The second selection, _Lady Hester Stanhope_, is written much after the manner of _Beau Nash_; that is, the author, Lytton Strachey, sketches Lady Hester’s meteoric life with a few heavily penciled lines. His details are few, but they are wonderfully telling ones. Moreover, he employs a kind of unifying device which unquestionably adds to the artistic value of his narrative. That device is Lady Hester’s nose, with which Mr. Strachey begins and ends her sensational career. It hardly seems necessary after even this brief comparative study of the three selections given to suggest methods of handling this type of narrative. The compelling motive of the writer must be to make his subject live; but whether he will do it by presenting it from many sides and in relation to many persons and environments, whether he will seize upon some fault, foible, or individualizing trait, whether he will present a series of amazing and revealing incidents,--the choice must rest with him. M. E. C. BEAU NASH LLEWELYN POWYS Richard Nash, despot of silk stockings and most tyrannical of beaux, was born at Swansea, 18 October, 1674. His father was a small glass-manufacturer, and in the days of his prosperity the incomparable dandy was wont to say, when twitted as to his reticence concerning his origin, “I seldom mention my father in company, not because I have any reason to be ashamed of him, but because he has some reason to be ashamed of me.” Nash was educated at Oxford, where, in the words of Goldsmith, he showed “that though much might be expected from his genius, nothing could be hoped from his industry”; indeed, it appears that he was compelled to absent himself from the university somewhat abruptly, leaving in his hastily abandoned chambers “some plays, a tobacco-box, and a fiddle.” After his unceremonious departure from Oxford, Nash occupied himself for the next few years ostensibly in reading law at the Inner Temple, though in reality living “to the very edge of his finances” as a man-about-town. In 1704 he betook himself by stage-coach to Bath, a journey which at that time was performed, “if God permitted, in three days.” Shortly after his arrival the Corporation of Bath elected him Master of Ceremonies of that city, a position which he held with eminent success and unequalled pomp for more than half a century.