Mr. Stanley Weyman, who is not Dr. Doyle’s equal in other matters, is in this sole respect his master. He keeps his hero on the scene, and his action in full swing. He gives no indication of a profound or studious knowledge of his time, but he knows it fairly well. Mr. Doyle’s method is at bottom the truer, when once the detailed labour is hidden, but when it bares its own machinery it loses most of its gain. Mr. Weyman tells a rattling story in rattling fashion. His is the good old style of easy-going romance, where courage and adventure never fail. He has chosen the realm of D’Artagnan and Aramis, of Porthos and Athos, and he has plenty of vivacity, and can invent brilliantly on the lines on which the brave Dumas invented long before him. He is a cheerful and inspiriting echo. He cannot wind the mighty horn the elders sounded, but he can imitate it fairly from a distance. It is only when that crass reviewer comes along to tell us that the old original hunter of romance is back again that his music gives us anything but pleasure. For my own part, I hope he may flourish long, and give us stories as good as ‘A Gentleman of France’ as often as he can. My ‘Bravo!’ shall be as ready as any man’s and as hearty. Why--to change the simile used just now--when a man is resting his legs in a comfortable _auberge_, and drinking the honest light wine of the country (which doesn’t pretend to be better than it is), should the asinine enthusiast come to spoil his enjoyment by swearing that he sits in the enchanted palace of Sir Walter, and has before him the mighty wine Sir Walter bottled? The enthusiast provokes to wrath. It’s a very good _duberge_--it’s a capital, comfortable house of call, and we should like to sit there often. And the wine--we found no fault with the wine. It’s an honest tap, and a wholesome and a palatable, and here’s the landlord’s health in it. But the magic vintage? Rubbish!