field, no outdoor pastime closed to them. Yet this athletic woman is less a new departure than reversion to a type that preceded the Early Victorian type. The old Sporting Magazine records many prize-fights between women in the opening years of the nineteenth century, and in the time of the Stuarts and their immediate successors English ladies took keen interest in cock-fighting. There is in the Rutland MSS. a letter from Miss Bridget Noel to her sister, the Countess of Rutland, in which, with a freedom of spelling that we may envy, if we may not emulate, the writer refers to "coking and hors matches, which we have promised to be at. Barney intends to back our coks with some thousands, for he is on our side."

What, then, are we to say to this advent of women in every kind of sport? Playwrights and novelists, poets and essayists are of little assistance in gauging public opinion on the subject, for they as often try to guide as to reflect it, besides which they usually treat the subject with the legitimate exaggeration of caricature. We should, for instance, have to seek far and wide among the fair members of the Bath Club to find such a female Admirable Crichton as "Di Vernon," who could leap a five-barred gate, besides being proficient in both ancient and modern languages. Kate Coventry was a less pretentious hoyden, for she cared nothing for books, but was merely, as her Aunt Deborah said, "wild after horses and all such unfeminine pursuits" It was left for Pinero to create the most delightful of all amazons, and the whole moral of the comedy was summed up in Lady Castlejordan's reminiscence of how her lord and master had greeted the birth of a daughter in the winter: "Damn it, Miriam! you've lost a whole season's hunting for nothing!"

Other writers, other views. Of

horsewomen, Byron and Disraeli, neither of them misogynists, took diametrically opposite views. The author of Lothair devotes one of his most flowery passages to open admiration of the "bewildering habits and bewitching hats" of ladies on horseback, while Don Juan begged

to hint to all equestrian Misses That horses' backs are not their proper places.

The attitude for each man to take must depend on his own womenfolk. Lady Violet Greville has said that no woman should be allowed out with hounds unless a good rider, but there are hunting countries, not far from Somerset, in which the same rule should apply to men. It is impossible to class the majority of outdoor sports as unfit for women as a sex, for women differ in their physical fitness no less than men. There may be women unfit for hockey, but there are certainly men unfit for croquet.

The mention of hockey suggests what may perhaps be a true, if severe, test of the sportswoman. If there is one travesty of a game against which I would protest with my last drop of ink, that travesty is what is known as "mixed" hockey. Lawn-tennis, badminton, and croquet are admirable games for both sexes to take part in, and if a girl wishes to enjoy the open air with her brothers or with those of her friends, let them ride, or skate, or golf together. But mixed hockey, dangerous for the women and demoralizing for the men, should be as obsolete as bull-baiting. And now I come to the test, which, but for the fact that I am nearing the sere and yellow, and no longer am afraid of speaking out, I should hesitate to propose. If a woman really fancies shooting or fishing or hunting for its own sake, and not for the added opportunities it affords of seeking the companionship of

men taken up with the serious business of sport, then, given the health and means, it is folly to exclude her from the enjoyment of such pastimes.

If, on the other hand, she takes up sport solely to be with the other sex, then let her be discouraged to the verge of brutality. Sport is not, or at any rate should not be, a social function. Nor is it a mixed game. The keen gunner or fisherman loves solitude, and the best men in the hunting-field are interested in the crowd only to the extent of getting out of its way. Otherwise they ride with their eyes on the hounds and their thoughts with the fox. Most men who shoot know the woman who, not holding a gun herself, likes to stand in the grouse butt or beside the covert next to the crack shot of the party and watch him bring down his birds. If she could only hold her tongue until the drive is over she might be a wholly delightful companion, but unfortunately she has an unhappy knack of just moving or speaking at the wrong moment, causing the birds to break back or swerve off to the next gun. Even the best of sportswomen is apt to spoil things by encouraging the man to show off and shoot wildly. From the peacock dancing before his hens to the champions of the jousting ring, the male has always shown off before the female, and this weakness often makes young men, with their spurs to win, shoot at birds that are too far off, or at rabbits which dart across the rides in dangerous proximity to the legs of the next gun.

The test of the shooting woman is that she shall walk and stand alone, The Outlook.

without a man nearer than thirty yards. If she will obey such conditions, then by all means let her shoot with the best. It is much the same with fishing, a sport in which solitude may be even more essential to success. Yet there are moments when the right sort of woman may be a ministering angel when pain and anguish wring the brow at sight of a fat trout about to make good its escape, with the landing net just out of reach along the bank. other woman, who screams at the touch of a worm and has to be carried over every runnel of water, is better left at home.

The

All said and done, it seems that the keynote of woman's place in sport is moderation. It is fine to see her getting health and enjoyment from her outdoor exercise, but not to devote herself to it with the same passion as the stronger sex. She should swim, but need not attempt the Channel. She should scull a boat, but not compete at Henley. She should fence-there are few more healthy exercises for young women-but not fight duels. Above all, though not invariably a good loser. she should not be discouraged because she is not in the first flight. She may not play golf like Miss Leitch, or badminton like Miss Lucas. She may not skate with the dash of Mrs. Syers, or dance with the grace of Pavlova. Yet falling short of perfection is no reason for despondency. If we men were invaded by the same scruples, how many of us, I wonder, would ever be seen in the stubbles or beside the salmonpool!

