A Vanished Nation. By Herbert Hayens. (Nelson and Sons. 5s.)—This
ie a praiseworthy attempt to reproduce Paraguay,— the Paraguay that Dr. Francis, too much beloved of Carlyle, governed wisely but too well to allow of a dictator being chosen with sufficient capacity to fill his shoes, much less to carry out his ideas. Mr. Hayens represents the country going to ruin under Lopez, an adventurer who has all the worst instincts of the tyrant, but who is a great deal both of a bungler and of a coward. The narrator and his uncle Jim are among the Englishmen skilled in various trades and professions whom Francia's im- mediate successor encouraged to settle in Paraguay, and they witness a good deal of the final and hopeless struggle of the country with its enemies " the Allies." The plot is rather involved, and too many details are given of the different conflicts in the war. But several of the incidents are carefully represented, and the portrait of Lopez is well executed.
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