16 NOVEMBER 1895, Page 12

Stamford Bridge, had a brilliant career, which came to a

fitting

end when he and the traitor Tostig and their great invasion were defeated. Captain Young follows the adventures of Harold—

partly historical and partly imaginary—first at the Court of Yaroslav, King of Novgorod, and then takes us with him to Constantinople, where his hero performs wonders as Commander of the Varangian Guard. This was the most glorious part of his life, and though he reigned in Norway for many years, and became a great King, the shadow of an act of treachery, and of that great fight, is over him. The story wants a little more go and less glorification of Harold, on whom the author lavishes a resplendent vocabulary ; but boys will delight in reading of the great Viking, who was one of the best of his type, and of whom the average boy knows but little beyond the answer which his English namesake returned to his request for land.