_The Water-Witch_ concerns a mysterious and beautiful smuggling brigantine with a wonderful gift for eluding Her Majesty’s revenue cruiser under command of Captain Ludlow. The time is the close of Lord Cornbury’s administration, the scene, New York harbor and the adjacent estuaries. The story is fantastic and melodramatic, and the dialogue stilted, even for Cooper. Compared with _The Red Rover_, a romance like _The Water-Witch_ is hard reading. With such characters as Alderman Van Beverout, Alida de Barbérie, and ‘Seadrift’ with her epicene beauty, it is not surprising that _The Water-Witch_ should have been dramatized. _The Two Admirals_ is an engaging picture of manly affection. He who has made the acquaintance of Sir Gervaise Oakes and his friend Richard Bluewater is to be congratulated, for a more sterling-hearted pair of worthies is seldom to be found. Other pleasant company may be had for the asking; the aged baronet Sir Wycherly Wychecombe, hospitable to excess, bemoaning the inconvenience of not having a satisfactory heir, and wondering why his brother never married, though he had never given himself the trouble to undergo the discipline of wedlock. Agreeable in their several ways are Mildred Dutton, Wycherly Wychecombe the young Virginian, and Galleygo the top man turned steward, he of the picturesque language. The story has a conventional plot, and one is supposed to be eager to know the validity of the Virginian’s claim to the ancient estate of the Wychecombes. The plot is in danger of being forgotten when Cooper carries his people to sea, and describes the action between French and English fleets off Cape la Hogue. _Wing-and-Wing_ relates the adventures of a French privateer in the Mediterranean in 1798. One has not to read far before becoming enamoured of the diabolical little lugger and her audacious captain. As creatures of romance go, the good-humored and handsome Raoul Yvard (alias ‘Sir Smees’) is real and attractive. His arguments with Ghita (they talk theology not at all after the manner of Mrs. Humphry Ward’s characters) move one to turn the pages hurriedly. Raoul may be forgiven; Ghita drove him to it, being orthodox and fond of proselyting. One can always take refuge with the vice-governatore and the podestà. These worthies are long-winded, but it were unfair to call them dull.