...[Baker] bases the major part of his discussion of the early fiction upon the works of only two men, William Gresley and Francis Paget, both of considerably less than minor importance in the history of the novel (of their thirteen novels cited, Harvard has six, Yale two, and Columbia none). These two were intimately connected with the Oxford Movement, and their partisan writings (frequently in the Englishman's Library, founded as a propagandist organ) are scarcely indicative of any influence upon the general development of the novel. Whatever influence the Movement had upon the more prominent of the "legitimate " novelists of the early period is often limited to the passing reference of a few paragraphs. Mr. Baker demonstrates, however, that a great deal of minor fiction does reflect the Movement. He shows clearly that the arlti- intellectualism of its leaders was directly reflected in the novels, particularly in those of Charlotte Yonge, whose ideal clergymen are invariably described as being none too clever. He also points out evidence of the reformers' ideas on church architecture, govern- mental and social conditions. The chapter on Trollope is among the best. It shows that Trollope has given us " the most insidiously false picture of the Victorian clergyman in so far as it concerns the Oxford Movement." Trollope was unaware, for instance, that the term " Protestant " was a fighting word to the true Anglo-Catholic.

The subject is a difficult one for a layman to cover adequately, but Mr. Baker gives evidence of careful research and writes in a delightful style; his book will be a valuable if scarcely indispensable addition to the history of one phase of the thought of the nineteenth century.