James Ingleton : the History of a Social State, A.D.
2000. By "Mr. Dick." (James Blackwood and Co.) Here is another addition to the already numerous imaginative presentments of like in England during the coming century. The first books of the kind had the merit of freshness, and were read with a good deal of the interest aroused by any really new thing in literature ; but prophetic fiction is now decidedly stale, and there is nothing in either the substance or the style of James Ingleton to excite to new activity the jaded sensibilities of the reading public. The Monarchy is abolished, and for a time a particularly irrational form of socialism reigns triumphant ; but everything goes wrong, and the story ends with the restoration of the present Royal family in the person of a Prince who is absurdly named " Edward Guelph," and who ascends the throne as King Edward VII. The book has neither invention nor imagination, and, though some- what sensational in parts, is, as a whole, decidedly dull.
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