thumbscrews' (not a Catholic implement, by the way) 'and Fox's Martyrology.' Micah is the son of a churchwoman, and a Puritan, and himself has no particular bent, except in favour of freedom and fighting. 'I believed that there was good in Papistry, Church, Dissent, but that not one was worth the spilling of human blood.' King James was the rightful King, and Monmouth, black box and all, was a bastard, to Micah's mind; but, as fighting was toward, he fought for the son of Lucy Walters.

Decimus Saxon, the pedantic soldier of fortune, a most entertaining character, with his Latin and his professional skill, his indifference as to the cause for which he draws his sword, and his eye for 'caduacs and casualties,' is an English Dalgetty, and almost as amusing as the immortal laird of Drumthwacket, that should be.' He is a grandson, as it were, of Dugald's father, Sir James Turner, who was learned, but not pedantic, and a far better-hearted man than either Decimus or Dugald. Indeed Decimus 'doth somewhat lean to cutpurse of quick hand.' A more original character is the 'Malignant' Monmouthite, the ruined, kind, dandified, and reckless Sir Gervas Gerome, so full of fight and foppery.

Rather to the surprise of the reader, at a given moment, while escorting a preacher and his rustic flock of 'slashing communicants' to join Monmouth, Decimus suddenly ceases to be Dalgetty, and becomes John Balfour, called Burley. A cornet of the King's Horse approaches the psalm-singing conventicle with a flag of truce, and we quote what follows.

"Who is the leader of this conventicle?" he asked.

"Address your message to me, sir," said our leader from the top of the waggon, "but understand that your white flag will only protect you whilst you use such words as may come from one courteous adversary to another. Say your say or retire."

"Courtesy and honour," said the officer with a sneer, "are not for rebels who are in arms against their lawful king. If you are the leader of this rabble, I warn you if they are not dispersed within five minutes by this watch"-he pulled out an elegant gold time-piece-"we shall ride down upon them and cut them to pieces."

"The Lord can protect His own," Saxon answered, amid a fierce hum of approval from the crowd. "Is this all thy message?"

enough, you Presbyterian "Listen to me, you fools,"

"It is all, and you will find it traitor," cried the dragoon cornet. he continued, standing up upon his stirrups and speaking to the peasants at the other side of the waggon. "What chance have ye with your whittles and cheese-scrapers? Ye may yet save your skins if ye will but give up your leaders, throw down what ye are pleased to called your arms, and trust to the King's mercy."

"This exceeds the limits of your privileges," said Saxon, drawing a pistol from his belt and cocking it. "If you say another word to draw these people from their allegiance, I fire."

"Hope not to help Monmouth," cried the young officer, disregarding the threat, and still addressing his words to the peasants. "The whole royal army is drawing round him and- -"

"Have a care!" shouted our leader, in a deep, harsh

voice.

"His head within a month shall roll upon the scaffold." ""But you shall never live to see it," said Saxon, and stooping over he fired straight at the cornet's head. At the flash of the pistol the trumpeter wheeled round and rode for his life, while the roan horse turned and followed with its master still seated firmly in the saddle.'

Here we have Drumclog, and Cornet Graham, and Burley's slaying of him under a flag of truce, with his excuse for so doing, all over again; whereof the author must have been as unconscious as Sir Walter himself when he annexed a verse by the poetical valet of his friend Rose. The Shirra justly said that, like Captain Bobadil, he had taught many gentlemen to write almost or altogether as well as himself.' This English Drumclog ends like the other, after a pretty fight; and the adventurers reach Taunton, where the condition of that unhappy and pious town, and of Monmouth's scythemen and other rude levies, is depicted with much fire and energy. The hero, with great self-sacrifice, hands over the love-making business to a humorous friend named Reuben, and is free to devote himself to manly adventure. At this point comes the news of the failure of Argyll; and Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth and Sir John Cochrane

(whom Claverhouse had prophetically damned) receive from Decimus the same critical hard measure as Macaulay gives them. The expedition was doomed from the first with such men at its head,' says Decimus-with truth; for Argyll, if alone, would have been safe, though the Lowland leaders, in any case, being odious to the Remnant, could have raised no stir in Scotland.

Monmouth himself appears to us to be very well designed, though he was more fair to outward view than he seemed in the eyes of Micah Clarke. Though his Stuart blood was doubted by all but Charles II, his weakness, waywardness, and loss of nerve when Sedgemoor fight went against him, were quite in the vein of the Chevalier de St George at Montrose, of Queen Mary at Langside, and of Charles Edward in the first hours after Culloden. Each one of that forlorn four had shown courage enough on other fields, but as leaders of a lost hope the terror of betrayal overmastered them. Unlike the rest, Monmouth was a sentimentalist of the most modern fashion. A worse commander could not have been found for a very bad cause.

