Strafford: a Romance. By W. Barton Baker. 3 vols. (Tinsley
Brothers.)—Success is not easy in the department of the historical romance. A writer has to risk comparison with great masters who have gone before him, and is tried by a severer standard than we apply to the ordinary novelist. At the same time, ho has to overcome a great vis inertite in his readers, who generally object to be transported to circumstances different from those in which they live. It is much to Mr. Baker's credit that ho has not failed. He has chosen a difficult subject in the groat Minister of Chalks I., and has treated it with some vigour and skill. We cannot say that there is any very vivid present- ment of the seventeenth century, but then the marvellous skill which makes Flsrenco live before us in " Remota " is found but once in a generation. It is something to have written an historical romance which may bo read with pleasure.
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