Afloat with Nelson. By Charles II. Eden. (John Macqueen.)— We
learn from the preface to this volume that it is the first of a series in which it is proposed to commemorate the patriotic services of the great British Admirals. The idea is an excellent one, and the first volume, of which Lord Nelson is the (historical) hero, is certain to fascinate the boys for whom no doubt, in the first instance at all events, it is written. It opens well with a smuggling adventure. Then the boy who is supposed to tell the story finds himself in the presence and under the command of Sir Horatio Nelson, and so is enabled to fight over again the- battles of the Nile, the Baltic, and Trafalgar. In Stephen. Croucher, who is a traitor to his friends the smugglers, to' England, and even to the Frenchmen to whom he deserts, and who possesses as many lives as a eat, we have an admirable, and admirably drawn, villain. There is plenty not only of sea- fighting, but of other adventures as well, for the boy-hero gete shipwrecked on Italian shores, where he makes the acquaintance both of his future wife and of a picturesque bandit and patriot bearing the Byronic name of Beppo. Here and there, too, an in his sketch of a comic but rather " superior " sailor, Mr. Eden shows himself to be possessed of a Marryatish humour. Alto- gether Afloat with Nelson is a book that boys will gloat over.
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