Bromine. By John Ayscough. (J. W. Arrowsmith, Bristol. 6s.)—Mr. Ayscough's
writing is always interesting, but in the present book he really has given us too many Kings without kingdoms among his characters. The reader is irresistibly reminded of a remark in "The Wrong Box," in which Michael addresses the wretched Dent Pitman confidentially : "One drunken man, excellent business—two drunken men, all my eye !" One or two uncrowned Monarchs are "exoellent business," but four are too many. Mr. Ayscough might have allowed himself a pretender to a throne in the person of Ludovic, really Louis XVII. of France, and it may even be conceded that the Royal descent of the MI/foregh is necessary to provide Ludovic with a wife. But when it comes to a Spanish gipsy King with great pretensions to a Court, and, worse still, to the boy Emperor of Hispaniola, the reader feels with some exasperation that he has had too many Majesties. The touch of mysticism in Mr. Ayscough's writings makers the parts of the book which deal with spiritual matters by far the most interesting, though again the question rises irresistibly which was asked last year in those columns concerning his former book "Marotz,"—how it is that Mr. John Ayscough knows so much about the life in convents of con- templative nuns. As a work of art, the present book must be acknowledged to be disconnected in plan, the various interests being too completely divorced from each other. " Marotz" was indeed a far more workmanlike piece of writing, and the character of the heroine lived before the eyes of the reader in a way which is not achieved by any of the Royal and semi-Royal personages of Bromine. But when all is said and done, there is a charm about Bromine missed by many novels which are far more competently put together.
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