THERE are few ages in the history of England about which it is easier to become romantic than that of Anne and George the First. The gay, corrupt life pictured in "The Beggar's Opera", when Walpole talked of a man and his price, and nobody's virtue was over-nice lends itself admirably to a bit of rich imaginative writting by a scholar who knows the period and its people and can see through the eyes of a contemporary.

Mr. Sherwin has tried to put on the screen a real moving picture of this life, taking John Gay as his central figure. Evidently a scholar whose acquaintance with his material has not been gained solely in text-books and Hogarth's prints, he has tried to set down some of the more intimate aspects of the life of the day, and has succeeded to a certain extent. If the reader himself has a vivid imagination, he may put Mr. Sherwin's pictures in his mind's eye and build up out of them a fine scene of rum and riot, women and song.

But there are glimpses of the London of the eighteenth century which are alone worth the price of admission. The initial chapter of the book, "On The Art of Walking the Streets of London", is a delightful essay which could well stand by itself in any volume. "The revelations of the court of George I. of Walpole, of the run of speculation which ended in the South Sea Bubble, make excellent reading.