Rambles in. Arcadia. By Arthur Grant. (A. and C. Black.
3s. 6d. net.)—We are glad to see these essays, which were first given to the world in periodicals of repute, now republished in a more permanent shape. " Arcadia " is really Utopia. It is repre- sented in a way by Hertfordshire, which our essayist loves both for its own sake—as, indeed, is fit—and for the sake of Charles Lamb. The "Scottish Borderland" may be said to be a province of it; so- may the Western Isles, for one of the best pieces of description in the book is "Colonsay." And there is a literary Arcadia,—a somewhat artificial extension of the name, for there was very little of the literary about the real Arcadia. These four essays are not the least interesting part of the book. "A Castle in Spain," "Spanish-Arabian Dames," "The Song of Roland," and "The Pastures of Poetry" are the titles. It is hardly correct to say that "Roland and Oliver are scarcely known to English readers." The "Chanson" was among the first books which had the advantage of the printing-press. Mr. Grant in his summary of the story omits what is perhaps as striking an incident as any,—the bringing of the bodies of the Peers to ha blessed by the dying Archbishop.
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