nd colour, in other series than the Pseudonym Library. In a
new edition of _The Sinner's Comedy_, just issued at the modest price
of Eighteenpence, he has solved a problem that has long baffled the
publisher, and bothered the public. Few like the appearance of a book
with the pages machine-cut; fewer still can spare the time to cut a
book. Mr. FISHER UNWIN compromises by presenting this dainty little
volume with the top pages ready cut, the reader having nothing to
do but to slice the side-pages, a labour which no book-lover would
grudge, seeing that it leaves the volume with the uncut appearance
dear to his heart. The story, told in 146 pages, is, my Baronite says,
worthy the distinction of its appearance. The characters are clearly
drawn, the plot is interesting, the conversation crisp, and the style
throughout pleasantly cynical. The author, JOHN OLIVER HOBBES, has a
pretty turn of aphorism. "A man's way of loving is so different from
a woman's"; and again, "Genius is so rare, and ambition is so common."
Here be truths, old enough perhaps, but cleverly re-set.

Some people complain that politics are dull. They should read the
parliamentary and extra-parliamentary utterances of the Member for
Wrottenborough. They appear weekly in that rising young paper, the
_Sunday Times_, and an extremely readable selection of them has lately
been published "in book form," for the enlivening of the Recess.
Adapting the Laureate's lines, the Baron would say,--

"They who would vote for an M.P. whose sense with humour chimes,
Will read the Member for Wrottenborough, all in the _Sunday Times_--
A paper our sires paid Sevenpence for, along of its grit and go,
Seventy years ago, my Public, seventy years ago!"

For whimsical audacity, and quaint unexpectedness. Mr. PAIN, in his
latest book, _Playthings and Parodies_, would be hard to beat. In this
there is a good back-ground of shrewd observation. He does not
propose to make your flesh creep, or your eyes run torrents. He simply
succeeds in making you laugh. In "The Processional Instinct," Mr. PAIN
informs us that he has discovered that our private life is circular,
and our public life is rectilineal. SHAKSPEARE, who, being for all
time, and not merely for an age, recommends this author to the general
public when he says that everybody "should be so conversant with
PAIN."

_The Memories of Dean Hole_ is rather a misleading title; "but," says
the Baron, "I suppose the term