To say that many parts of this collection of humorous articles have appeared in Punch is to pay tribute not so much to their exceptional quality as to the excellent critical judgment of that most precious of all periodicals.

Mr. Herbert's quiet, amused humor is beyond words refreshing to senses somewhat worn by the boisterous and often raucous jesting of our native humorists. There is much that provokes a smile in these "Rays of Moonshine", and there is no less frequent cause for unrestrained laughter. The book as a whole is peculiarly satisfying. Its contents are imbued with that understanding of the eternal child lurking in every man of any sensitiveness--that understanding which drew from Carlyle the penetrating remark, "Laughter means sympathy". Such laughter Mr. Herbert awakens, such sympathy--sympathy with the human being so situated or so concerned as the various articles depict, a being at times strangely like oneself. This kind of humor is found in several of Mr. Herbert's contemporaries and compatriots; notably Hilaire Belloc and H. M. Bateman's drawings. But Mr. Herbert is alone in his remarkable simplicity of style and his difficult--almost apologetic--manner which as he sets forth the most absurd and ridiculous of matter are in themselves entrancing.

It is difficult to select extracts from his various articles as the humor is so closely woven into the whole of each. His struggles with a typewriter--which by the way is "Ami et a mijge imean a midgt, made of alumium."--renders one helpless with mirth; while his essays on The Grasshopper, The Art of Poetry, and About Bathrooms, are inimitable. Their humor is somewhat more restrained than that of A Criminal Type, from which we quoted above, as also is that of Reading Without Tears: but perhaps for this very reason they are even more delightful and valuable. For impertinent audacity what can equal the following extract from Wrong Numbers, a game of unconscionable impersonation on the telephone, invented by the author?

A Voice (menacing) Hullo! Hullo! Hullo!

Me (sweetly as if conferring some priceless boon) Put three pennies in the slot and turn the handle, please.

A Voice (spluttering) Look here, put me through to the supervisor at once.

Me (very far off) Supervisor speaking.

A Voice (with suppressed passion but pompous withal) Look here, I'm a member of Parliament. I've been--

Me (gently) Do not shout into the receiver, please.

A Voice--Hullo! I'm a

Me (gently) Do not say "Hullo".

The sequel to this maddening correction, the reader may see for himself.