mon mastery over the English language. The
present volume (we are informed on good authority) is exclusively
his own--and, if so, on the score of style alone it is a remarkable
curiosity. But its matter also is curious."--_London Quarterly
Review for July._

"A tale of sorrow that has lain long in a rich mind, like a ruin in
a fertile country, and is not the less gravely impressive for the
grace and beauty of its coverings ... at the same time the most
determined novel-reader could desire no work more fascinating over
which to forget the flight of time.... No sketch of foreign
oppression has ever, we believe, been submitted to the English
public by a foreigner, equal or nearly equal to this volume in
literary merit. It is not unworthy to be ranked among contemporary
works whose season is the century in which their authors
live."--_London Examiner._

"The book should be as extensively read as 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,'
inasmuch as it develops the existence of a state of slavery and
degradation, worse even than that which Mrs. Beecher Stowe has
elucidated with so much pathos and feeling."--_Bell's Weekly
Messenger._

"Few works of the season will be read with greater pleasure than
this; there is a great charm in the quiet, natural way in which the
story is told."--_London Atlas._

"The author's great forte is character-painting. This portraiture
is accomplished with remarkable skill, the traits both individual
and national being marked with great nicety without
obtrusiveness."--_London Spectator._

"Under the modest guise of the biography of an imaginary 'Lorenzo
Benoni,' we have here, in fact, the memoir of a man whose name
could not be pronounced in certain parts of northern Italy without
calling up tragic yet noble historical recollections.... Its
merits, simply as a work of literary art, are of a very high order.
The style is really beautiful--easy, sprightly, graceful, and full
of the happiest and most ingenious turns of phrase and
fancy."--_North British Review._

"This has been not unjustly compared to '_Gil Blas_,' to which it
is scarcely inferior in spirited delineations of human character,
and in the variety of events which it relates. But as a description
of actual occurrences illustrating the domestic and political
c