In the result, Mr. Graves, though a wit of distinction, has produced in _Mr. Punch’s History of Modern England_ a book that is pathetic rather than amusing. It is a cemetery of dead jokes--the offspring of a little gentleman with a long nose who was cross more often than he was funny. _Punch_, indeed, has been for the most part a grinner rather than a wit. It has had, and still has, brilliant writers on its staff. But its temper is not the temper of its most brilliant contributors. Its attitude is that of the prosperous clubman who dislikes the advance both of the new rich and of the old poor. It has undoubtedly made itself the most successful comic paper in the world, but one sometimes wonders whether it has done so as a result of allying itself with comedy or of allying itself with success. Yet the fact remains that other men have started rivals to _Punch_, and that they have not only been not so successful as _Punch_ but not so comic. _Punch_ always baits the hook of its odious politics with a reasonable amount of comedy about things in general, and in the comedy of things in general, even if we think it might be done still better, it has at least always been ahead of its rivals. There have been men who have dreamed of a _Punch_ that would bring the spirit of comedy to bear on all sides impartially. There are others who have dreamed of bringing the spirit of comedy to bear on the right side. One would not, perhaps, mind what side _Punch_ was on if only it were a little more generous--if only it purveyed the human comedy as a comedy, and not, as in the case of working men, Irishmen, and non-Allied foreigners, as a sinister crook melodrama. X MR. H. M. TOMLINSON