MR. FREDERIC HARRISON'S unexpected incursion into the• domain of fiction

takes the form of a romance of the tenth century with Nicephorus Phocas as its hero, and Theophana as anti-heroine. The principal figures are almost without ex- ception historical personages, and frequent citations are made from contemporary authorities ; in short, the story is a serious,

contribution, in a dramatised form, to that reclamation of the

Byzantine Empire from the contempt and depreciation of earlier historians which was begun by Finlay, and brilliantly carried on by Dr. Hodgkin and Professor Bury, to whom Theophano is dedicated. Byzantinism has been for so long with superficial students a synonym for sophisticated decadence,,

for corruption in manners and meretricious ornament in art•

and letters, that the generous tribute of a serious man of letters and a strong democrat to the greatness and magnifi- cence of the Eastern Empire is all the more striking. Mr.. Frederic Harrison brings both enthusiasm and learning to bear on his theme, and is especially successful in his vivid and circumstantial presentation of the spectacular and cere- monial side of Byzantine official life, with its gorgeous

pageantry and elaborate ritual. He brings home to us, by many effective illustrations, the really wonderful capacity- evinced by the Imperial system for attracting and assimilating foreigners, and converting them into its most potent instru- ments. His pictures of campaigns and sieges, again, are spirited and picturesque, and the methods of tenth-oentmy warfare on sea and land are described with minuteness and A well-trained historical sense, a keen appreciation of the glories and grandeur of the past, a self-effacement so laudable that but for one or two sentences it would be impossible, on the strength of internal evidence, to say whether the writer was an advocate or an assailant of autocracy,—these are excellent qualities, and they are all to be found in Mr..

Harrison's tale. Unfortunately, they by no means exhaust. the requirements of a writer of historical romance. Descrip- tive powers must be reinforced by the gift of portraiture and characterisation, and here we find Mr. Harrison's method at once conventional, undistinguished, and unconvincing. He does not allow his personages to reveal themselves, but relies. on a process of elaborate labelling in which the conventional.

epithet runs riot ; while the dialogue is turgid and melo- dramatic throughout. Take, for example, the passage in which the hero is introduced :— "4 See, the hero comes,' said Bardas Skleros in a whisper to as the adored chief turned a friendly glance on his trusty comrade and a piercing look on his athletic attendant, who now took their places in the brilliant group of officers of the staff. Nicephorus Phocas, the most eminent chief of a long line of Armenian nobles, the most heroic warrior of a family of famous men of war, was now in the flower of his strength, at forty-six. years of age."

Or this, which describes the appearance of the Emperor Romanus in the Hippodrome :— "The Caner descended: and, on this occasion, by special favour,. as he was proud of his beauty and his consummate horsemanship,. Romanus rode in state on his cream charger round the entire arena. As he passed each block of the enormous throng he was. received with deafening cheers and the eternal chant of ' Long life and happy years !' He was now disrobed from the stately dibetesion and searamangion, and had chosen to exhibit his- exquisite limbs in the uniform of a cataphractic trooper in full. campaigning equipment. And as he careered round the long Hippodrome, curveting on his fiery Arab, the superstitious. Byzantine burghers imagined that they saw the blessed Saint• George himself."

The quality of the dialogue may, be similarly gauged by a few extracts. Here, for example, is a fragment of conversation between the loyal warrior Basil Digenes and an intriguing courtier. Basil observes that if the Basileus were to die. without nominating a successor, the Senate and Army would appoint an Emperor themselves. The tempter then con- "' And where would they find such a chief,' murmured the Chamberlain in the insinuating voice of the courtier, ' where but in the person of the most valiant hero, Lord Warden of the Eastern Frontier, victorious in a hundred fights, the Achilles of our warlike odes—Basil, of royal name and royal race, offspring- heophano : the Crusade of the Tenth Century. A Romantic Monograph. Br Frederic Harrison, M.A. London : Chapman and Hall. [100. ed. net.]

of a Roman princess and a Syrian Emir, who had come to Christ ? Basil Digenes, I tell thee,. potent Akritas and chief, should the throne of Rome become vacant we should all look to thee to

mount and hold it ! Retro ! Satanas ! ' cried out the Akritas (i.e. the Warden of the Marches), with a gay gesture of scorn, `tempt not the most loyal servant of our Most High Sovereign Lord ! If his son were not to reign, I tell thee again, it would have to be some ennobled husband of one of his Majesty's daughters.'—' And who would that be,' said the wily Chamber- lain, 'save that chief on whom the loveliest of them all, the gentle Agatha, her father's favourite, casts such looks of tender- ness? Why, the Sacred Palace rings with gossip of her sighs and blushes, when the harpers sing the deeds of " The Flower of our Roman Chivalry," as the poets name the Warden of the Eastern March ! A truce to thy jests, my Lord of the Chamber, and profane not with thy Court scandal the name of the sweetest, purest, most modest virgin in your city of Sin and Folly. Things are too serious for idle jesting, and the fate of Rome and our Holy Church is even now hanging in the scales of the Angel of Judgment. A man who has lived as I have since boyhood, in the saddle and on the borders, knows what are the perils and the trials which are gathering round the Empire from the East and from the North.'"

