28 JANUARY 1938, Page 34

THE DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY, 1922-1930 Edited by J. R.

H. Weaver

This volume (Oxford University Press. 28s.) contains the biographies of those dying in the nine years between 1922 and 193o, whose " activities, ideas, writings or discoveries are deemed to have made a definite contribution to the annals of their generation." This—the twenty-fifth —is more than complementary to the earlier volumes ; it stands by itself as an interesting and essential portrait of at least one generation. The biographical sketches, which admirably, serve their purpose, are written by persons thor- oughly familiar with their subjects. • In the political field there are the biogra- phies of four Prime Ministers, Lords Rosebery, Balfour and Oxford and Mr. Bonar Law, and those of Lords Morley, Lansdowne, Milner, Curzon, Birkenhead and Haldane. In the military field there are Lords • Haig, Ypres and Rawlinson, Sir Henry Wilson, Sir John de Robeck and Sir Hugh Evan-Thomas. In letters, Bridges, Conrad, St. Loe Strachey, Thomas Hardy, W. H. Hudson and D. H. Lawrence. Representing philosophy there are Bosanquet and F. H. Bradley; classics, Ridgeway and James Ward ; economics, Alfred Marshall ; history, Lord Bryce, Sir J. Corbett, Prothero, T. F. Tout, Sir George Trevelyan and William Ward. Few books of reference are such a delight to browse on as well as to consult.