an ever-fruitful subject for discussion, both for Indian and British writers. In this volume, which completes a trilogy of Indian studies, Lord Ronaldshay deals with the mental revolt of the younger generation of educated Hindus against the tide of Western culture which threatens to sweep away the ancient philosophy of the Vedas. He goes to the root of the matter, laying bare the very heart of modern India, torn between natural tendencies inherited from long lines of ancestors, and characteristics acquired from contact with the foreigner and from education on Western lines. He has much of interest to say on this question of education. The whole system of higher education is, in his opinion, completely unrelated to Indian tradition. This anomaly is, strangely enough, the result, in the main, of efforts made by Indians themselves in the last century who, in a flush of enthusiasm for things of the West, began to despise their own learning and their own languages. Now the pendulum is swinging back, and India is beginning to appreciate once again the treasures of culture and knowledge which are her inheritance. But what if the pendulum swings too far? What if India, in her anxiety to free her soul from the encroachments of Western ideals, sinks back into a state of self-absorbed contemplation? The answer to this psychological problem which confronts Young India is to be found, the writer thinks, in the old doctrine of the Middle Way, preached and popularised by that greatest of all Indian sages, Buddha. The book throws light on many sidepaths puzzling to the Western mind: sex symbolism, Indian art, and monism; and four chapters are devoted to a study of the Vedanta. As an authoritative attempt to pierce the veil which hangs between East and West, Lord Ronaldshay's volume, written as it is with knowledge and sympathy, should appeal to a wide public, both in India and in this country.

A Grammar of Politics, by Harold J. Laski (Allen & Unwin).-Clearness of thought, aptness of illustration, a new and engaging attitude to an old theme-these are the characteristics of a book which certainly stands out as one of the important publications of the year. Thinkers of all schools will have to make themselves acquainted with Mr. Laski's original ideas concerning the State, and whether they agree with him or not, he is a writer who counts. His concern is not so much with political institutions as with their effect on individuals. The worth of institutions, according to Mr. Laski, depends upon their contribution to the welfare of individuals. And, since freedom is regarded by this writer as the most vital element in the life of the citizen, to give men an opportunity for creative freedom is the ultimate purpose of all political institutions. This proposition he attempts to establish step by step by careful analysis, clear definition, and attractive application. What is Sovereignty? What is the precise meaning of Liberty and Equality? What is the value of Nationalism? What is the influence on the State to-day of Property? These are some of the large and fundamental questions that are considered in this volume, and the treatment is on a very high level of excellence. The concluding chapter is devoted to a consideration of the actual experiments in international organisation that are afoot, and in particular the League of

." A new political philosophy is necessary to a new world: "

these are Mr. Laski's opening words. It is not too much to say that, greatly daring, he has furnished that new political philosophy.

Contemporary Political Thought in England, by Lewis Rockow (Leonard Parsons). Those who desire a handy and well-informed guide to the trend of political thought in this country will find all they require in Mr. Rockow's pages. He begins with the past-Bentham, Austin, Mill, and the rest-and indicates how political thinkers of the present age have deviated from the ancient established principles. There are the Psychologists, typified by Graham Wallas and William McDougall; the Idealists, among whom Sir Henry Jones is a foremost exponent; the Collectivists, like Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb; and the Individualists, whose spokesman is Mr. Mallock. All these are reviewed in turn, and their attitude to the State described. Two of the most interesting chapters in the book are those devoted respectively to the State in modern drama and in modern novels. Mr. Rockow's essay provides a fairly comprehensive summary of the ideas of a number of writers who command a following among thinking people.

Industry and Civilisation, by C. Delisle Burns (Allen & Unwin).—It is a refreshing experience to be brought back to fundamentals in the economic questions of the day, and Mr. Burns has been eminently successful in his task. What is the place of industry in life, and what is its relation to civilisation? An older world limited to certain classes the labour of providing for the needs of society, and yet in many ways expressed a lofty public ideal. The system which succeeded this, giving the energetic and acquisitive man full liberty of action, had its own grim forms of servitude for the individual, and less than no regard for the community; it even, as Mr. Burns points out, related communal enjoyments, high days and holidays, to the economic scheme, no longer to natural seasons or historic events. The uncontrolled proliferation of industry was as dangerous as a malignant growth; there was never more wealth, never less welfare. The supremacy of society was at length asserted over even this unimagined power, and the difficult, still unachieved, work of adjustment began between the demands of industry and the widening ideals of the State for its citizens. It was simple and fairly reasonable to erect industry into a god, and it is also quite comprehensible that many workers should still see in it nothing but a Moloch. Mr. Burns thinks that we do not make sufficient allowance for the effect of the past on the proletarian mind; the worker has had a long and bitter struggle for what are to-day accepted as his basic rights, and the seeming truculence of his modern combinations is to a large extent the result of this historic complex, not the expression of revolutionary aims. On wage questions and the effect of recent developments, particularly in social insurance, Mr. Burns is as illuminating as in his chapter on Trade Unions. His discussion of the widest principles is kept in close relation with the facts of history or modern industrial practice, and will suggest many salutary reflections.

