiny, entered in the Diary under November ’98; and the mention, long before the actual illness of KING EDWARD declared itself, of the growing belief in certain circles that his coronation would never take place.  It is at once obvious that not even “TOBY’S” three previous volumes have by any means exhausted his fund of good stories, the scenes of which range from Westminster to Bouverie Street, and round half the stately (or, at least, interesting) homes of England.  Of them all—­not forgetting DISRAELI and the peacocks and a new W. S. GILBERT—­my personal choice would be for the mystery of the Unknown Guest, who not only took a place, but was persuaded to speak, at a private dinner given by Sir JOHN HARE at the Garrick Club, without anyone ever knowing who he was or how he came there.  A genial lucky-bag book, which (despite unusually full chapter headings) would be improved by an index to its many prizes.

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Mr. JAMES HILTON is very young and very clever.  If, as he grows older, he learns to be clever about more interesting things he ought to write some very good novels. Catherine Herself (UNWIN) has red hair, but then she has a rather more red-haired disposition than most red-haired heroines have to justify it, so this is not my real objection to the book.  My quarrel is that, though I cannot call it an ugly story without giving a false impression, it is certainly a quite unbeautiful one, and at the end of its three hundred and more pages it has achieved nothing but a full-length portrait of an utterly selfish woman.  Mr. HILTON has dissected her most brilliantly; but I don’t think she is worth it.  Catherines, whether they marry or are given in marriage, or do anything else, are really stationary; and, since the persons of a story, if it is to be worth telling, must move in some direction, Mr. HILTON will be well advised in future to choose a different type of heroine.  I want to say too that I don’t believe that it is either so easy or so profitable to become a well-known pianist “not in the front rank” as he seems to imagine it is.  I wish I could think that no one else would believe him.

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[Illustration:  Knight (to his henchman).  “EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT, PERKINS?  YOU HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN ANYTHING?  WHAT’S THAT?”