Sketches of Christian Life in England in the Olden Time,
By Mrs. Rundell Charles. (Nelson and Sons.)—Mrs. Rundlell Charles, whom many of our readers will know as the author of "The Schenberg-Cotta Family," has given us here in nine sketches some leading events in thirteen centuries of Christian life in England. The first is a dialogue, with appropriate surroundings, between a Druid; a Jew, scattered with his people by the destruction of his sacred city ; and a Christian, a Greek slave from Asia Minor, who works in a British mine. The ninth is a story of the Lollard times. Here the speaker is a Franciscan friar, who has been touched by the teaching of Wyclif. The others are "The Two Martyrs of Verulani," "Annals of an Anglo-Saxon Family" (in three parts), "Alfred" (in two parts), and "A Tale of the Con- quest." Mrs. Charles touches these themes with grace and skill, and with a reverent feeling which will make her book welcome to many readers. Nor has she failed to study her subject. We are unwilling to criticise a book of such a character: nor, indeed, would it be right to demand historical accuracy. Still, it would have been as well not to describe (in the second sketch) Amphibalua as a "historical character." St. Alban himself is somewhat doubtful, but as the late Mr. Haddon (who was not by any means too sceptical) puts it in his article in the "Dictionary of Christian Biography," "the amplification of the persecuted priest into the legend of Amphibalus is a twelfth-century legend. He is first found by name in Geoffrey of Monmouth, and is con- jectured to have arisen out of St. Alban's cloak (amphibaius)."
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