Robert Ferguson is described as almost a maniac from sheer vanity; but the unique character of the Plotter cannot be unriddled in a novel, if it can be unriddled at all. Still, we do not recognise him when he speaks to Monmouth in the wildest manner of the Remnant. 'Why was Argyll cutten off? Because he hadna due faith in the workings o' the Almighty, and must needs reject the help o' the children o' light in favour o' the bare-legged children o' Prelacy, wha are half Pagan, half Popish.' The terms do not apply to the Campbells; and Ferguson had humour enough if Dalrymple says truly that he tided over a day's lack of supplies by inducing Monmouth to proclaim a solemn fast for the success of his arms. Probably Sir Arthur bases his account of Ferguson's demeanour on a passage of Burnet: 'Ferguson ran among the people with all the fury of an enraged man that affected to pass for an enthusiast, though all his performances that way were forced and dry.' He would not perform in this forced way before Monmouth.

Micah's personal adventures are excellent romantic reading, especially his captivity in a mysterious dungeon whence the most experienced reader, though he knows

that the hero must escape, cannot imagine how he is to do it. Through 'The Onfall at Sedgemoor' the author, like Scott at Flodden, never stoops his wing,' for Sir Arthur is a master in the rare skill of describing a battle with lucidity and picturesque vigour. There is no better account of Waterloo, from the private soldier's point of view, than that given in his brief novel, 'The Great Shadow'; and Sedgemoor also is excellent.

The picture of Judge Jeffreys may be cited: probably it is quite accurate; yet Dryden admired this man!

'Last of all, drawn by six long-tailed Flemish mares, came a great open coach, thickly crusted with gold, in which, reclining amidst velvet cushions, sat the infamous Judge, wrapped in a cloak of crimson plush with a heavy white periwig upon his head, which was so long that it dropped down over his shoulders. They say that he wore scarlet in order to strike terror into the hearts of the people, and that his courts were for the same reason draped in the colour of blood. As for himself, it hath ever been the custom, since his wickedness hath come to be known to all men, to picture him as a man whose expression and features were as monstrous and as hideous as was the mind behind them. This is by no means the case. On the contrary, he was a man who, in his younger days, must have been remarkable for his extreme beauty.* He was not, it is true, very old, as years go, when I saw him, but debauchery and low living had left their traces upon his countenance, without, however, entirely destroying the regularity and the beauty of his features. He was dark, more like a Spaniard than an Englishman, with black eyes and olive complexion. His expression was lofty and noble, but his temper was so easily aflame that the slightest cross or annoyance would set him raving like a madman, with blazing eyes and foaming mouth. I have seen him myself with the froth upon his lips and his whole face twitching with passion, like one who hath the falling sickness. Yet his other emotions were under as little control, for I have heard say that a very little would cause him to sob and to weep, more especially when he had himself been slighted by those who were above him.'

'Micah Clarke' is a long novel of five hundred and

*The painting of Jeffreys in the National Portrait Gallery more than bears out Micah Clarke's remarks. He is the handsomest man in the collection.' (Author's note.)

seventy pages; but nobody, when he has finished it, remembers that it is long-which is praise enough for any romance.

In the preface to Micah Clarke' the author says:

'To me it always seems that the actual condition of a country at any time, a true sight of it with its beauties and brutalities, its life as it really was, its wayside hazards and its odd possibilities, are (sic) of greater interest than the small aims and petty love story of any human being. The lists, the woodlands, and the outlaws are more to me than Rebecca and Rowena.'

Passe pour Rowena, but surely Diana Vernon or Beatrix Esmond is not of inferior interest to Locksley, Friar Tuck, and the lists of Ashby de la Zouche? To others the story of one human heart may be more than all the glamour of an age, and to these I feel that I have little to offer.'

This is very true, and marks one of Sir Arthur's limitations. He does not interest us in love affairs, or in his women. Fielding could not only give us life with its wayside hazards,' but also bring us acquainted with Amelia and Sophia, whom to have known is great part of a liberal education, in the famous old phrase. In 'The White Company' we have lists, indeed, and a scene reminiscent of that immortal passage in 'Ivanhoe,' where the Disinherited Knight smites, with the point, the shield of the Templar. Sir Arthur's romance of Froissart's age in some ways resembles 'The Cloister and the Hearth'; its main interest lies in its 'wayside hazards,' whether in England, or with the wandering White Company in southern France. The hero, leaving the monastery where he has been educated with that useful old favourite a gigantic, hard-hitting lay-brother, John of Hordle, marches to join a very good knight of fantastic chivalry, Sir Nigel Loring, and fights under his standard, south of the Pyrenees. It is a tale of swords and bows, and we cannot refrain from quoting 'The Song of the Bow,' which provokes the very unusual wish that the author had written more verse.