F. G. Aulo.

A story breathing the fresh, invigorating air of the Cumberland fells is "Silverwool," and listless novel-readers owe hearty thanks to Emily Jenkinson for writing it. Silverwool is Farmer Wain's huge prize ram, cherished and valued almost like a child, and his only rival at the Great North Show at St. Oswald's is in the possession of Luke Heron, one of pretty Betty Wain's suitors, whose chief shepherd is believed to have stolen it when a lamb, knowing the stock it came of. The possibilities of such a plot are effectively realized, and as a mere narrative the book is intensely interesting. Better still, it is full of sympathetic description and shrewd characterstudy. Ishmael Gray, the crippled curate of Applegarth, sorrowing and striving over his wayward parish, would alone make it noteworthy. The Baker & Taylor Co.

John Gaunt, a London millionaire whose fortune has been made in red rubber, is the hero of Paul Trent's new novel, and "The Vow," which gives its title to the book is made by him to save his wife's life, and pledges him to conduct his affairs henceforward in accordance with the teaching of Christ." On Lady Mildred's recovery, he finds himself obliged to antagonize the administration of the Congo, addresses mass meetings, calls down upon himself the hostility of the Belgian government, incidentally alienates his wife-to whom he gives no explanation of his astonishing volte-face— fits out a warship for the mouth of the Congo, holds up all ships carrying rubber and ivory, and brings about an international complication from which results an agreement between Germany, England and France to take over the Congo. The story does not

lack incident, and readers who find it credible may enjoy it. Frederick A. Stokes Co.

Mrs. Roger A. Pryor, well known as an authority on the South of ante-bellum days, has given us a series of vivid pictures of the period in "The Colonel's Story." The Virginia plantation with its lavish hospitality; the gay groups at White Sulphur Springs, President Taylor among them; the attempted duel; the outbreak of the "gold-fever"; the search for the young adventurer, crossed in love, from San Francisco to the missions of Southern California; and the wedding with its fascinating preparations-all are portrayed with a charm only possible to one who writes con amore. The Colonel himself, a solitary, chivalrous idealist, in love with a young girl of half his years, is a figure both dignified and pathetic; his rival, equally high-minded, is an effective contrast; and Shirley is a girl to dream of and dare for. The minor characters are well sketchedAndy, the Scotch gardener; Mrs. Bangs, tall, gaunt and depressed, with her troop of carrot-headed children; Pizarro, the black boy; Aunt Prissy, with her currant jelly and brandy peaches; quaint little Dorothea, Shirley's sister; and Dr. Berkeley himself, a fine example of the old-time Southern physician, with his capable and lovely wife. The Macmillan Co.

The Rev. John Stockton Littell's "The Historians and the English Reformation" published by The Young Churchman Company of Milwaukee, is an essay in comparative history of more than ordinary interest and importance. Possessed by a strong but by no means exaggerated conviction of the pivotal significance of the English

Reformation, and the lamentable extent to which it is slurred over or pre sented with a partisan bias both in general and school histories and in school instruction, Mr. Littell has undertaken an exhaustive research not only into the teachings of the greater and lesser historians, Protestant, Catholic or neutral, but of their critics, and has brought together between the covers of this single volume the fruits of this research and comparison in such a form that students and teachers of history may easily possess themselves both of the essential facts and the differing views of historians and critics. "The conclusion which Mr. Littell reaches, and for the buttressing of which he conducts his marshalling and comparison of the statements of historians is the catholicity and continuity of the Anglican church. But he holds that the writers and teachers of history should be impartial in their expressions, either admitting that there are two sides to the question, or stating both sides fairly.

An uncommonly attractive, readable and wholesome novel is "Forged in Strong Fires," by John Ironside. The action takes place in South Africa, just before and during the Boer War, and the heroine is the daughter of an English land-owner, in love with a neighbor of Dutch parentage but educated at Oxford. Joyce's mother, and younger brothers and sisters, are sent to England when the situation becomes threatening, and the chapters describing their experiences there give variety and relief to a plot which might otherwise be too tense, but the chief interest remains with Joyce, at her father's side, and with her fate after his tragic death. The author has bestowed the gift of second sight with a lavishness that taxes the reader's credulity, but his lovers are so high-hearted and gallant, and altogether in so agreeable a contrast to those one meets in the aver

age story of the day, that one is not disposed to cavil much. Little, Brown & Co.

Alfred Noyes's "A Poet's Anthology of Poems" (The Baker & Taylor Co.) is a book which piques the curiosity more than most volumes of selections. Mr. Noyes is by far the most gifted poet among the singers of to-day: who are the poets for whom he cares, and which are the poems which most appeal to him? This is the first and most obvious question which suggests itself as one turns these pages. The answer is not hard to find. There are less than forty poets, all told, from whom he makes selections; and of these, he finds most that is worth quoting in Tennyson, next in Wordsworth, and next, in the order named, in Browning, Blake, Shelley, Shakespeare, Matthew Arnold, Christina Rossetti, and Alice Meynell. As might have been expected, the verse in this volume, however varied the theme, is all upon a high level; it has lyric grace and beauty of form, but something more. Moreover, neither the selection of the poems nor their order in the book is an accident. Mr. Noyes, in his preface, which is an admirably courageous bit of writing for these days of doubts, affirms his full faith in the fundamental order and harmony of the universe, and he writes: "The smallest break in that eternal order and harmony is an immeasurable vacuum of the kind that both art and science abhor; for, if we admit it, the universe has no meaning. The poet demanding that not a worm should be cloven in vain, crying with Blake that a robin in a cage shakes Heaven with anger, are at one with that profound truth,-a sparrow shall not fall to the ground without your Father. The blades of the grass are all numbered. There is no break in the roll of that harmony 'whereto the worlds beat time.'" The preface gives the key-note to the anthology.