nd by
this means the varying phases of the struggle are traced almost step by
step, through the preachings of John Knox and the early image-breaking
outrages, to the comparative lull of the reign of James the First of
England, and thence again from the renewed exasperating of opposition by
the shifty and infatuated Martyr King to the climax of the "Killing
Time" under the younger of his sons. Few incidents of really primary or
representative importance are omitted, and the skill shown by the Author
in stringing the pearls of history upon the thread of his narrative is
not the least of the merits he displays. But, as should be in a novel,
the historical never overweights the human or fictitious interest, but
is always properly subordinated to it.

We have spoken elsewhere[3] of Galt the novelist as being "in advance of
his time"--a facile phrase which it is expedient to use with due reserve
and after due consideration. But the fact that the author with whose
work we are instinctively impelled to compare the novel of _Ringan
Gilhaize_ is the great chief of the French "Naturalistic" School would
appear, at least so far, to support that characterisation. It is, of
course, undeniable that, at the outset, there confront us several
striking points of contrast or divergence between the two authors. For
example, of that _triste amour du laid_, which, with its concomitants,
was for so long, and perhaps is even yet, regarded by the general public
as Zola's one prominent characteristic--of this, Galt has absolutely
nothing, his preoccupation being uniformly with beauty in one form or
another, whether of matter or of spirit. With him, a gloom which, did we
not fear to be less than just to Galt we might denominate Byronic, fills
perhaps the place of Zola's pessimism. Next, of that misbegotten passion
for the painter's brush which has vitiated so much of modern French
writing, and of which Zola in inferior works has even more than his due
share, the novel of _Ringan Gilhaize_ shows equally no trace. On the
contrary, its brief descriptive passages, of which it is noticeable how
many are nocturnal or crepuscular, or paint effects of mist or
rain-cloud--these might serve as models, at once in their breadth of
execution, their aptness and their pregnancy, or quality of
moral suggestiveness, of what descriptions in literature
should be. How different from those laboured outlines, laboriously
filled in, of such a piece of writing as _La Cur