THE CAPTIVE
Is arromance of the old school as regards style and spirit; but the author has picked up a little chivalrous learning from Sir WALTER Scorr, or from the sources he pointed out, by which means the tale has the advantage of somewhat more correctness and perhaps more richness than its predecessors. There is the usual quantity of knights and ladies, castles with interminable passages, wainscoted walls with invisible doors, haunted towers, whose inhabitants turn out not to be ghosts, and a detailed account of a tournament which puts us very much in mind of Ivanhoe. The story takes place in the reigns of Edward the Third and Philip the • Fair ; but they are indirect agents—we only hear of them : the chief actors are—a certain Baron of Pontour, who is supposed to have murdered his brother; an African, his pert. ceps criminis ; two suitor knights; the Baron's daughter, and Blanche of Flanders. The events have that sort of possibility which belongs to a romance ; and the composition, though not striking, may be read. On a wet day at a watering-place, the Captive would be an acquisition.
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