11 JUNE 1864, Page 21

Second to None. By James Grant. (Routledge, Warne, and Rout-

ledge.)—This novel is rightly named, for it is second to none of the author's previous efforts. There is the same easy narrative of dashing adventure, and the same life-like picture of that reckless love of excite- 'Went which is the ideal quality of a trooper in the eyes of most people who know nothing of military life. A disinherited baronet enlisted as a private in the Scots Greys (whose proud motto is the title of the book), and following the fortunes of his regiment during the latter part of the war which the first Pitt administered, the expedition to Brittany under the young Duke of Marlborough, Fontenoy, and a pretty cousin who by giving the hero herself restores to him the family estates, all these form a bill of fare of which Mr. Grant knows how to make the most.