you!" Charming! So useful is the explanation that "Hanwell is a little
village, a few miles from London." Perhaps it is the locality, there
or thereabouts, where this thrillingly interesting tale--which could
have been told in fifty pages, and needn't have been told at all--was
written. Well, well, "All's Hanwell that ends Hanwell," and "I've
galloped through a worse story before now," quoth the Baron, yawning,
and so to bed.

[Illustration: Turning over the pages.]

In _John Leech, His Life and Work_ (BENTLEY) Mr. FRITH quotes from an
anonymous but obviously not an original authority, the dictum, "It is
the happiness of such a life (as LEECH's) that there is so little to
be told of it." Mr. BENTLEY has produced two handsome volumes worthy
the reputation of his ancient and honourable house. They enshrine
admirable reproductions of some of LEECH's best work, selected by
the trained hand and sympathetic eye of Mr. FRITH. These are and will
remain the chief attractions of a work to which the Baron, in common
with the civilised world, has been looking forward to with interest,
and of whose realisation he regrets to hear so disappointing an
account from his trusty "Co." It is difficult to find dates in this
higgledy-piggledy chance-medley of facts and opinions. But we all know
that LEECH died in October, 1864. It was in _Mr. Punch's_ pages that
he found the true field for his heaven-born genius For twenty years at
least he was one of the most prominent, best known, and best liked men
in England. Surely within that period there must lie to the hand of
the dilligent seeker material for a memoir worthy to be linked with
the name of JOHN LEECH. Mr. FRITH has not given us such a book,
and criticism is only partly disarmed by the comical reiteration of
confession that he has failed in his appointed task. For what he has