20 DECEMBER 1890, Page 25

The Last of the Matallisters. By Amelia E. Barr. (James

Clarke and Co.)—This is a story with the eternal Prince Charlie for sub- hero, and an athletic and violent young Highland chieftain, with no merits but athleticism and violence, for hero, set in the eternal '45. It is rather less boring than most stories in which your High- land chieftain figures, owing to its being written by an American who seems to have some dim perception that, after all, a life of plunder and violence under an autocratic chieftain is not wholly admirable. Against the authoress's desires, one likes the eldest son, who settles down as a civilised gentleman, so much better than the intended hero, who finally exports himself to be a slave- owner in Virginia, that the book seems rather nu:Lague.