fall to blows on the same dangerous subject.

I cannot find that in his masterly pictures of public school life he drew much from his experiences at the City of London School, except, perhaps, in a few details, such as the rivalry which he describes so vividly as existing between the fifth and sixth forms in his delightful book, “The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic’s.” In Reed’s day there was no such “set” among the juniors at the City of London School as the “guinea-pigs” and “tadpoles,” who play so important a part in the story; but in a room devoted to the juniors, known as the “horse-shoe,” in the old school buildings in Milk Street, many of the pranks and battles of the “guinea-pigs” and “tadpoles” were played and fought.

In 1869, at the age of seventeen, Reed left school, and joined his father and elder brother Andrew in the great firm of type-founders in Fann Street. He threw himself with strenuous application into the new work, maintaining at the same time with equal keenness his interest in football, wishing nothing better than a fierce game—“three hacks on one leg, and four on the other,” as he said, and glorying in his wounds. The same strenuous energy applied to his reading at this period. A friend tells me that in a letter about this time he speaks of devouring “five of Scott’s novels in a month, resulting in parental remonstrance; history; and a Greek play, in which he is not so ‘rusty’ as he feared.” In Fann Street his practical business energies found free play, although the bias of his mind undoubtedly lay towards literature rather than commerce; but for nearly a quarter of a century he devoted himself to this work with a degree of success that was to be expected of his talents, the conscientious uprightness of his character, and his unceasing industry. At the death of Sir Charles Reed, and of his brother Andrew, Talbot became the managing director of the Type-foundry, and held that position to the time of his death.

Reed had not long left school when his creative literary instincts began to assert themselves. His apprenticeship in literature may be said to have been served in the editing of an exceedingly clever family magazine, called The Earlsmead Chronicle, which circulated in the family and among friends.

His earliest printed effort appeared in 1875, in a little magazine for young people, called The Morning of Life (published in America by Messrs Thomas Nelson and Sons. It is, by the way, a noteworthy coincidence that his first and last printed work should have been issued by this house). His contribution to The Morning of Life was an account in two parts of a boating expedition on the Thames, entitled “Camping Out.” It has in it the promise of the freshness and vigour that were in such abundant degree characteristic of all his later descriptions of boy life.

It was in the pages of the Boy’s Own Paper that Reed found his métier. Its editor writes: “From the very first number of the paper Mr Reed has been so closely and continuously identified with it, that his removal creates a void it will be impossible to fill.” Any one looking through the volumes of this most admirably-conducted boys’ paper will see that Talbot Reed’s work is indeed the backbone of it. In Number One, Volume One, the first article, “My First Football Match,” is by him; and during that year (1879) and the following years he wrote vivid descriptions of cricket-matches, boat-races; “A Boating Adventure at Parkhurst;” “The Troubles of a Dawdler;” and a series of papers on “Boys in English History.” There was also a series of clever sketches of boy life, called “Boys we have Known,” “The Sneak,” “The Sulky Boy,” “The Boy who is never Wrong,” etcetera.

These short flights led the way, and prepared him for the longer and stronger flights that were to follow. In 1880 his first boys’ book began to appear in the Boy’s Own Paper, entitled “The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch.” Charlie Newcome, the youthful hero, is a charming creation, tenderly and pathetically painted, and the story abounds in thrilling incident, and in that freshness of humour which appears more or less in all the Public School Stories. In the following year came a story of much greater power, “The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic’s,” by many boys considered the best of all his stories. It deserves to take its place on the shelf beside “Tom Brown’s Schooldays.” Indeed, a youthful enthusiast who had been reading “The Fifth Form” and “Tom Brown” about the same time, confided to me that while in the latter book he had learned to know and love one fine type of boy, in the former he learned to know and to love a whole school. The two brothers, Stephen and Oliver Greenfield, and Wraysford, and Pembury, and Loman stand out with strong personality and distinctness; and especially admirable is the art with which is depicted the gradual decadence of character in Loman, step by step, entangled in a maze of lies, and degraded by vice until self-respect is nigh crushed out.

“The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic’s” was followed in 1882 by “My Friend Smith;” in 1883 came “The Willoughby Captains” (by many considered his best work); 1885 saw “Reginald Cruden;” and in the same year appeared “Follow My Leader.” This story—an excellent example of Reed’s peculiar power and originality in depicting school life—he wrote in three months; a feat the full significance of which is best known to those who were aware how full his mind and his hands were at that time of other pressing work. Yet the book shows no marks of undue haste.

In 1886 came “A Dog with a Bad Name,” followed in 1887 by “The Master of the Shell.” In 1889 Reed made a new and successful departure in “Sir Ludar: A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess.” Here he broke away from school life, and carried his youthful readers back to the Elizabethans and the glorious incident of the Armada. There is a fine “go” and “swing” in the style of this story which recalls Kingsley to us at his best.

Following hard on “Sir Ludar” came in the same year (1889) “Roger Ingleton, Minor,” a story dealing with young men rather than boys, although Tom Oliphant, a delightful boy, and Jill Oliphant, his sister, take their places among the most lovable of his youthful creations.

In “The Cock-house at Fellsgarth” (1891), and in “Dick, Tom, and Harry” (1892), Reed returned to school life for the materials of his plots, and in these fully maintained his reputation. In addition to these stories, most of which have appeared, or are about to appear, in volume form, he contributed many short stories and sketches to the Christmas and Summer numbers of the Boy’s Own. These are also, I am glad to learn, being collected for publication in volume form.

In “Kilgorman,” the last of the series of boys’ books from his gifted hand, as in “Sir Ludar,” he displays a fine historic sense—a capacity of living back to other times and picturing the people of another generation. Much of the scene of “Kilgorman” and of “Sir Ludar” is laid in Ireland—in the north and north-western corners of it—of all the localities in the United Kingdom perhaps the dearest to Reed’s heart.

To him, in more senses than one, Ireland was a land of romance. The happiest associations of his life were there. There he wooed and won his wife, the daughter of Mr Greer, M.P. for the County of Londonderry; and he and she loved to return with ever new pleasure to inhale the pure air of Castle-rock or Ballycastle, or to enjoy the quiet of a lonely little resting-place in Donegal, on the banks of Lough Swilly, to recuperate after a year’s hard work in London. It was something to see the sunshine on Reed’s beautiful face when the time approached for his visit to the “Emerald Isle.” When he was sore stricken in the last illness, he longed with a great longing to return, and did return, to