One of the Fighting Scouts. By Captain F. S. Brereton.
(Blackie and Son. 5s.)—It is probable, may even be taken for granted, that this story was prepared before the Boer War came to an end. It must be regarded accordingly, and no fault can be reasonably found with it. It is a spirited story—that we are sure to get when Captain Brereton writes—and no one can object if the Britisher has the better of it in the various conflicts of arms and wits that are related. But it may be hoped that for a while the subject will be dropped.—For the Bed Rose, by Eliza Pollard (same publishers, 2s. 6d.), takes us back to the Civil War of the fifteenth century. That is a topic which does not unduly rouse us. The story deals with the fortunes of a so-called gipsy girl, which are mixed up in a romantic way with those of Queen Margaret. This is all interesting enough, but is it quite certain that there were gipsies in England as early as the seventh decade of the fifteenth century? They were the objects of a prohibitory Act in 1530, and they had appeared in France a hundred years before. But in the fifteenth century such travellers did not easily cross the Channel. Unless there is express authority for the contrary, we should be inclined to fix their earliest date in this country somewhere near 1530. Wanderers so striking were not likely to be neglected in an age which was stern on vagrancy. —Willoughby Manor, by G. Norway (Nimmo, Hay, and Mitchell, Edinburgh, 3s. f3d.), is "a story of Old Liverpool," turning to a considerable degree on the siege of Havre in 1562, when that town was held by the Huguenots with English help. We doubt whether the plague that prevailed afterwards, imported, it was supposed, by refugees from Havre, ought to be described as the "Black Death." Probably all the great pestilences were forms of typhus ; but it is well to keep their distinctive names. The Black Death was the great outbreak that changed the social order of England in the fourteenth century.—Gabriel Garth, Chartist. By E. Everett-Green. (Andrew Melrose. 5s.)—Miss Everett-Green puts the contrast between the easy and luxurious life of the affluent classes and the hardships of the poor effectively enough. And she uses this contrast as a moving power in the thought and action of her characters with the aptitude which we should expect from a writer of her experience and practised skill. Gabriel Garth, Chartist, with its interweaving of interests, personal, social, and political, should attract many readers. We venture to ask, however, whether there is not an anachronism in the reported suggestion of Frewen Yates's cousin that he should put a curate at £70 into the living to which he has just been presented and appropriate the balance. The time of the story is, we presume, after 1838, "Midmingham" being Birmingham, and by that time such things had become impossible.
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