Under the Storm; or, Steadfast's Charge, by Charlotte M. Yonge
(National Society's Depository) is in all respects worthy of the reputation of the author of " The Heir of Radcliffe." It is a historical romance—powerful, but also painfully pathetic—of the days of the struggle between the Charleses and Parliament, and illustrates in the moat vivid manner how that struggle broke up families. John Kenton, a farmer, whose holding is in the vicinity of Bristol, a devout churchman and a churchwarden, is wantonly shot in the presence of his family by one of Prince Rupert'a troopers, and his boasts is burnt dews. The result is that his eldest son, Jeph, in his wrath and thirst for revenge, enters the service of the Parlia- ment, to rise to a high position in it. Steadfast, however, the second son, who has witnessed his vicar and his father secrete in a cavern a casket containing the communion-plate belonging to the pariah church, and has promised not to betray the secret of their hiding- place to any one but an ordained clergyman, stands by Church and State, in spite of persecution (witnessed, to a certain extent, by his own brother Jeph) which, in the long run, amounts to martyrdom. Stead, as he is familiarly termed, has a pretty but 'topless love- affair, which also plays its part in this story. Charles IL puts in an appearance in Under the Storm—an appearance not unlike that of Louis Kerneguy in " Woodstock." Stead, however, is the hero, and the sole hero, of the book ; and the ono regret of its readers will be that at the last he does not recover his health. Under the Storm is, in point of literary workmanship, altogether unexceptionable.
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