le, but as yet unperfected. Possessed of rare charm in
descriptive prose, he needs to exercise a greater nicety of construction
in order to develop fully the riches which are his. Gifted with a large,
facile, and ingenious vocabulary, he is not sufficiently precise and
discriminating in his employment of words according to their finer
shades of meaning. This carelessness makes faults of his very virtues;
for his vigour of expression tends to take the form of =outre= and
inadmissible rhetoric, whilst his talent for word-painting tends to
degenerate into word-coining. It would be quite possible for an acute
critic to compile a dictionary of peculiarly Macaulian words and
phrases, to which the current =Pep= might contribute such terms as
=probverb= (proverb?). Spelling and punctuation also should claim more
of Mr. Macauley's time and attention; for he might easily avoid such
slips as =believeing=, =it's= (for =its=), =thots=, and the like. In
short, Mr. Macauley is at present a gifted writer and brilliant editor
labouring under the disadvantages of haste, carelessness, and perhaps a
dash of radicalism.

* * * * *

=The Phoenician= for Spring is the first number of an enthusiastically
conducted semi-professional venture of juvenile nature, whose connexion
with the United hinges on the associate editorship of our clever
recruit, Mr. James Mather Mosely. Like =Merry Minutes=, this publication
is of the popular rather than conservative sort; being obviously
designed primarily to please, secondarily to instruct. We deplore the
use of commonplace and sensational topics, colloquial expressions, and
malformed spelling; but make due concessions to the youth of the
editorial staff and the nascent state of the periodical. So promising
are the young publishers that time cannot fail to refine and mature
their efforts. "An Hour with a Lunatic," by Harry B. Sadik, is a very
short and very thrilling tale of the "dime novel" variety. Mr. Sadik has
a commendable sense of the dramatic, which would serve him well should
he choose a less sensational field of endeavour. "Our Soldiers," a
Canadian mother's war song by Mrs. Minnie E. Taylor, exhibits merit,
though having many signs of imperfect technic. In line 2 of the first
stanza =bid= should be replaced by =bade=. The final rhyme of the poem,
that of =gain= and =name=, is false and inadmissible. Metrically there
is much roughness, which careful study and dilige