Peril and Patriotism. 2 vols. (Cassell and Co. 4s. per
vol.)—These "True Tales of Heroic Deeds and Startling Adven- tures" have a sufficiently good right to the title by which they are collectively called. There is " peril " in all of them, and in many more than peril, and there are few in which we may not find patriotism in one form or another. The terrible deed of Lynch-law which is related in the first paper of Vol. II. was done with a vague idea of serving the country. The collection is certainly one of the very greatest interest. There are stories of valour by land and sea, valour triumphant or beaten down by overwhelming odds, as the taking of Manipur and the last stand at Maiwand. And it is not the Army and the Navy only which figure in these pages. The heroes of the railway engine, the mine, the ship- wreck, the chase, the burning warehouse are here ; all the varied perils which men encounter for duty's sake are described.— With these volumes may be mentioned two collections which we are accustomed to look for year by year. These are Fifty-two Stories of Heroism in Life and Action for Bays, by G. A. Henty, G. Manville Fenn, and others, edited by Alfred H. Miles (Hutchinson and Co.), and Fifty-two Stories of Heroism in Life and Action for Girls, by L. T. Meade, Sarah Dondney, and others, by the same editor and publishers (5s. per vol.) Fiction and fact are mingled, we take it, in these narratives, but the fiction is always wholesome and with a truth of its own.
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