The Christmas Monthly.

The Christmas Monthly is unusually large and, on the whole, readable. It is headed with four very long literary criticisms-Mrs. Wharton, by H. L. Warner '03; Miss Fiona Macleod and the Celtic Movement, by L. Ward '03; Hermann Suderman, by Ernest Bernbaum '03, and Onota Watanns, unsigned. All of them are carefully written, show appreciative method and skill, but except for their actual literary merit, are not particularly interesting reading. The last named is perhaps the most pleasing. It is comparatively brief, tells something that is good to know, in a manner, pleasant and graceful-and above all is not burdened with rhetorical self consciousness, but is sound without being needlessly pretentious.

The rest of the number maintains an excellent average, "Class Spirit," by R. Derby '03, is a short and true account of the development of a class, written in a straight forward manner with convincing earnestness. Two stories, "Tufa," by L. M. Crosbie '04, and "The Night College House Burned," by S. A. Welldon '04, are both unusually good bits of narrative. The first is a trifle squalid, perhaps, and is a not altogether new idea, but is most skillfully put together, rapid and full of vivid color and incident. The second has a distinct Cambridge atmosphere, is convincing in spite of apparent improbability, and but for the somewhat unjustified tragic ending, is very well written.

The verse is consistently good. "An Ascent of Sinai," by O. J. Campbell '03, has both depth and music. The "Night of Nativity," by C. T. Ryder '06, contains a pleasant thought, delicately expressed and is in striking contrast to the rather obscure, congested "Realists," by H. W. Holmes '03. The latter, however, shows thought and a rather unusual command of phrase. "The Sea," by W. S. Archibald '03, lacks distinction, both in matter and treatment.

A rather commonplace editorial, and two book reviews.-the latter, by S. A. Welldon, being particularly satisfactory and pleasantly expressed-complete the number.