11 DECEMBER 1875, Page 22

Dorothea Waldegrave. By Ida, Countess Hahn-Hahn. Translated from the German,

with a preface, by Lady Herbert. 2 vols. (Bentley.)— The preface tells us that the authoress wishes that this book may "destroy any contrary influence which earlier books of hers may have produced." We have a vague impression of novels not altogether edifying con- nected with the Countess's name, and also a notion that these earlier books were readable, a quality which unhappily this story does not possess, though, indeed, the translator thinks that it is "touching." We can easily understand that Lady Herbert is touched by a story which exds in the beautiful heroine making "her profession of faith according to the Catholic Church." To us, the end does not justify the means,—that is, the five hundred tedious pages, without one spark of fancy, or one touch of pathos, which we have to struggle through before we reach it.