20 JANUARY 1923, Page 24

Mr. Lucas has an inexhaustible vein of genial essay-writing, and

this volume is as good as his others. His range of subject is wide ; but everything he touches takes upon it the same suavity and ease. The most important essay in this collection is on "The Evolution of Whimsicality" ; in it Mr. Lucas traces, with examples, the rise of the intimate style through Sterne, Cowper, Lamb, and Hood to Sir James Barrie and Mr. Max Beerbohm. It is to this Whimsical School that Mr. Lucas belongs ; and for all its gracefulness it has disadvantages. There is always a taint of dishonesty in a writer who is mock. intimate with readers he cannot know ; it is, moreover, a flattery against which a sensitive reader will rebel.