The Religion of Yesterday and To-Morrow, by Kirsopp Lake (Christophers). Professor Lake has had a varied experience as a teacher of theology in this country, on the Continent, and in the United States;

to-day he ranks as a theologian whose views count. What he has to say, therefore, concerning Catholicism and Protestantism is bound to attract attention, as, indeed, it did. For Professor Lake is frank. He holds that the advances in modern science make it necessary for both Catholics and Protestants to review their respective religious positions and build up new forms of Christianity. Professor Lake suggests that there are three possible types of religion, the exponents of which he calls Fundamentalists, Institutionalists, and Experimentalists. The first include

the Roman Catholic Church; the second are to be found in the Protestant Churches; the third is the term Dr. Lake applies to those who, like himself, profess the "Religion of To-morrow," which is a way of life, bidding men consecrate themselves to the service of the Kingdom of God. In an age when men's religious views are more and more uncertain, it is good to come across the freshness of view, backed by ample knowledge, which marks Dr. Lake's treatise-a book which is as stimulating as it is instructive.

Discussions on Travel, Art, and Life, by Osbert Sitwell (Grant Richards). While Mr. Lytton Strachey has discovered, or re-discovered, the art of biography, a new art of travel-writing has sprung up, the exemplars of which differ as widely from the amateurish, if often entertaining, volumes which vie for popularity at the circulating libraries with the latest popular fiction, as does Eminent Victorians from the official panegyrics on deceased politicians and field-marshals. The exponents of this art have nearly all distinguished themselves in more purely creative fields, and one of the latest to join the little band, which includes Mr. Norman Douglas, Mr. Aldous Huxley, Mr. D. H. Lawrence, and Mr. Louis Golding, is Mr. Osbert Sitwell, poet, and the brother of poets. He proves himself worthy of his company. As with most of them, his chosen field of exploration is Italy and Sicily, and he has the fashionable taste for the baroque. Although his Discussions is not a deliberately creative work, like his brother's Southern Baroque Art, he has a power of picturesque description which is vividly evocative. But, as its name implies, there is much besides description in this book. Mr. Sitwell is steeped in history, both social and artistic, and he is full of prejudices which, whether one endorses them or not, at any rate give individuality to his matter. He has some pretty tilts, for instance, at some of his colleagues in verse whose poetry he does not like, or who presume not to like the sort of poetry which he himself writes. A few of his chapters are devoted to Southern Germany, where, being in the spiritual home of baroque, he is particularly happy. In Bayreuth he characteristically passes Wagner's opera house with a nod, and enlarges with enthusiasm on the charms of the theatre built in the eighteenth century by Giuseppe Bibbiena. There is also an extremely interesting chapter on D'Annunzio, whom Mr. Sitwell ardently admires and paid a flying visit to Fiume to see.

Letters from England, by Karel Capek, translated by Paul Selver (Bles), was, perhaps, to English readers, the most revealing volume of exploration published in 1925, and certainly the most entertaining. We shall never with our own eyes behold our own country as the distinguished

Czech dramatist beheld it, and we are grateful for being allowed to perceive its marvels and mystery at second hand. Mr. Capek found it anything but a Tibet. He visited its cities, its villages, the great shops, the clubs, the teeming slums, the parks, the lakes, the museums, Folkestone, and Oxford. He was the guest of many distinguished men, and he had a discerning eye and ear for the ways of lesser folk. He records his experiences haphazard with a sly humour and a taking affectation of ingenuousness; the same elements of superficial simplicity and infinite significance reveal themselves in the delightful drawings with which he has pointed his comments. Mr. Capek found just what he expected to find, and it astonished him; all that he had read about became fairylike and romantic when he saw it in being. Our commonplaces excited his delighted wonder, as when he saw men walking unchallenged and of choice across the grass in parks and over the fields. The trees impressed him mightily, and they became to him something of a universal symbol, the tall pillars sustaining all the traditions of the land, "the aristocratic instincts, the historical sense, Conservatism, tariffs, golf, the House of Lords, and other odd and antique things." When he visited the clubs, where three things won his admiration the silence, the service, the absence of women-he reflected, "If we had such old leather chairs we should also have a tradition." He notes and praises everywhere English quiet, reserve, dislike of fuss, essential kindliness. What he did not like were the dire contrasts of our social system, the gulf between the West End and the East End; the nightmare of the London traffic, on the surface or underground; our cooking; and the English Sunday, even in its mitigated London form. Mr. Capek has written an entrancing book, and Mr. Paul Selver's translation is beyond criticism.

