“The heroine is a beautiful Quakeress, the hero a brave captain in Cromwell’s disbanded army, and about the two central figures are grouped King’s men and Roundheads, Puritans and pirates, Quakers and Jesuits, Indians and soldiers as the scene shifts from old to New England. To save the reader a tiresome search for the title, ‘The vine of Sibmah,’ is found in Isaiah, xvi, 8, and is the text of a sermon preached by Mr. Increase Mayhew as the little fleet led by the ‘Covenant’ started on its voyage to Salem: ‘O, vine of Sibmah, thy plants are gone over the sea.’”—Ind.
“The story is something more than readable, although it is long-winded throughout and drags not a little toward the end. A critic of the more microscopic sort might pick many flaws in his narrative.” Wm. M. Payne.
+ – Dial. 41: 240. O. 16, ’06. 230w.
“Here is a good historical novel, one of the best since ‘Hugh Wynne,’ by Dr. Mitchell.”
+ + Ind. 61: 519. Ag. 30, ’06. 160w.
“The lover of historical romance will be glad to illuminate the years around 1662 by passing through them with Mr. MacPhail’s well-imagined characters.”
+ N. Y. Times. 11: 434. Jl. 7, ’06. 280w.
Macquoid, Percy. History of English furniture. 20 pts. 4v. per pt., *$2.50. per v., *$15. Putnam.
“Mr. Macquoid’s work is accomplished with great skill and knowledge. His chief defect is that he has no apparent philosophy as a setting for his studies, which would link up the craft of furniture-making with organic history.”