REMINISCENCES: PERSONAL AND DIPLOMATIC. By Sir Vincent Corbett. (Hodder and
Stoughton. 20s.)—Sir Vincent Corbett tells us in the Preface to his Reminiscences that he has been advised by an expert to "write naturally as it came into my head." Ile has had not only the good sense, but the literary skill, to profit by this sound advice. The result is an eminently readable book, which will give a great deal of quiet pleasure to all sorts of people. Born in Stockholm in 1861, where his father was Secretary of Legation, he was educated first privately and then at Wellington, going from there to Cambridge, where he began to read for Anglican Orders. Before long he gave up the thought of an ecclesiasti- cal career, and while still a very young man he was received into the Catholic Church. Soon after he went abroad to study languages with a view to a diplomatic career. For languages he had evidently a very great facility, and was soon entirely at home in a middle-class German household. Of the life of the educated class in Berlin as distinct from the military he gives a most amusing and friendly account, apologizing a little for liking the Germans so much, but explaining that, apart from the Prussian Junkers, he is quite unable to help it. Later on as an attaché at the Berlin Embassy he gives a less pleasing picture of his surroundings. Sir Vincent has a great power of depicting character in a few words. The little portraits he gives, often consisting of only a few lines, of the Ambassadors under whom he has served, Lord Bertie of Thame, Sir Edward Mulct, Sir William Stuart, and Lord Dufferin, are most striking. If he really put them down "as they came into his head" the reader can only regard him as a "lightning artist" of very exceptional facility.
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