The Fighting Troubadour. By Archibald C. Gunter. (Ward, Lock, and
Co. 6s.)—No one who has not read Mr. Gunter's latest book can conceive how droll is the effect produced by the narration of a romantic story of the time of Louis XIV. in the peculiar language sacred to the school of fiction of the type of "Mr. Barnes of New York." The present tense prevalent at all moments of excitement is very quaint reading when applied to events which purport to have taken place in the eighteenth century, and when Prince Eugene himself alludes to a young Princess as "an artful minx" the reader feels quite bewildered by the anachronism. Except the date, there is practically nothing to differentiate the book from the sensational school to which it belongs, but there are plenty of adventures, escapes, secret passages, and other ingredients which make up the excitement of stories of this stamp.