flesh and blood. The world saw this, and applauded the "Noctes of
Prince Floristan," in a fairy London.

Yet, excellent and unique as these things were, Mr. Stevenson had
not yet "found himself." It would be more true to say that he had
only discovered outlying skirts of his dominions. Has he ever hit
on the road to the capital yet? and will he ever enter it laurelled,
and in triumph? That is precisely what one may doubt, not as
without hope. He is always making discoveries in his realm; it is
less certain that he will enter its chief city in state. His next
work was rather in the nature of annexation and invasion than a
settling of his own realms. "Prince Otto" is not, to my mind, a
ruler in his proper soil. The provinces of George Sand and of Mr.
George Meredith have been taken captive. "Prince Otto" is fantastic
indeed, but neither the fantasy nor the style is quite Mr.
Stevenson's. There are excellent passages, and the Scotch soldier
of fortune is welcome, and the ladies abound in subtlety and wit.
But the book, at least to myself, seems an extremely elaborate and
skilful pastiche. I cannot believe in the persons. I vaguely smell
a moral allegory (as in "Will of the Mill"). I do not clearly
understand what it is all about. The scene is fairyland; but it is
not the fairyland of Perrault. The ladies are beautiful and witty;
but they are escaped from a novel of Mr. Meredith's, and have no
business here. The book is no more Mr. Stevenson's than "The Tale
of Two Cities" was Mr. Dickens's.

It was probably by way of mere diversion and child's play that Mr.
Stevenson began "Treasure Island." He is an amateur of boyish
pleasures of masterpieces at a penny plain and twopence coloured.
Probably he had looked at the stories of adventure in penny papers