7 DECEMBER 1889, Page 10

The Cruise of the Wasp.' By Henry Frith. (Routledge and

Sons.) —This a story of the usual kind, even bringing in the accustomed shark, but it is told with more than usual vigour. The hero is a young lad who gets a Midshipman's berth on board the ' Wasp,' in days when there were other ways of entering the Royal Navy than through a schoolroom. (The scene is laid in the War of 1812-14, between the United States and this country.) We meet with him for the first time when he is clinging to a spar in company with a pirate captain. The captain, after the manner of his kind, has as many lives as a cat; he eludes his pursuers throughout a good many pages ; but we have the satisfaction, when we finally part with the hero, of knowing that the villain has got his deserts.