The Lost Ring. By M. C. Melville. (Nelson and Sons.)—
This is "A Romance of Scottish History in the Days of King James and Andrew Melville." It shows study of the period, but it has the fault, too commonly found in historical romances, of being somewhat dull. A tale is like a drama in requiring some- thing like a unity of time and place, not rigorously enforced, indeed, but still observed in a way. There is an interval nearer the half than the quarter of a century between the beginning of this tale and the ending. There is a certain awkwardness about the form in which the story is given. It is supposed to be told by a lady living in the early part of the seventeenth century ; but the language is entirely modern, not merely "revised and somewhat modified," as the author puts it. This is a great literary error.
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