Syd By G. Manville Fenn. (Methuen and Co.)—Mr. Fenn ta/e5 , 11 for
his sub-title, " The Boy who would not go to Sea." He works trgto this idea very well. Sydney Belton is not one of those enthAert:c lads who are bent on a sea-life, and very often come homy seas of -ently disenchanted by their first voyage. On the eentrgigh the Cate,*he greatest reluctance to follow the career which his f in a Whaler. BSn, and still more resolutely his uncle, the Admiratis a story of advhim. His own liking is to a doctor's profession, ano: izs iiia-tasts his naval relatives by his eagerness to learn all that a doctor can teach him. However, filial feeling triumphs in the end ; and, having gone to sea, he does his duty -without flinching. The principal interest of the book centres in
the narrative of how young Belton holds the position which his Captain has sent a party to occupy. The Lieutenant is disabled by an accident which, but for Syd's smattering of medical know- ledge, would have cost him his life. (Mr. Fenn might have said .a good word here for the Ambulance and " First Aid to the Wounded" lectures.) Somehow Syd comes into command
of the party, and does his work skilfully and boldly. From beginning to end, the book is a vivid and even striking picture of sea-life.—We have not been so favourably im- pressed with another work from Mr. Fenn's pen, Nolens Voiotia ; or, the Adventures of Don Lavington (S. W. Partridge and Co.) To speak candidly, this seems to us a little thin. The first eighty pages of the book tell us how Don gets into trouble with his uncle, a British merchant, and runs away. Then we have a lengthy account of how he and his companion, who runs away from a scolding wife, are laid hold of by a press- gang, how they attempt to escape, and how finally they get away. Far on in the volume, we reach what is presumably intended for its specialty, the adventures with the New Zealanders, by whose aid they at last succeed in giving the authorities of the Golden Danae ' the slip. Mr. Fenn is never dull, and there is no diffi- culty in reading whatever he is pleased to write, but Nolens Volens is not one of his happiest efforts.
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