MR. ANDREW LANG'S TRUE STORY-BOOK.* a humorous preface, which is
not the least entertaining part of his volume, Mr. Lang apologises to his young readers for a possible disappointment,—t hey may have been expecting another book of fairy-tales, and have found in its stead a volume "full of adventures which actually happened to real people." He protests, on his honour, that he has no intention of instructing them by stealth. He has mixed up his stories in such a way that "no clear and consecutive view of history can possibly be obtained from them,"—the story of Thermo- pylm being sandwiched, for instance, between an adventure with pirates and the escape of Prince Charlie after the Forty- five. And if he has wandered into history, it is into parts of history on which examiners are not likely to set questions,—.
* The T9118 StOVV.BOOk Thlited by Andrew Lang, London Lougmaim 1803. the conquest of Mexico by Cortes, for example. Young people will do well to accept the apology. If they do happen to learn something from these true stories—and it is by no means impossible—they must make the best of it.
Five out of the twenty-four stories we owe to Mr. Lang's own pen. "The Spartan Three Hundred" is one of them. We are glad to see that he does not forget to mention, with especial honour, the seven hundred Thespians, bravest of the brave, because they elected to die, not to keep up a national tradition of honour, but in obedience to a personal sense of dnty. "The Escapes of Lord Pitsligo " is another of his narratives, and he tells with admirable force the story of "Two Great Matches." These are the Oxford and Cambridge cricket-matches of 1870 and 1876. Both were won, to borrow a metaphor from another sport, "on the post." In 1870, Oxford, having 178 to go in against in the second innings, had at the end three wickets wherewith to make three runs, and lost them all for one ; in 1876, Cambridge had 175 to make, and had made all but seven when the ninth batsman was caught at the ropes. After another ran, the tenth fell to a "slow." Mr. Lang tells of those changing fortunes which set so many thousand hearts beating fast, with a refreshing enthusiasm. Nearly a third of the space is occupied, and, we think, well occupied, with the story of the conquest of Mexico. This is a reduction, skilfully executed, from Prescott, a work, as Mr. Lang hints, scarcely known by this generation as well as it deserves. For interest it is surely unrivalled. " Cortes," as we read in the preface, "is the great original of all treasure- hunters and explorers in fiction, and here no feigned tale can be the equal of the real." The extraordinary vicissitudes of the adventure make it so wonderful. To think that there should have been a final triumph after the desperate straits of La Noche Triste ! Among the other stories are that of Kaspar Hansen, "rather picturesque than critical," as the editor remarks, the escapes of Benvenuto Cellini from the castle of St. Angelo, of Ctesar Borgia from the castle of Medina. del Campo, and of Cervantes from Algiers,—this last being a series of attempts, for Cervantes had to be ransomed at last. Of historical narratives, we have "The 'Shannon' and the 'Chesapeake,'" a tale with which we are accus- tomed to solace a somewhat uncomfortable feeling of general defeat ; and "The Tale of Isandhwlana." This last is contributed by Mr. Rider Haggard, who shows that he can deal as skilfully with fact as with fiction. Here is the de- scription of how the dreadful truth of the disaster at the camp was first discovered by Commandant Lonsdale, of the Natal Native Contingent :— " This officer had been ill, and was returning to camp alone, a fact that shows how little anything serious was expected. He reached it about the middle of the afternoon, and there was nothing to reveal to the casual observer that more than three thousand human beings had perished there that day. The sun shone on nu white tents and on the ox-waggons, around and about which groups of red-coated men were walking, sitting, and lying. It did not chance to occur to him that those who were moving were Zulus wearing the coats of English soldiers, and those lying down, soldiers whom the Zulus had killed. As Com- mandant Lonsdale rode, a gun was fired, and he heard a bullet whizz past his head. Looking in the direction of the sound, he saw a native with a smoking rifle in his hand, and concluding that it was one of the men under his command who had discharged his piece accidentally, he took no more notice of the matter. For- ward he rode, till ho was within ten yards of what had been the lie idquarter tents, when suddenly out of them stalked a great Zulu, bearing in his hand a broad assegai, from which blood was di ipping. Then his intelligence awoke, and he understood. The CP mp was in possession of the enemy, and those who lay here and there upon the grass like holiday-makers in a London park on a Sunday in the morn, were English soldiers indeed, not living, but dead."
What a tragic touch this last is !
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