29 NOVEMBER 1884, Page 23

Brief Romances from Bristol History. ByJ. L. Williams. (George and

Son, Bristol ; Hamilton, Adams, and Co., London.)—The author would have been better advised in allowing these romances to sleep in the obscure back pages of the Bristol Times and Mirror, in which they appeared. There is very little romance and not always so much briefness as could be desired about these attempts at tales d la "Ivanhoe." The writer takes passages from a local history of Bristol, selected from the Abbey records, and endeavours to build a story on them. But as his sole notion of a story is to take the personages mentioned in the records and make them talk in " thees " and" thous," and to wrap up the incident in a large number of words, the effect is not exhilarating.