Our last extract is from the scene in which Theophano, after Nicephorus's conquest of Crete, brings her batteries of fascination to bear on the grins soldier :-

"' Nicephorus, victor, hero,' she cried with rapture, seizing his brawny hand in both of hers, 'the army will follow none but you. You, you are the hero of all Rome and of all its tributary races. 'The rest are boys or martinets. Save us, protect us, comfort us, or we poor women may yet be swept into the hareems of the infamous libertines of Islam.' Nicephorus was speechless : a shudder shook his huge breast, but he could find no words. -` Have you no eyes ? ' she whispered, with that silver tone of fascination that was her peculiar secret and gift ; have you not seen that wine, lechery, and furious sports have marked that fribble you have just left to a premature doom? He will never see another summer. And when I am no longer Augusta, who will protect me and my babes ? To whom could I look but to the hero whom all Roman men delight to follow, whom all Roman women. trust and honour—trust and love ? ' she whispered, looking into his eyes and drawing herself slowly towards him till she gathered him in her arms and sobbed upon his shoulder. Go to the Asian frontier, crush the Hagarene. You shall have from the Palace absolute power and authority, military and civil. You shall be the true J3asilens in the field, before you return to be the Basile= in the Palace.' Then she rushed away in tears ; and left the chieftain quite dazed, drunk with perplexity, and mad with passion."

'The characters, it will be seen, do not converse. They perorate or engage in bouts of wordy rhetoric. In emotional -crises they always shriek or gasp or hiss. Theophano is a ranting adventuress who in her more unbridled moments recalls "the Worst Woman in London." It is pleasant to find this exuberance in a writer whom without offence it is per- missible to call a veteran, but his fidelity to an outworn melo- dramatic formula renders it impossible to regard his story as a successful adventure into the paths of fiction. As a highly .coloured presentation of the leading events of an interesting epoch it commands respect and will repay perusal.

" Whosoever Shall Offend . . ." By F. Marion Crawford. (Mac- millan and Co. 6s.)—Mr. Marion Crawford has chosen an unfortu- nate title, which is no real indication of the meaning of his story. The gravamen of Corbario's offence is much less to be found in his -efforts to ruin his stepson than in the cold-blooded murder which he had already perpetrated. It is the tale of an adventurer who marries a rich widow with an only son, murders the mother, and, failing to murder the son, attempts to kill him by dissipation. How the son's eyes are opened, and what was the end of the stepfather's career, we leave Mr. Marion Crawford's readers to discover. It is needless to say that all the characters are care- fully developed. The author is an expert craftsman, and if sometimes the technique is more to be admired than the con- ception, there is much in the book of high merit. Regina, the peasant girl who saves the son's life and sacrifices her own to him, is a noble and tragic figure, drawn with singular insight into the elementary characteristics of that strange people, the Roman peasantry. Aurora is scarcely less good, and, indeed, it is with his women that the author is most uniformly successful. Both son and stepfather are a little too much like lay figures introduced for the purposes of the plot ; but Ercole, the gamekeeper, and his savage dog have all the realism that could be desired. Mr. Marion Crawford is always pleasing; and if we have found the tale loss attractive than some of his earlier books, he has set us a high standard of excellence to judge him by. If now and then the inspiration flags, there is always the interest which belongs to work that is never mean or slipshod.

The Commander of the Hirondelle.' By W. H. Fitchett. (Smith, Elder, and Co. 6s.)—The hand of Mr. Fitchett has by no means lost its cunning in the description of sea-fighti, and readers who like to take their history in the form of fiction will find that they get a great deal of useful information as to the history of the Fleet in his new volume. The most successful thing in the book, from a literary point of view, is the account of the battle of St. Vincent ; and no one of British birth will be able to read without a catch of the breath of how Nelson on the little ' Captain ' stopped the junction of the two sections of the Spanish Fleet. Mr. Fitchett has the great good sense to present a true picture of events when he touches on history, while at the same time he sacrifices none 'of the interest of his story. We have frequently when noticing historical novels been obliged to say that both the history and the fiction have suffered from their juxtaposition. It is pleasant for once to notice a book in which both these elements appear, and in which each is used to heighten the effect of the other.

The Chronicles of Don Q. By K. and Hesketh Prichard. (Chapman and Hall, 6s.)—There is not much to differentiate " Don Q." from many other courtly bandits of fiction, except his extraordinary powers of divining the minds of his adversaries. He has, indeed, a large dash of Sherlock Holmes in his com- position, and the success of his enterprises greatly depends on the faculties in which he resembles that celebrated personage. The reader is evidently expected to sympathise with " Don Q." ; but it must be owned that neither his word-portrait nor the pictures of him in the illustrations are very attractive, while his deeds are seldom anything but repulsive. A gentleman who in outward appearance resembles a vulture, and inwardly is also rather like that bird of prey, except that his cruelty is sometimes redeemed by dashes of fantastic chivalry, will not seem to many a very deserving character. There are, however, plenty of adventures in the book, and most people will be content to read them -without considering whether they approve or dis- approve of the actions of the principal person of the drama.

A Lady in Waiting. By the Hon. Mrs. Anstruther. (Smith, Elder, and Co. 6s.)—Mrs. Anstruther's writing has always dis- tinction, but it was inevitable that something of the attraction of her sketches should disappear when she tried to weld them together in a definite sequence. The stories are told in the first person by the "lady in waiting," but Mrs. Anstruther cannot resist the temptation of giving her a story of her own, and ending the book with a proposal. The reader will not be particularly sympathetic to the lady in waiting's love-story. The main charm of the sketches lies in their author's outlook on life, and not in their own intrinsic interest. The writing is ex- tremely graceful, but the sketches are necessarily slight, and it is not possible to take a serious interest, in any one of them, or to say that any one is more successful than its fellows.