The Bed Cravat. By Alfred Tresidder Sheppard. (Macmillan and Co.
6s.)—Mr. Sheppard's name is new to us, and if this be a first book, it is a notable performance. It is an historical romance, in the old-fashioned full-bodied style, of the Prussian Court about 1730. A young Englishman is kidnapped and enlisted in the regiment of giant Grenadiers, and his adventures and ultimate escape make up the plot of the tale. It is a fine stirring narrative, not without crudities, and there is some good character-drawing, which redeems it from super- ficiality. Fassmann, the literary hack, and Gundling, the drunken Chamberlain, are carefully studied figures, and the old Countess von Schunk is an excellent instance of the rough- tongued, kindly gran& dame of fiction. The style has spirit and charm, and Mr. Sheppard is a master of that kind of allusive
writing which is best suited to the historical romance. The chief faults are diffuseness and an occasional sentimentality, which were perhaps inevitable in a first book.
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