Harrington ; or, the Exiled Royalist : a Tale of
the Hague. fly Frederick Spencer Bird. (Samuel Tinsley.)—This is a conscientious, laborious, one may say plodding attempt, on the part of a writer who has nothing of genius except the capacity for taking pains, to produce an historical romance. The history is better than the romanoo, and they are unskilfully blended. The fortunes of Charles IL at the Hague do no belong to either the most interesting or the least disreputable opooh.of his life, and Harrington is the conventional Cavalier, without the grace and eloquence with which Sir Walter Scott invested the wrong- headedness of that type. It is always rash for any author to intrude on the Wizard's enchanted ground, never more rash than on those por- tions of it which are occupied by "Nigel," " Woodstock," and "Pevoril of the Peak ;" and though the author of Harrington cannot be said exactly to do this, as ho treats of Charles in the Low Countrios exclu- sively, still, the Charles of our imagination is always Sir Walter's Charles. We cannot say we admire Mr. Bias Dutch heroine, Geerdina ; her manners are exceedingly forward, and we entirely agree with her father that her wit is poor. The merit of the book resides in its ovidenoe of careful study on tho author's part of the history of Holland and the manners of the Dutch people in the seventeenth century, and this ovidonoe is so strong that it is to be regretted he did not write a purely historical work, for which ho has more aptitude than for the combination of fact and fancy.
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