Glory. By Mrs. G. Linnaeus Banks. 3 vole. (Hurst and
Blackett.) —Mrs. Banks describes from life, and weaves real foetal into her narra- tive. The result which she produces is effective. It would not be easy to find a story which keeps the reader's attention more flared than does Glory. The scene is laid for the most part in England, though towards the ond of the narrative it is transferred elsewhere, and the time is the great war which England waged against the republic and the empire of France. The hero of the story is Jesse Wilton, wheelwright and farmer. We follow his fortunes at home in his work and in his love, see him touched by the passion for military glory, and thrown by his own folly under the power of one who was his inveterate enemy, and pity him when he finds what is the reality of the life which had so attractive an appearance. The picture of English life at the close of the last century and during the earlier years of the present is powerfully drawn, and the sketches of actual svarfaro, if of necessity not so real, are certainly vigorous. Generally we take a somewhat different view of the subject from that taken by Mrs. Banks. It is easy to accumulate images of misery and horror, and then to hold up to reprobation as an insensate passion for " glory " the feeling whieh loads men to take part in such scenes ; yet much certainly of English feeling during the great Continental war was genuine and patriotic, nor is it easy to see how it can be simul- taneously true that Napoleon was a monster of cruelty and treachery, and therefore, of course, to be resisted, and that the English ardour for war was a foolish frenzy,
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