"Mr. Weyman now builds his romance on English soil. The time is the beginning of the Puritan uprising, before the firm establishment of the Commonwealth, and the personages are Roundheads and Cavaliers. That is to say, the small boy and his fugitive brother, who are the most sympathetic characters in the story, represent the Royalist class, and they are set among crack-brained fanatics, sniveling hypocrites, and sturdy, well-meaning dissenters. There is a strong and convincing sketch of Cromwell before he had reached the zenith of his power, which is quite in Mr. Weyman's best vein.
"The little story, which seems to have been intended as a boys' book, is well devised and the interest is maintained to an abrupt and startling denouement. There are no battles, but there is an admirable description of a march of Cromwell's troops across the wet moors, and Mr. Weyman's strong feeling for landscape effects, which so greatly helps the interest of all his romances, pervades this little story."
"A new historical tale by Stanley J. Weyman is set in the time of Cromwell, just after the battles of Marston Moor and Naseby, and before the surrender by the Scots' army of Charles I. It is called 'A Little Wizard,' and recites incidents in the careers of two youthful sons of a Cavalier gentleman who has sacrificed his life to the Royalist cause, and one of whom--the Little Wizard--figures pathetically in the story, under the care of a faithless family servitor who has sinister connections with the Puritan Roundheads. The story has much of the literary and historic charm which marks all of Mr. Weyman's works, and it will find many interested readers. It is illustrated, and has a portrait of the author."
. . . . "'A little Wizard,' in a small volume, which will be found just big enough for an evening's reading. The author has come back to England in this narrative, which is of the time of Cromwell. It is a fragment only, but it is like a remnant of some rich piece of tapestry on which is found embroidered the story of some brave deed of an older time, and so rich is it, so full of art, so vigorous with life, that the finder mourns that the whole history is not before him. . . . It is to be hoped that he will work this vein somewhat further. His picture of Cromwell in the 'Little Wizard' is very lifelike. One cannot help wishing that he would attempt the same drawing on a larger canvas. It is time we had once more a story of romance and adventure with English ground as its foothold. It would be a blessed relief from some of the pictures of passion, pure and impure--chiefly the latter--which of late has given rise to the question as to whether or not English reserve and modesty has become a forgotten virtue in literature."
