Symposia are never very satisfactory ; and The English Genius
(Eyre and Spottiswoode, 8s. 6d.) is no exception to the rule. It is the joint work of fourteen authOrs, none of whom is a negligible contributor : but there is' a world -of diffemce ' between a contribution and a spontaneous essay., Dean Inge is erudite about religion, and Mr. Brian Lunn about Dissent. Mr. Belloc is dogmatic about Verse; and Mr. Hisketh Pearson makes an arbitrary survey of Humour. Mr. Douglas Woodruff is complacent about Public Life, Sir Charles Petrie is portentous on the subject of the Monarchy. Mr. E. S. P. Haynes deftly defends the Law as an intellectual gymnasium in these days of formless thought. ' General Fuller and Mr. Alfred Noyes are none too lucid in their views upon War and the, Sea. Miss Rose Macaulay and Miss Rebecca West are bright upon the topics of Moral Indignation and Snobbery. And so forth . . Nothing of value emerges from the whole ; the bits -and pieces fit in .nowhere, and are forgotten as soon as they are finished. It is a curious thing, but if a man has anything worth' saying, it almost always takes three hundred pages* in which to say it. VOICE OF EUROPE-
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