• CURRENT LITERATURE.
For Love and Liberty. By Alfred Harcourt. 2 vols. (Chapman and Ha,11.)—Some years ego the historical novel or romance seemed to have fallen somewhat out of public favour ; but Dr. Conan Doyle, Mr. Stanley Weyman, and other writers of the younger school, have done much to restore its vogue, and Mr. Harcourt has a better chance than would have been his ten or fifteen years ago. It is a chance of which he has taken admirable advantage, For Love and Liberty is a capital story, dealing with the misdoings of the Inquisition in Spain, and with the misadven. tures of the Great Armada, and containing not a single chapter which is deficient in happily invented and briskly narrated incident.
The historical novel is a form of art in dealing with which the possibilities of going wrong in one way or another are almost numberless ; but Mr. Harcourt has a fine instinct, and he evades or conquers the difficulties of his task with conspicuous success. Readers who are not daunted by a singularly ugly and unappe- tising cover, will thank us for directing them to a most able and interesting story.
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