"Romantic Annals of England," on their first
appearance, made but slow progress in popularity: the author trusted,
and the publisher hoped, and, to use a publishing phrase, the work
gradually made its way--slow but sure--if we may judge from the
wished-for "new editions." How unlike is this course of favour to the
blaze of fashionable annals, or novels of high life, that are born and
die in a day, or with one reading circle of a subscription library. They
strut and fume in the publisher's newspaper puffs; but their light is
put out within a few brief hours, and they are laid to sleep on the
capacious shelves of the publisher's warehouse. Not so with the Tales of
Historical Romance: they have fancy enough to embellish sober fact.

The _second_ series--_Spain_--is from a Spanish hand of some
pretension, but less power than that of Mr. Neele.

The _third_ series--_France_--by another hand, is now before us.
In his advertisement, the author says, when he undertook the present
series, "he proposed to himself to fulfil what 'the Romance of History'
seemed to require, by presenting a succession of romantic pictures
illustrative of the historical manners of the French Nation." We incline
to his conception of the task. He further notes that "he has taken pains
to go for information to the original sources of French History. These
he found in reasonable abundance, in the old Collegiate Library of Caen,
and in the British Museum." There are in the Series nineteen Tales,
with historical summaries where requisite for their elucidation.
The titles are irresistible invitations--as Bertha, or the Court
of Charlemagne--Adventures of Eriland--the Man-Wolf--the Phantom
Fight--the Magic Wand--the Dream Girl, &c. Their style may be called
spirit-stirring, while it has much of the graceful prettiness of
love-romance.--The author, too, has caught the very air of chivalric
times, and his pages glitter with the points of their glories;--not
unseasonably mixed with the delightful quaintnesses and descriptive
minuteness of the old chroniclers.

To condense either of the stories would be neither advantageous to the
author nor reader. We therefore extract a scene or two from "the
Bondsman's Feast," and an exquisite portrait of "the Dream Girl:"--

_The Bondsman's Feast._

Arthault's only child was a son, who owed nothing to his father but the
prospect of a fair inheritance, for he was little like him in form, and
not at all in mind: he was a