10 MARCH 1888, Page 24

The best paper in a number of the Gentleman's Magazine

which is somewhat above the average, is Mr. Sidney Lee's bit of careful his- torical investigation into the career of the Admirable Crichton. One wonders after reading it whether the Crichton of a history which is stranger and more misleading than even the late Mr. Harrison Ains- worth's romance, was not several persons rolled into one. There does not seem to be a good excuse for a paper at the present moment on George Eliot and Jane Welsh Carlyle, and Miss Annie Ireland's gives as nothing fresh. "A Century of Scene-Painting" is evidently the result of careful study.