In him (Sir Walter) these _mannerisms_, until the frequency of their repetition entitled them to such appellation, being well managed and not over-done, were commendable. They added great force and precision to the development of his stories. They should now be avoided—as a little too much of a good thing. And to a man of genius the world of invention is _never_ shut. There is always something new under the sun—a fact susceptible of positive demonstration, in spite of a thousand dogmas to the contrary. The mannerisms we particularly allude to in Mr. French, are involved in what he so frequently calls the “_bringing up_” of his narrative. Fixing in his mind, every now and then, some particular epoch of his tale, he deems it of essential importance (when it is by no means so) that the action of his various characters should be “brought up,” with entire regularity, to this epoch. The attention is no sooner engaged in one train of adventure, than a chapter closes with some such sentence as the following. “_Leaving_ him to prosecute his journey, and the hunters with a perfect knowledge of the route he had taken, we return to the camp of the Prophet,” see chapter 21—or with “_Leaving_ the hunters to hover about the temporary camp of the Indians, we must bring _forward other parts of our story_,” see chapter 3—or with “Thus amusing themselves, they continued their journey, to perform which we must leave them, while we _bring forward other parts of our story_,” see chapter 8—or “And now having _brought up_ the history of the Prophet to the period of which we are writing we will proceed with our narrative,” see chapter 14—or “_Leaving_ Rolfe to attend to his profession, and Earthquake to discharge the duties of the office which had just been conferred on him, let us _proceed with other parts of our story_,” see chapter 15. Many of the chapters commence in a similar strain, and even in the middle of some of them the same interruptions occur. And this adjustment of the date is so frequently repeated that Mr. French's readers are kept in a constant state of chronological hornpipe. There are some _inadvertences_ to which the author's attention should be called. When Rolfe, and his companion Earthquake, are in the woods on the banks of the Ohio, at the time of the murder of Mr. Foreman's family, they are represented (see page 32, vol. i,) as hearing a sudden cry—upon which, proceeding to the river bank, they look around and see—nothing. The boat containing the family had sunk before their appearance and no traces remained. Yet on page 113 of the same volume, we find the hunters giving to the Prophet a detailed account of the massacre and burning—things of which they could know nothing whatsoever.