The name of Dr. Johnson can still be conjured with. Boswell's Life is still read and loved. The Harvard University Press has just issued a study of the great man. He is the central figure in a recent play. His sayings are quoted by an insurance company. And now comes Mr. Buchan to serve him up to us again in fiction. He has done it well. Dr. Johnson appears here as a tutor in the days before Boswell knew him. The stirring days when Charles the Pretender was invading England in an effort to regain the throne throws Johnson into association with Alastair Maclean, the central figure of the tale. The plot revolves around Maclean's endeavors to uncover the plot by which information which should have gone to the Prince is diverted into hostile channels, and the aid given him by Midwinter, the leader of that curious brotherhood called by various names, the Spoonbills, the Bog-Blitters, the Left-Handed, but known to themselves as "The Naked Men of Old England." While this tale has not the thrill and the suspense of Greenmantle, it has greater artistry and literary merit Buchan has proved himself a most versatile and unusual writer. This tale Is wholly unlike anything else he has done
--The Unitarian Register, Volume 102
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