_The Chartered Adventurer_ (SKEFFINGTON) is what AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE rather pleasantly call their latest hero, _Terence O'Flaherty_, impecunious gentleman of fortune, lover and general exponent of the picturesque arts of romance. In a special sense indeed, since you have him not only adventuring for fame and fortune, but, as a by-product, turning his exploits into material for a worked-out early-Victorian novelist, whose "ghost" he had, in a more than usually impecunious moment, consented to become. I found this same unfortunate author, gravelled for lack of sensational matter, at once the most entertaining and original figure in the book, whose course is, to tell the truth, marked otherwise by no very conspicuous freshness. The particular adventure to which _O'Flaherty_ and his companion, _Lord Marlowe_, are here devoted, is concerned with the intrigues of Madame la duchesse DE BERRI on behalf of her son, as _de jure_ King of France, under the title of Charles X. They provide an environment singularly apt for such affairs; the "wild venture" and the abortive, forgotten rising in which it culminated give colour to a multitude of dashing exploits. In themselves, however, these follow what might be called common form, showing the two young men exposed to a sufficiency of danger and exhibiting that blend of folly and gallantry expected of their situation. As to the former quality, when, I wonder, will the heroes of romantic fiction learn that the "pretty youth," with flashing eyes contradicted by a manner of singular modesty, is really--well, what common folk could have known her for in the first glance? To sum up, I should call _The Chartered Adventurer_ admirable for almost anyone else's writing, but just a little below the best Castilian standard. * * * * *