26 DECEMBER 1885, Page 22

in 300 pages, the story of the Crusades, from their

commencement to the termination of the eighth and last one. "It has been told," as the author says in his preface, "with as much lightness and as much adventurous detail as is deemed consietent with such a purely his- torical subject ;" it in one, of course, which mast ever be interesting, and we have no doubt that "the young people for whose amusement —it may be instruction—he has catered" will be fully satisfied with the repast that has been provided for them. The purely historical element will be more than compensated for by the knightly encounters and the rants of the Saracens—"the horses even," on one occasion, "biting the fugitives as they ran "—to say nothing of the profusion of good illustrations, forty in number, and of the most varied descriptions.

Opportunities have been used for introducing "instruction," such as "The Institution of Chivalry" and "The Troubadours." The last words of the book are that "the Holy Wars were not productive of any good in their termination." Their termination was itself a good, not to refer to other established historical results in connection therewith.