A Ladder of Swords. By Gilbert Parker. (W. Heinemann. 6s.)
—Sir Gilbert Parker has given us a romance of Jersey in the days of Elizabeth. A. Huguenot girl and her lover escape thither from France, and are befriended by the Seigneur de Bezel, an admirable giant of a school not unknown in fiction. When Elizabeth for State reasons proposes to give them up to Catherine de Medici, de Bezel goes to Court, accompanied by the girl, her lover, and a pirate of the name of Buonespoir, and after a great deal of Court intrigue all succeed in making their peace with the Queen and acquiring her favour. The first part of the tale, where the scene is laid in Jersey, is an excellent piece of work, the rough humour and simplicity of the islanders giving the story a swing and gusto which it loses a little when it is transferred to Court. Leicester is an elaborate study, but, to our mind, his traits are a little overdone ; Elizabeth, on the other hand, is an acute and convincing portrait, taken at one of the most difficult moments of her career. Sir Gilbert Parker, however, is at his happiest with simpler natures, and the pirate Buonespoir, de Bezel, and the girl Angelo are the best things in the book. Michel, the lover, who begins well, becomes a little incomprehensible in his subsequent roles as Court champion and preacher of the Word. On the whole, it is a clever and inspiring piece of romance, written with good feeling and much charm of style. As the author admits, there are several anachronisms. In days when all gentle- folk knew heraldry, de Rozel would have given the technical description of his arms, and not the loose paraphrase of p. 123; and in a narrative in the Elizabethan manner a reference to a tune in an opera is a little out of place. The spirit, however, seems to us to be truly Elizabethan.
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