The Brethren. By H. Rider Haggard. (Cassell and Co. 6a.)
—It is many years since Mr. Haggard published his first novel, but his power to interest remains unimpaired. For with all his faults, ho has the authentic gift of romance. His heroes may be puppets, but we follow their doings excitedly to the end, when the laborious analysis of other writers leaves us cold. He has chosen a wild plot, the quest of two Essex knights for their cousin, who is a niece of Saladin, and is kidnapped from England by his emissaries. The search leads them to the city of the Old Man of the Mountain, Al Je-Bal ; and then through much pretty fighting to the fall of Jerusalem, when all wrongs are happily righted. We are glad that Mr. Haggard should have chosen the Fetus do Monte of the chroniclers as a subject, for in that tale he has a mysterious city ready to his hands ; and certainly Alan Quatermain penetrated to no stranger spot than that city of Lebanon from which Wulf and Godwin fled. Tho fight on the Narrow Way may indeed take rank with the last stand of Umslopagaas. Good fighting is none so common in modern novels, but we can promise all lovers of that ancient craft enough and to spare in this spirited and engrossing story.
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