Mr. E. F. BENSON, of whom it might justly be said that he produces not books but libraries (and the quality of his output under these circumstances remains for me amongst the literary wonders of the age), has been at it again. Hardly have I finished laughing over _Queen Lucia_, when I find him claiming a wholly different interest with a volume of personal recollections called _Our Family Affairs_ (CASSELL). By its theme and treatment this is work standing naturally a little outside criticism; but I can say at once that Mr. BENSON has never written with a more sympathetic charm than in these pictures of the childhood of himself and his sister and brothers; of the various scholastic and ecclesiastical homes to which the increasing dignities of that rather alarming parent, the Archbishop, transported his family; and (quite the best and most attractive portrait in the collection) of the mother whom all of them united to adore. There is an actual photograph of her here, taken at the age of twenty, which goes far to explain how she came to be the heroine of the story; the lurking gaiety and laughter of it quaintly foretelling the great ecclesiastical lady who, on one occasion when the Archbishop was absent, could announce to her enraptured children that family prayers should be remitted, "as a treat!" Schooldays at Wellington; Cambridge; some topical memoirs of the Georgian _regime_ in Athens, and (what will interest many readers most of all) the history of the origin of that famous lady, _Dodo_--these are but a selection from the contents of a volume that should find hosts of friends. * * * * *