Scanderbeg. By Constance Craigie Halkett. (Bliss, Sands, and Foster.)—The object
of this writer, who, we should say, is quite young, has been to write a historical romance repro- ducing the life and exploits of Alexander the Great. She has taken great pains to get up the " period" with which she deals, and has consulted the best authorities as to both the "passions" and the performances of her hero. But the result is unsatis. factory in the extreme, and that largely because Miss Halkett writes in a style which is at least half a century old, and the character of which may be gathered from such a sentence as, "Did he, at the end of some long long road, where surged the multitudes of his fellow-men, as yet unborn, see the shining of Tabor, the star over Bethlehem, and bow his head in silent thanksgiving for the promise that a Messiah would come ? " It is only fair, however, to an author who is obviously very much in earnest, to say that her closing account of the death of Alexander shows that, if she were content to depict, simple and quiet life with its tragedies, she might succeed very much better than she has done here.
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