BOOKS.
THIS WEEK'S BOOKS.
WE have reached the most barren period of the year for new publications ; but a few noticeable books are still trickling from the press. The most original and topical publication is The Manchester Guardian Advertising Review, a folio pamphlet beautifully printed at the Cloister Press and containing much information and criticism. The supple- ments of the Manchester Guardianmusi 'always rouse a journalist to admiration : by some miracle the specialists can write an excellent, easy, civilized English, and the essayists have a good knowledge of their subjects. Two of the best articles are " Should the State Advertise ? " and " Advertising in its Legal Aspect " ; the latter discusses in what instances a " puff " is a legal contract. One con- tributor recalls to us an excellent joke : " It is doubtful if many people would be led to buy a car, as was the old lady in Punch, by the fact that ` the advertisements speak so highly of it.' "
Mrs. Webster continues her breathless disclosures of the influences at work against Civilization and Christianity in her new book, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements (Boswell) ; and, as there is undoubtedly much neglected truth in what she says, it is most unfortunate that she cites in her support so many disreputable and exploded " authorities," and magnifies what she finds out of all pro- portion. It will be astonishing, for instance, to compare her account of the Knights Templar with Mr. J. Bruce Williams' account in his valuable and sober History of the Temple, London (Murray). Mrs. Webster quotes, with a slightly moderated approval, M. Funck-Brentano's portrait of Philip IV.: " This young prince was one of the greatest of kings and the noblest characters that have appeared in history " : Mr. Williamson accepts Larousse's verdict on the same monarch : " A versatile and deep politician, but an insatiable and cruel tyrant, faithless, unscrupulous, and pitiless." What can we believe from historians ? A con- siderable addition is made to our knowledge of French history between 1848 and 1852 by the publication of The Secret of the Coup-dint (Constable). The Earl of Kerry gives an account of the correspondence between Louis Napoleon, Flahault, Morny, and others which makes up the volume, , and Mr. Philip Guedalla contributes an introductory study of the period.
President Wilson delivered at the University of North Carolina a very attractive address on Robert E. Lee, and the University now • prints it. It is hardly an " interpretation " ; it is a sweet and sentimental eulogy, with idealistic applications to modern life. In The Vacuum (Bell) Mr. J. A. Cochrane describes the history and the uses of nothing—or of a com- parative nothing—the experiments and inventions by which empty—or comparatively empty—space was induced to serve our needs. He ends the booklet with this passage : " Mart's first idea about the vacuum was that it was abhorred by Nature—that Nature would not allow a vacuum to exist. , Our latest idea is that Nature loves a vacuum. The universe it an immense, perhaps infinite, vacuum dotted here and , there with stars and planets. Stars and planets are com- , posed of atoms which, according to the modern view, are
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