gallantry; a hero who simply could not be more heroic; villains (of
Spanish name, priests, murderers, all a regular bad lot), and the right
proportion of female interest and humorous relief. Need I give you the
details? How the hero, Captain of the Queen's body-guard, saves Her
Majesty's life (a scene with a genuine thrill in it) and is rewarded by
her. How he goes in command of an expedition against Channel
freebooters, and finally ends up as an agent of the British Intelligence
Department, finding out things about the army of His Grace of Parma,
then at Dunkirk awaiting conveyance by the Spanish fleet. He seems,
however, to have been something of a failure in the way of intelligence,
as by lack of this the hero managed to get himself and his companion
imprisoned for spies (which indeed they were), and was only rescued by
the intervention of DRAKE as the god from the machine. A pleasant, if
undistinguished, tale that will be enjoyed by the young of all ages. It
is a minor point, but when one finds the hero called _Christopher
Stone_, and another character rejoicing in the name of _Gabriel Ray_, it
is hard to acquit the author of some poverty of invention. His own name
(I had almost forgotten to mention) is MORICE GERARD; and he has done
better work.

* * * * *

_Pan-Germanism_ (CONSTABLE) is a seasonable cheap reprint of a study of
that egregious creed by ROLAND G. USHER, an American Professor of
History. With an almost cynical candour and detachment the author
analyses the origins, assumptions, justifications and pretensions, and
foreshadows with some insight the miscalculations, of those who have
essayed to direct the destinies of modern Germany. It is as well that
this essay comes from a neutral pen; it would else be discredited as a
freak of prejudice. Pan-Germanism, as here seen, is the _reductio ad
absurdum_ of the doctrine that all is fair in war--and peace. It is no
less than blank anarchy, philosophic and practical, and indefinitely
less workable as a theory of international life than that of the so long
discredited Sermon on the Mount. The honest Briton can find here solid
justification of his cause. Perhaps it is not altogether unwholesome
that our national withers don't entirely escape wringing. We are a
little guilty, but much less guilty than our arch-opponent; so thinks
this sober and wide-eyed critic.... Certainly, and the more
significantly since it is without direction