23 JANUARY 1915, Page 24

All readers of Edward FitzGerald's delightful letters know how keenly

he was interested in the adorable Madame de Sevign6. He devoted much of his abundant leisure to pre- paring a catalogue of the characters who figure in her correspondence, and this Dictionary of Madame de &Myna has now been put into shape and published by his great-niece, Mary Eleanor FitzGerald %enrich (Macmillan and Co., 2 vole., 8s. net). The notes on each personage are headed by a brilliant little biographical sketch, and the book is not merely a helpful companion to the work which it illustrates, but an important addition to the too scanty literary baggage of its fastidious and accomplished author.