THIS is the last of what the publishers rightly describe
as Mr. Henty's "great series of historical stories for boys." Year after year for many years we have had the pleasant task of noticing them,—sometimes there have been three or four on our table at one time, while other volumes probably con- tained contributions from the same pen. Mr. Henty was indeed the most industrious and versatile of writers. Habitu- ally engaged in important journalistic work, he found time to turn out tale after tale in 'unfailing abundance. He laid the scenes of his stories in many lands and on many seas,—on the whole he preferred land to sea. " Quae caret ora labore nostro " he might have asked, parodying the Roman poet. And he found his heroes among the men of many centuries. He even went back on occasion to classical times, though these were not among his happiest ventures. Nor did his work, enormously large as it was—his books have to be reckoned by the score—ever fall below a certain standard of excellence. Subtle study of character he did not attempt ; we do not expect in books of this kind anything more dis- tinguished than the fortisque Gyas fortisque Cloanthus. But he always knew his subject. Possibly of later years the stories were a little more drawn out, the speeches longer—Mr. Henty's personae were given to talking pages at a time—but there was always good work in every book, while we felt quite certain in opening it that there would not be a word that offended against right feeling and good taste. It is with no little regret that we notice "Mr. Henty's Last Story."
Mr. Henty, as has been said, preferred the land to the sea ; and, indeed, it is a serious risk for a landsman to conduct a boy who enters before the mast to the rank of Post-Captain. The conditions of life and work at sea are, it is true, so much changed since the time, now more than a century ago, of which Mr. Henty writes in this story that the knowledge required must be largely historical. Still, the seaman must have a great advantage in dealing with a sea subject. Mr. Henty, it is manifest, prudently avoids technicalities, and does as little as possible in the way of describing manceuvres. His story is wholly different in these respects from what Mr. Clark Russell would have written on the same subject. The hero has to do with the sea from his childhood, and yet he might even be described as a landsman afloat,—a per- fectly true description, by the way, of some of our greatest naval heroes. Blake was a soldier when in 1649 he was appointed to command the Fleet, "in conjunction," as one of his biographers puts it, "with Colonel Deane and Colonel Popham." The story of the hero's adventures is constructed on the lines with which Mr. Henty's readers are familiar. These are the lines of the romance rather than the novel. Never was mortal hero so irreproachably good and so unfailingly fortunate. While he is still a fisherboy he studies mathematics, having the good luck to find a parson's daughter who is able to teach him. He goes to sea, shows himself so clever, so capable, so full of resource, and withal so astonishingly well educated, that he is promoted from before the mast to the quarter-deck. He has an independent command given him, and gets prize, money enough to make the mouths of young officers who have fallen on these degenerate days fairly water. He is made prisoner, but only to escape; and he takes a great part in great battles, ending up with being a Post-Captain at twenty- three. Such a thing has been, we believe, in real life, * By Conduct and Courage. By G. A. Henty. London : Blackie and Son. [Sc.] and it is nothing more than we expect to read in these pages. There is a certain disappointment in finding that this "Story of the Days of Nelson," as the sub-title has it, has not much about Nelson in it. The great man appears, it is true, and our hero has an adventure in his company, but there is nothing particularly characteristic about it. The great Admirals under whom William Gilmore—that is the hero's name—wins his distinctions are Lord Howe and Lord Duncan. There is, of course, a heroine,—Mr. Henty knew his business too -well to dispense with this necessary character, though he minimised the sentimental element. And she makes her appearance in the orthodox fashion. She is on board a ship which pirates have scuttled, and Will Gilmore appears just in time to save her from drowning. The governess who is with her on board he cannot rescue. There is something comic in the consolation which the hero administers when she laments : "She has been my governess since I was a child, and has been a mother to me." "You must remember," says he, "that it might have been worse"—that is to say, she might have been drowned at the same time—" and you certainly cannot require a governess many more years." As Alice Palethorpe was at an age when girls are flattered by being supposed to be older than they are, the comfort was probably effectual. The illustrations, we may add, are of more than usual merit.
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