In such a title as _The North East Corner_ (GRANT RICHARDS) there is something bleak and uninviting, something suggestive of the bitter mercies of an average English April, that is by no means confirmed in the story itself. Windy it certainly is--it runs to 496 pages--for I do not remember any other recent volume where the characters really do talk so much "like a book," and though, of course, this may be a true way of presenting the customs of a hundred years ago, one feels that it can be over-done. _Frank Hamilton_, the magnanimous friend, facile politician and all-but hero, was the worst offender, not only making love to the _Marquis's_ unhandsome daughter in stately periods, and invariably addressing pretty _Sarah Owen_, who was much too good for his and the author's treatment of her, in the language of a Cabinet meeting (as popularly imagined), but being hardly able even to lose his temper decently in honest ejaculation. _Rolfe_, his friend, was a Jacobin of the blackest, who preached sedition and the right of tenants to vote as they chose; and the _Hamiltons_ were renegades who gained titles and honours by supporting a failing Ministry, from the most opportunely patriotic of motives. The general drift of the plot is neither very readily to be summarised nor indeed very satisfactory, and one might disagree with Mr. JOHN HERON LEPPER at several points. At the same time, as his many friends would expect, there is much to be grateful for in this quiet study of Irish times and politics very different from our own. There is a ring of sincerity for one thing, matched by a literary grace that saves his chapters from ever becoming irritating even when they move most slowly. * * * * * If the vintage to which "Miss KATHARINE TYNAN'S" novels belong is so old that some of its flavour has departed, there is no doubt that many of us are still glad enough to sample it. In these nervous times it is in fact very restful to read a book as calm and detached as _Miss Mary_ (MURRAY). Not that _Mary_ refrained from allowing her heart to flutter in the wrong direction, but even the simplest of us couldn't really be alarmed by this excursion. Mrs. HINKSON seems to take all her nice characters under her protective wing, and to include you and me (if we are nice) in a pleasant family party. So at little outlay you have the chance to go to Ireland and stay quietly and decorously with the _de Burghs_. There you will meet a very saint in _Lady de Burgh_, and you will breathe the right local atmosphere, and have, on the whole, a good and tranquillizing time. * * * * * [Illustration: DURING THE HOSPITABLE AIR-RAID SEASON THE MONTMORENCY-BROWNS MAINTAIN THEIR HABITUAL EXCLUSIVENESS.] End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917, by Various