The Magic of Love. By Mrs. Forrest-Grant. 8 vols. (Samuel
Tinsley.)—Possibly. a lady is not bound to know the difference be-
tween a barrister and a solicitor, yet one is prejudiced against a novel by reading on p. 8, that "an eminent London barrister had absconded with large sums of money entrusted to his care and management by clients." Nor, as we proceed, do we find the prejudice unjust. The tale is, in fact, absurd from one end to the other. A mysterious gamekeeper, who talks French like a native ; a gloomy fanner, who is "one of the principal
correspondents of the Times," and writes " official despatches " in his study; an aunt, who reluctantly takes her orphan nieces into her house, and at the- first interview speaks of them as "beggars and paupers," are some of the characters ; robberies, conspiracies, abductions, figure among the inci- dents. Altogether, the Magic of Love is an utterly hopeless jumble of things trivial or things absurd, a tale of which the only good that we- can find to say is that there is no harm in it.
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