Oddsfish. By Robert Hugh Benson. (Hutchinson and Co. 6s.)—The ecclesiastical
point of view always maintained by Monsignor Benson, whose death will be deplored by a very large body of novel readers, makes his account of life in the days of Charles IL decidedly piquant reading. The pictures of the Court, though vivid, are not so original as the account of the so-called Popish plots given from a Roman Catholic standpoint. Still, it cannot be said that the book is as remarkable a production as Monsignor Benson's Elizabethan novel. This was more robust in quality, perhaps because the matters and events dealt with were of more dramatic interest. As is the case in most historical novels, it is hard for the reader to take much interest in the imaginary personages of the book, but the portrait of the King himself is well drawn and lifelike.
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