Westminster Cloisters. By M. Bidder. (Wells Gardner, Dalton, and Co.)—The
author lays the scene of her story at Westminster towards the end of the twelfth century, when Richard I. was lying in an Austrian prison, and England was meditating the question of his ransom. The hero is a novice of the Abbey, Be Fanoonberg by name, and his ambition is to discover the secret of a famous crimson which some old inmate of the scriptorium had nsed in illuminating, but had always refused to make common property. This part of the tale is worked out with some pathos. Its historical portion relates to the intrigues of Prince John against the plan for raising the ransom. The author, with some courage, makes Queen Berengaria herself come to England to plead for her husband's liberty. Is it not a well- established fact that she never was in England,—the only Queen that never visited the country from which she took her title P We will venture on another criticism of a different kind. Does the author think that the "splendid thirty-pound salmon" was caught with a rod P That is improbable in 1193, and in the Thames. And why in saeculd ?
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