29 SEPTEMBER 1888, Page 26

The Sinclairs of England. (Triibner and Co.)—We quite agree with

the author that "novelty and originality are great aids to all narration;" but when carried to excess they render narrative, particularly historical narrative, clumsy. Is it because the writer thinks he has carried his originality too far, that he has omitted to place his name on the title-page ? If we consider the extra- ordinary jumble of historical and genealogical records, the detestable grammar, and the fulsome and "frantic eulogy" of the Sinclairs, the reason seems obviously enough to be the one we have suggested. His original views of English history, also, are a sufficient excuse for such an omission. He regards the. Norman Conquest in the light of an enlightened crusade. He has, too, a poor opinion of the majority of our English monarchs, "the, miserable, talc [sic], robber, murdering, inefficient Plantagenets," whom he calls in another place, " England's diamonds of something less than the first water !" The book is a mistake.