Travel in England in the Seventeenth Century, by Joan Parkes (Oxford University Press).-Miss Parkes has provided an admirable compilation for the novelist or social historian of a century whose constitutional and international events have somewhat obscured the daily life of its ordinary citizens. Travel in England was a difficult business. In spite of excellent inns, hospitable country magnates, quaint and pleasing rural customs, the conditions were such as completely daunt the modern reader. Footpads, highwaymen, and lesser rogues haunted such roads as could be used, and there were whole regions where movement was next to impossible. To walk was to invite trouble (a chapter on the Watch shows what the Dogberries of the day were capable of), pillion riding was already stamped as perilous, and the ordinary coach was hideously uncomfortable. Uncomfortable, too, was the Channel crossing. It was possible to spend days over the passage and to be forced to submit to extortion at the hands of the crew in order to obtain food. The waves were no respecters of exalted personages in small boats, as witness the author's picture of Queen Henrietta Maria's voyage to England, when her suffering ladies in the extremity of terror shrieked out their confessions to the Capuchin fathers, who were no less prostrated. On land a Royal progress was a costly affair, and a hundred thousand pounds was spent by King James on a journey to Scotland. The London of 1635 must have had its own traffic

complications when the hackney coaches alone numbered 6,000. Stage coaches were an innovation, but one of them used to run from Oxford to London in a day, and was duly banned by the Vice-Chancellor of the University. Miss Parkes has assembled myriads of highly interesting facts from which one might go on selecting indefinitely. A road map of 1689 and nearly fifty plates complete a most attractive book.

English Comic Characters, by Mr. J. B. Priestley (John Lane).—It is the great attribute of most of the eleven characters Mr. Priestley has chosen that it is only by intellectual effort that one can persuade oneself that they really belong to the realm of fancy, and not that of actual life. It is, for example, much easier to believe in Micawber than in most of the personages of history. Mr. Priestley's chief virtue is that he has done everything to confirm this illusion in himself and can intensify it in the reader. The majority of them come, of course, from Shakespeare and Dickens. They have long been of our intimates, and we should resent any liberties with their august persons. Nevertheless, Mr. Priestley glimpses them from unexpected angles and thus seems to add to their solidity. Falstaff is their commander, and with him the commentator is particularly successful; truly we now have him in the round. We learn, too, why women do not like him and his "siren-song from the convivial circle, the tavern and the club." The essayist has also had particularly close access to the society of Bully Bottom and that strange creature of paper and ink, Pistol, to name no more; and if this generation knows not Parson Adams, here is a portrait that should mightily increase his congregation. Perhaps Mr. Priestley is less successful with the two Wellers and the two philosophies of rural and urban England he tries to incarnate in them, but he retrieves himself with Micawber, with whom the very page is vibrant. He has himself a delightful verbal felicity and a communicative gusto, with a fine range of quotation, not only from his originals but from earlier commentators and exegetists, to support him where direct interpretation finds its bounds. These papers prove in the most welcome fashion how "the humour of character goes down and touches, surely but tenderly, the very roots of our common human nature.”

The Trial of Jesus. A Play. By John Masefield (Heinemann).—Mr. Masefield's new work is a rather surprising successor to his recent experiments with the French classics. Essentially it is a rationalised version of St. Luke's account, with some peculiar variations which the average reader will hardly accept without demur. Instead of the rhymed verse of his Good Friday, his earlier play, in which the presence of Jesus was only implied, we have for the most part prose dialogue which it would not have been astonishing to find over the signature of Mr. Shaw. The most exalted passage is the irregular verse dialogue between Jesus and the Spirit of Wisdom with which the book begins; but the later choruses, attractive enough in their deliberate naïveté in any other collocation, are out of keeping here. The words of Jesus, being those of the Gospel, have a force of association that defeats Mr. Masefield's ends, and their familiarity and authority react against the invented dialogue-much as though one heard a prose version of Hamlet in which only the Prince retained the