Mr. BELLOC can, I am sure, write entertainingly about any phase of the French Revolution on his head, and in _The Last Days of the French Monarchy_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL) he has apparently done so. I cannot think it will add to his reputation. It will be something if it doesn't hurt it. He has taken a short story, and by a process of dextrous padding and the practice of a method, which is becoming an obsession with him, of going deep into the obvious with much industry and circumstance, he has contrived, with the addition of a number of plates--some of singular irrelevance--a fattish book. Even ignorant persons like this Learned Clerk are apt to be chagrined by being so obviously written down to. On the other hand, naturally, an author who knows his intriguing subject so well and drives so forceful a pen cannot fail to be interesting. The historian seems most concerned to prove, by his familiar and plausible method of going over the ground "in the same season, in the same weather, after the same rains, in the same mist," that the Prussian charge by Valmy Mill miscarried only because the infantry got bogged in marsh that looked like stubble. So now we know! * * * * * From the list of books already published by Mr. CECIL HEADLAM it is easy to see that he is by choice a topographer rather than a novelist. Indeed the fact is made sufficiently obvious to the reader of _Red Screes_ (SMITH, ELDER). Its sub-title is _A Romance of Lakeland_, and so strongly developed is the place-spirit in its author that he is constantly breaking the rather tenuous thread of his story to introduce long descriptions of Cumberland scenery and people, and as this is most easily done by sending his chief characters for walks in the districts that Mr. HEADLAM wishes to talk about the result is that I seldom read a novel in which the protagonists were kept so sternly on the move. But I am far from saying that the result is not happy enough, especially for those readers who already know and love the neighbourhood that the author handles so well. As for the tale, that, as I have hinted, is nothing to keep you awake o' nights. There is a millionaire in it, with one daughter (whom he hates) and a very unpleasant secretary, who loves the daughter for her prospects and a country lass for her looks; and there is a great deal of the most unconvincing finance that ever I read, even in fiction. As for the secretary's end, it wouldn't be fair to give that away, as it is really the only point at which the plot quickens into sufficient vigour to hold its own with the setting. Mr. HEADLAM obviously both knows and loves the land of red screes; I am doubtful whether he is as much at home with the stock-manipulators of Wall Street or their emotional offspring. And I don't like his introduction of the second heroine--"The girl's head was bare, save for the crowning glory of womanhood." What I mean is, if it hadn't had that much covering----