to make
himself understood. He has learnt the practice of good writing through
this desire and not by any sick languishing to construct beautiful
mosaics or melodious descriptions.

The English are not a nation of prose-writers. Arnold reminded us often
enough that we lacked the balance, the sense of the centre, the facility
in the use of right reason; and Mr. Belloc has continued his arguments.
But Mr. Belloc has in his blood that touch of the Latin and in his mind
that sense of the centre, of a European life which corrects the English
waywardness. It is with no hesitation that we call him--subject to the
correction of time, wherefrom no critic is exempt--the best writer of
English prose since Dryden.

Some one said once that were Shakespeare living now he would be writing
articles for the leader-page of the _Daily Mail_. As Shakespeare is not
living now, his place, of course, is filled by Mr. Charles Whibley. But
there is some sense in the apparently silly remark. The column of the
morning paper has, without doubt, provoked the creation of a new form
and has brought forth a renaissance of the essay. If Shakespeare would
not have written for the daily papers, Bacon unquestionably would have
done so.

In a band of essayists who have been made or influenced by this
opportunity, Mr. G. K. Chesterton, Mr. G. S. Street, Mr. E. V. Lucas,
and a host of others, Mr. Hilaire Belloc is unchallengeably supreme. It
is stupid to suppose, as some still do, that art and literature are not
thus conditioned by the almost mechanical needs of the day. To protest
that our writers should not be influenced by the special features of the
newspaper would be to condemn Shakespeare for his conformity with the
needs of the apron-stage or Dickens for publishing his novels in parts.

A mind of a character so actual as Mr. Belloc's is inevitably attracted
by such an opportunity. The discerning reader will find the crown and
best achievement of all his varied work in the seven volumes of essays
which he has published.

These volumes contain no fewer than 256 separate and distinct essays.
(The essay _On the Traveller_ which was included in _On Anything_
appears again, for some reason, as _The Old Things_ in _First and
Last_, and is not here counted twice.) One is reduced to jealousy of the
mere physical energy which could sit down so often to a new beginning:
the variety and power of the essays command our utmost admiration.

Descriptions of tr