28 FEBRUARY 1903, Page 24

Karl of Erbach. By H. C. Bailey. (Longmans and Co.

6a.)— There is a great deal of fighting in Karl of Erbach, and there is also a great deal of love-making of the school which, with apologies to Mr. Bailey, it is only fair to dub the school of "Anthony Hope." Karl of Erbach, with his absolute, rugged integrity, is a fine figure, and well contrasted with the indolent Frenchman, Leon de Lormont, who, as is the custom of languid gentlemen in fiction, is really a diplomatist of the highest order and carries all before him. The book is a picturesque study of certain episodes in the Thirty Years' War, and will please readers who like a historical novel with a certain plaintive note running through it, well mixed with sentimentally passionate love- onakin,g.