Few great authors appeal more to the imagination than John Payne, the hero of "The John Payne Society," who shrank from the lime-light of "interviewing." Recognised as a true poet by Swinburne, he was probably the most skilful translator of the nineteenth century, for we owe to him a version of Villon's poems which is itself a poetic work of consummate art, the first complete translation of the "Arabian Nights," the first complete verse rendering of Omar Khayyam's quatrains, to say nothing of translations of "The Decameron," etc. Among his friends were Swinburne, Sir Richard Burton, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Arthur O'Shaughnessy, French authors such as Victor Hugo, Banville, and Mallarmé, and the artist who ventured to depict "God with eyes turned inward upon His own glory." Mr. Wright by an extraordinary exercise of tact and sympathy was able to pass the barrier which shut Payne off from anybody who sought to know the man behind the books. For twelve years before Payne's death in 1916 he was his most intimate friend, and as, during all that time, he had in view the writing of Payne's Life he lost next to none of his opportunities for obtaining at first hand the facts and opinions needed for his work. Moreover, Payne made him a present of a MS. autobiography and supplied him with valuable material from his letter-files. Mr. Wright was, in fact, Payne's Boswell, and no life which may be written hereafter can have the weight and interest of this vivid book, much of which gives us the sound of Payne's own voice. A History of Modern Colloquial English. By HENRY CECIL WYLD, B. Litt. (Oxon.), Baines Professor of English Language and Philology at the University of Liverpool. Demy 8vo, cloth. (Spring, 1920.) 21s. 0d. NET. Inland Postage 6d.