French from Algiers, to substantiate his claim upon the Emir for his daughter's hand. There is plenty incident here; but, to say the truth, I don't quite see my way out of it. Are you going to take history into your own hands, and write in the spirit of prophecy? The experiment is, to say the least of it, dangerous; and, had I been you, I should have preferred an earlier period for my tale, as there obviously could have been no difficulty in making Spavinhitch and his cavaliers take a leading part in the decisive charge at Waterloo. Your serial, therefore, so far as I can discover, belongs to the military-romantic school, and is intended to command admiration by what we may call a series of scenic effects. I an not much surprised at this. Your experience has lain so much in the line of gorgeous spectacle, and, indeed, you have borne a part in so many of those magnificent tableaux in which blue fire, real cannon, charging squadrons, and the transparency of Britannia are predominant, that it was hardly to be expected that the current of your ideas would have flowed in a humbler channel. At the same time, you must forgive me for saying, that I think the line is a dangerous one. Putting tendency altogether aside, you cannot but recollect that a great many writers have already distinguished themselves by narratives of military adventure. Of these, by far the best and most spirited is Charles Lever. I don't know whether he ever was in the army, or bore the banner of the Enniskillens; but I say deliberately, that he has taken the shine out of all military writers from the days of Julius Cæsar downwards. There is a rollocking buoyancy about his battles which to me is perfectly irresistible. In one chapter you have the lads of the fighting Fifty-fifth bivouacking under the cork-trees of Spain, with no end of spatchcocks and sherry--telling numerous anecdotes of their early loves, none the worse because the gentleman is invariably disappointed in his pursuit of the well-jointured widow--or arranging for a speedy duel with that ogre of the army, the saturnine and heavy dragoon. In the next, you have them raging like lions in the very thick of the fight, pouring withering volleys into the shattered columns of the Frenchmen--engaged in single-handed combats with the most famous marshals of the empire, and not unfrequently leaving marks of their prowess upon the persons of Massena or Murat. Lever, in fact, sticks at nothing. His heroes indiscriminately hob-a-nob with Wellington, or perform somersets at leap-frog over the shoulders of the astounded Bonaparte; and, though somewhat given to miscellaneous flirtation, they all, in the twentieth number, are married to remarkably nice girls, with lots of money and accommodating papas, who die as soon as they are desired. It may be objected to this delightful writer--and a better never mixed a tumbler--that he is, if any thing, too helter-skelter in his narratives;