A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales

enth century. Readers of "John Inglesant" may be reminded that in his interesting preface Mr. Shorthouse alludes to William Smith's philosophical novel--"Thorndale." As a picture of Thought developments in the early Victorian period, the latter work has special historical interest for the philosophical and theological student; in this respect it may be likened to Pater's "Marius the Epicurean," which vividly reproduces the Intellectual ferment of an earlier age. "Thorndale," however, is primarily didactic, and the philosophical dialogues (interesting as these are to the metaphysician) hardly atone to the general reader for an almost entire absence of plot. The above is, doubtless, an altogether extreme instance, but the exclusion of several other works from the category of Romance seems to follow on something like the same grounds. Becker's "Charicles" and "Gallus" are little more than school textbooks, while, turning to a less scholarly quarter, Ainsworth's "Preston Fight," and even his better-known "Guy Faw