15 SEPTEMBER 1888, Page 23

CURRENT LITERATURE.

The Gallery of a Random Collector, by Clinton Ross (Panama, New York), is a collection of sketches and stories by an American writer, deserving a word of special notice on account of the care with which they are all written, and a certain liveliness, approaching here and there to Stevensonian distinction, which

characterises some. Mr. Rosa occasionally seems to take Mr. Howells as his model,—at all events, Mr. Howells as a writer of sentimental comedy. When he does so he is not particularly suc- cessful. But he can tell an old-fashioned romantic love-affair in a simple and pleasing fashion, as in " An Adventure of Felix Latoon." " The Young Woman in Shabby Black " is an agreeable and essentially American variation on the old story of the Lord of Burleigh. " The Trainer Cap'n " would almost seem to prove that Mr. Ross will find his proper field in character-sketching. Poor " Cap'n " Hawkins, who has a little of Lear and a great deal of Munchhausen in him, is thoroughly original.