A Flame of Fire. By Joseph Hocking. (Cassell and Co.
3s. 6d.) tale of the Inquisition and of the " devildoms of Spain" is not likely to be wanting in excitement. Rupert Hamstead with two companions journey to Spain—the time is just before the sailing of the Great Armada—to rescue two Englishwomen who are in danger of suffering as heretics. Probability may be "the guide of life," as a great thinker has said, but it is not the guide of a novelist when he has such a subject as this -in hand. Perhaps it is as well to have it so. Mr. Hocking has a hand practised in this kind of work, and knows how to make his readers follow him without too curious questionings about the way. But there are a few things which really count for more than all the improba- bilities of the story. We feel quite sure that Rupert's father, a country squire of the second half of the sixteenth century, had never spoken to his son " about the beauties of Cornwall," and it is a distinct shock when Father Parsons uses the modern vulgarism, " and a calf's head at that."
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