Charlie Asgarcle : the Story of a Friendship. By Alfred
St. John- ston. (Macmillan and Co.)—Mr. St. Johnston has mixed his in- gredients with admirable skill, and made a story which ought to be a great favourite with the young. There is a something of "Robinson Crusoe " in his tale (not that he copies at all servilely), and perhaps, we may say, a dash of "Paul and Virginia,"—only the " Virginia " is a dusky beauty. Charlie and Willie—the David and Jonathan of the story—are shipwrecked, and manage to reach an island of the Fiji group. (The reader must understand that the time is of the unregenerate days when Fiji was a name suggestive of the most odious cannibalism.) How the companions fare in their solitary abode, and how the solitude is invaded, and how it all made, young readers may profitably find out for themselves. They will have the pleasure of reading a stirring and thoroughly wholesome story. We would only venture to suggest that the young gentleman, who at the beginning of the story cannot so much as take the life of a bird, develops
"The wild beast force, Whose home is in the sinews of a man,"
with considerable rapidity.
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