Caroline of England

THE appearance of this book would seem to suggest that there is somewhere some interest in a stretch of English history which has hitherto been quite justly passed by as utterly uninteresting. English life under George I was the ideal of consummate stagnation, save for the activity of a few literary figures who have had their full due from the history of English letters. Mr. Quennell has done his best, a very good best, with what he had — dull stupid characters stolidly pigging their way through dull stupid phases of a dull stupid social life. His work is excellent, dignified and faithful to fact, and therefore the reader will all the more regret that he did not choose a subject which could carry him rather than one which he has to carry.