One Crowded Hour. By Sydney C. Grier. (William Blackwood and
Sons. 43s.)—The real hero of this novel is undoubtedly Garibaldi, though a very disagreeable person called Captain Geoffrey Carrick nominally fills that sae. But the interest of the book lies in the account it gives of Garibaldi's Sicilian and Neapolitan campaigns. The picture of the King of Naples, Francis II., and Marie Sophie, his wife, and of Neapolitan society of the day is also extremely curious. The story proper, that is, the love story, is not specially attractive, and it is quite impossible to believe that Geraldine, the heroine, should be so much in love with anyone so disagreeable as Geoffrey Carrick. It is, perhaps, credible that she should be loyal to him when once they were engaged, but even going through the horrors of the Mutiny in company with him could not possibly have made her fall in love with him, for he is represented as the kind of person who never made a single remark that was not both cross and tactless. The curious serenity and aloofness of Garibaldi's real nature are well drawn, though it is bard to reconcile these qualities with the conventional pictures of the Liberator. Readers who are interested in the events which led to the redemption of Italy should not fail to get this book. It gives a most vivid picture of the time.
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