16 AUGUST 1879, Page 25

Wolfern Chace : a Chronicle of "Days that are no

More." (Remington and Co.)—It is easy to guess at the line of a story which opens thus : Malediction on all chimney-clocks and their inventor," said Sir Geoffrey Langdale to his lady-love, as they sat discussing a Into breakfast at the Old Ship, Brighthelmstone. "They arc indeed a torture for all time," replied the lady, committing quite innocently an indifferent pun, "but they would scarcely have disturbed us, if those dissipated friends of yours—Sheridan and Moore—had not had such a noisy party in the room beneath us." "Nor if Mrs. Fitz- herbert had not chanoed to give her ball last night." And so the talk goes on, in an artificial and unsuccessful effort to resuscitate an epoch in the social history of England peculiarly difficult of revival. The attempt is well meant, and the author of Wolfern Chace has taken so much painsiwith the book, that we cannot but be sorry the labour has been in vain. There is no life in the story ; the personages arc but lay-figures, and although all the sentiment is of a blameless kind, there is a great deal too much of it.