5 NOVEMBER 1898, Page 27

The Island of the English. By Frank Cowper, M.A. (Seeley

and Co.)—The "Island of the English" is not, as might be supposed, England, but a, little islet, Tisaoson by name, lying off the coast of Brittany. The story belongs to the time of the First Consulate while Brittany was still unreconciled to the Republic, and to the military r6gime which superseded it. Mr. Cowper tells an unusually spirited story about the adventures of an English lad who finds himself mixed up with the merciless feud between the Republican forces and the Chouans under Georges Cadoudal. This leader himself has no prominent part to play in the drama, as Mr. Cowper works it out. But the combatants are very vividly, and even realistically, drawn. There is no sentimental softness in the drawing of the Breton insur- gents. For savagery they and their foes are much on the same level. The gloom of the picture, in which, so to speak, black and red are very largely used, is relieved by the noble figure of the priest and the grace of Ivette de Kerouailles.