The Monk of Mir Saba. By Joseph Hocking. (Ward, Lock,
Bowden, and Co.)—Mr. Hocking has shown decided originality in selecting the wilderness of Judrea and the Sea of Galilee as the scenes of the two romances—" The Monk of Mir Saba" and " Elrad the Hie "—which he has republished in volume form. He has also exhibited a great deal of the particular kind of "power" which one is in the habit of associating with the literary work of Mr. Baring-Gould, in working out the plots of these stories. They resemble each other very closely, and differ only as a romance that ends in death differs from a romance that ends in marriage. In the one, a monk attached to the convent of Mir Saba, which is situated on the edge of judtes„ rescues an English girl who has been seized by a Bedouin chief, and seems doomed to death, or worse. In the other, an anti-Christian chief rescues the daughter of an English missionary on the Sea of Galilee. The result in the case of both pairs is love. The monk dies, however ; whereas the chief, after a term of probation, secures Miss Melrose. Both tales —they are tales in the old-fashioned sense rather than stories of the modern type—are full of incident; the second, in particular, is simply crammed with death, hatred, and conspiracy. Mr. Hocking has undoubtedly the power of telling a stirring incident well ; and he gives one the impression of being pervaded by moral earnestness. It may be superfluous perhaps to add that both of his stories are thoroughly wholesome.
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