This does not exhaust the catalogue of stories which have their scene here. Professor Church’s _Count of the Saxon Shore_ and Mr F. Cowper’s _Captain of the Wight_ come rather into the category of boys’ books, the latter being specially well stuffed with swashing blows and strong “language of the period.” Mr Headon Hill’s _Spies of the Wight_ gives a lurid peep into the machinations of a foreign power against our coast defences, and the tricks of a Fosco-like villain foiled by one of those Sherlock Holmes intellects that find it so easy to discover what has been invented for discovery. We are now approaching the most fashionable resort in the Island, and there perhaps may come across some of those scandals and sins of society that give a popular relish to so much of our circulating literature. Meanwhile, since there is nothing like seeing ourselves as others see us, for a careful picture of Isle of Wight life, let us turn to a French story-teller whose modesty might prefer his name to be withheld. A collection of novelettes entitled _Amours Anglais_, one of which centres in the Island, is put forth by this writer as an essay in a new school of romance. His preface, dated from “Margate, Isle of Thanet,” lets us understand how after long years of sojourn in England he has observed John Bull as closely and profoundly as is possible for a stranger to do, and that he proposes to present English life to his countrymen, stripped of the ridiculous exterior with which it is charged by their caricaturing spirit. This sympathising stranger knows the British soul to be not less interesting and more wholesome than the gloomy and flabby Russian sentiment that has had such a vogue in French fiction. To the facts of _Outre-Manche_, then, he will apply his native “psychologic methods,” writing as a Frenchman what he has felt as an Englishman. His aim is “to create an international _genre_ of romance, marrying our taste to the humour and the morality of our neighbours. Have I succeeded? The public will judge.” So, with the best intentions, our _entente cordialiste_ appeals to his French readers. Let the English public now judge.