ZULNEIDA.
THE scene of this novel is laid in Sicily, during the sway of the Arragonese dynasty, at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Without being exactly historical, the author has connected the persons of his romance with the public choracters and events of his time, and infused a due quantity of mystery into his story, which he has crowded, and perhaps complicated, with to many heroes and heroines. Of historical knowlelge he appears to have much; of antiquarian knowledge little; nor, if he possessed it, does he seem 'to have the genius requisite to turn it to account, and revive the manners of the past. Reconstructs his story a ith care, contrives its different denLuements with judgment, and tells it with labour and pains, but without a particle of that animation which is necessary in a work of fiction. In tone and character Zu/neida is more like a literary lawyer's narrative of a complex case, than a romance of mystery, love, and chivalry.
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