4 NOVEMBER 1893, Page 38

The Story of Abibal the Tsourian. Edited by Val Prinsep.

(Smith and Elder.)—This is a story of a mysterious manuscript in which a certain Abibal relates his unhappy experiences. There is a flavour of archaism about the style which may be supposed to recall Herodotus. The story is not of much interest, and the machinery by which it is introduced is out of date. The narrow- ness of the old rector is not exaggerated—that, in the face of the correspondence in religious newspapers, it would be impossible to say—but the way in which he acts seems to us not a little im- probable.