"Do right, and thou hast nought to fear, Right hath a power that makes thee strong; The night is dark, but light is near, The grief is short, the joy is long." Without the most distant approach to that fatal kind of sermonising which all but inevitably repels those whom it is meant to benefit, the story forcefully illustrates how rapidly they may sink who once tamper, for seeming present advantage, with truth, and how surely, sooner or later, a noble character comes to vindication and honour; and in all such respects it is eminently true to life. These boys of Saint Dominic's, even the best of them, are very human--neither angels nor monstrosities, but, for the most part, ardent, impulsive, out-and-out, work-a-day lads; with the faults and failings of inexperience and impetuosity, no doubt, but also with that moral grit and downright honesty of purpose that are still, we believe, the distinguishing mark of the true British public-school boy. Hence one is impelled to take from the outset a most genuine interest in them and their affairs, and to feel quite as though one had known many of them personally for years, and been distinctly the better, too, for that knowledge. Such boys stand at the antipodes alike of the unreal abstractions of an effeminate sentimentalism--the paragons who prate platitudes and die young--and of the morbid specimens of youthful infamy only too frequently paraded by the equally unreal sensationalism of to-day to meet the cravings of a vitiated taste. _The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's_ is the kind of book we should place with confidence in the hands of our own boys when leaving the home shelter, whether for school or the sterner after-battle; and we cannot conceive of the parent who, having read it with care and pleasure, as we have done, and knowing at the same time anything of the stress and strain of daily life, would not, with gratitude to the author, gladly do the same. With all their faults, Oliver Greenfield and Wraysford are splendid boys, of just the fibre that the Church needs, and the world cannot afford to do without; and yet their school career proves by no means a bed of roses. To drift with the current is proverbially easy; to seek to stem it manfully, and steer by the stars, may, and often does, lay one open to misapprehension or envy, and all the ills that follow in their train; yet-- "God is God, and right is right, And truth the day must win; To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin." Our heroes had their full share of trouble--what real hero has not?--but they come out of the ordeal purified and strengthened, with nobler aspirations after duty, and tenderer thoughts of helpfulness towards those needing, if far from seeking, their succouring arm.