Great Battles of the British Army, and Great Battles of
the British Navy, are two stoat and good-looking volumes, both by Mr. Charles Rathbone Low, and published by Messrs. Routledge and Sons. Mr. Low brings both stories down to the present time—or, at least, as the exigencies of writing, printing, &c., permit—for he includes in the latter of the two books the operations of the naval force upon the Nile in the attempted relief of Khartoum. In both volumes we traverse familiar ground ; but it is ground of which one never wearies. Mr. Low, too, knows how to tell a story well. The book about the Navy is, we see, a fifth edition, with the dedication to Carlyle, curiously enough, left standing as to the "greatest living genius, &c." Has no one, by the way, pointed out to the author a curious mistake in the first chapter ? There was no need to speak of ancient times at all. But doing so, Mr. Low should not have ventured on the statement :—" With the exception of the Carthaginians—who were paramount at sea for only a short time—and, perhaps, the Syracusans, we hear of no great naval power in ancient history." Has he never heard, then, of the Athenian fleet, and of one scarcely less famous in later times, that of Rhodes ?
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