Cossack and Czar. By David Ker. (W. and R. Chambers.)—
This is an attempt, and, on the whole, a successful attempt, to reintroduce into fiction for boys, the familiar historic figures of Peter the Great, Charles of Sweden, and Mazeppa. The two contrasted monarchs who came to close grips on the day when "fortune left the royal Swede" are admirably drawn. Then, with a view no doubt to the wishes, if not the necessities of boys, there are introduced into Cossack and Czar, plenty of adventures, most of which fall to the lot of an exiled Englishman and his son, and of a young man who is believed to be a son of Mazeppa, but who turns out—so far as family, however, goes only—a much more important personage. It may be said with perfect truth of this book, that there is not an uninteresting and scarcely a careless line in it.
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