12 NOVEMBER 1892, Page 24

Strange Yet True. By Dr. Macaulay. (Nisbet and Co.)—Here we

have between twenty and thirty "interesting and memorable stories retold." Some of them are almost too well known. "The Loss of the 'Royal George:" for instance ; but most are sufficiently fresh to warrant repetition. Some, too, it is really a good thing -to bring back to people's memory, so strong is the tendency to forget the lessons which they teach. "The True Story of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot" is one of these salutary narra- tives. A maudlin feeling of clemency causes an outcry about the continued punishment of the dynamitards, whose motives, after all, were not, by the most favourable showing, so elevated as those of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators. Some humourist speaks of a store of dynamite so large as to be able to convert half-a-dozen Cabinet Ministers. Our sturdier ancestors were not convinced by such arguments, but took a very "short method" with this kind of disputant.