A month or two ago I have no doubt that the England of CHARLES II.'S declining years would have seemed to me a monstrously exciting country to live in; at the present moment (unfairly enough) I feel more like congratulating the hero of Monsignor BENSON'S _Oddsfish!_ (HUTCHINSON) on the mildness of his adventures for the furtherance of the Catholic faith. It is true that _Mr. Roger Mallock_ beheld some notable executions after the TITUS OATES affair, and on the night of the Rye House Plot had a large meat chopper thrown at his head by one of the conspirators; but, emissary of the Vatican as he was, he was actually only once compelled to whip out his sword in self-defence, though on that occasion he had the extreme bad luck to lose his _fiancee_ through a misdirected dagger-thrust. Even this tragedy, sufficiently overwhelming in an ordinary romance, is not, of course, wholly disastrous in Monsignor BENSON'S eyes, since it enabled _Mr. Mallock_ to resume the religious life and habit for which he had been originally intended. For the rest the book is written in a most captivating manner, and with a plausibility of incident and dialogue only too rare in novels of the Restoration period. Evidently the author has studied his authorities (and more particularly Mr. PEPYS) with a praiseworthy diligence. But in view of the anti-Protestant bias which he naturally exhibits I feel bound to bid him have a care. If he intends to pursue his historical researches any further, and discover (let us say) virtue in the Spanish Inquisition and villainy in Sir FRANCIS DRAKE, I shall load my arquebus to the muzzle. * * * * * The hero of _King Jack_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) "made sport," as his creator, Mr. KEIGHLEY SNOWDEN, says, "nearly a hundred years ago" in Yorkshire, and incidentally he also made records. For instance, he cleared four-and-twenty feet at a "run-jump," and with this in my mind I find it satisfactory to think that he lived in another century, or I might find myself regretting the eclipse of the Olympic Games. As an upholder of law and order I ought to be (I am not) ashamed to admire a man who, to say the least of it, was a very prickly thorn in the side of the police. My excuse is that _Jack Sincler_ and his brother _Lishe_ were kindly men withal. The game-laws were their trouble, but as far as I could make out they did not poach for the sake of pelf but from sheer love of sport. Among poachers they ought, anyhow, to be placed in Class I., for they loved the open air and the freshness of the morning and all the things that make for a clean mind in a clean body. _Jack_, though a shade arrogant at times, is a stimulating figure, human both in his weakness and his strength; and Mr. SNOWDEN deserves more than a little gratitude for the care with which he has reproduced the atmosphere of times that were conspicuously lawless and exciting. * * * * *