has all the makings of a good novel, but unfortunately stops there,
unmade or rather unvitalized. It is the tale of a boy's upbringing
by a sternly antagonistic father, of his growth to maturity, his love
affairs, and in due course his relations with his own son. All the
events happen that are proper to a scheme of this type; but somehow,
despite the fact that Mr. C. KENNETT BURROW wields a practised and
often picturesque pen, the whole affair remains a literary exercise
and declines to come alive. Perhaps in justice I should except two
characters, _Roland_, the sturdy-son born out of wedlock to _Tony_,
and _Phil_, weakling child of old _Heron_ by a second marriage. Both
these and the relation of the pair to each other furnish a pleasant
contrast to the anæmia which seems to affect the rest of the tale.
Stay, there is yet another, _Kenrick_, the private tutor of _Tony_,
whose treatment by the author is at least vigorous. I found him just a
little surprising. A creature, we are told, over fond of good food and
wine, who, dining with his pupil on the latter's sixteenth birthday
and attempting convivial airs, is shown his place with a promptitude
recalling the best manner of the eighteenth century. Subsequently,
one gathers, he took to chronic alcoholism, combined with amateur
blackmail; and a final appearance shows the fellow dribbling wine
over the evening shirt, to whose wear the author is at pains to tell
us he was unused. Clearly a low race, these tutors, about whom I seem
hitherto to have been strangely misinformed.

* * * * *

Captain ROBERT B. ROSS has made excellent business of _The Fifty-First
in France_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON). In any case there could be no
doubts about the merits of this famous Scottish territorial division;
it is one of the very many British divisions which has proved itself