Dens Forest Sketches. By S. M. Crawley Boevey. Illustrated by
F. H. Crawley Boevey. (Sohn and Robert Maxwell.)—These are mix sufficiently interesting stories of early English history of the romantic. historical kind ; but whereas the authoress—for we cannot doubt that we trace the female hand—says that the "groundwork "—by which she seems to imply " the bulk;'—is history, and the " slight weaving " "the only fictitious pert," we should venture to describe these stories as mainly fictitious, and only the " slight weaving" historical. How far what is true goes, and where fiction begins, we have no means of judging, as there is not a note to indicate the limits of either. The stories are highly sensational, whether true or fictitious,—hidden treasure, sliding panels, secret passages, and the wonderful hiding away and opportune reappearance of the children of the great being important features and an important proportion of the stories. If, as we are told, the incidents are taken from a mass of family papers still hoarded at Flaxley, the family records —of the Crawley Boevey family, we presume—are remarkable for strange and exciting events ; but where early English family history has been preserved and exhumed, much that is strange must inevitably be brought to light from those rough times of heroism and saintliness mixed with cruelty, venality, and wicked- ness of all sorts. Known history and fiction are not carefully hissed in these tales ; we have pages of fiction, and dry paragraphs of history; reading them reminds one of journeys over a newly mended road ; lengths of smooth and easy-going jog-trot, and then, suddenly, a piece of jolting that brings all our faculties into play till it is passed. There le, too, an attempt, by no means successful, to make the dramatis persona speak the supposed language of the times and neighbourhood ; but this attempt is rendered still less effective by the introduction of expressions, sentiments, and opinions strictly of our own day. Several of the illustrations are very pretty—notably the frontispiece—but they are all views of buildings, and in no sense illustrations of the stories. Nevertheless, we recommend the book— all imperfections notwithstanding—to the young lover of history and historical tales.
Previous page
