Eli's Children. By George Manville Fenn. 3 vols. (Chapman 'and
Hall.)—That Eli's children should come to a bad end is a thing 'quite to be expected, when they are each very bad subjects as are the eons of the Rev. Mr. George Mallow, the Eli of Mr. Fenn's story. But why should the doom fall on his daughter, Julia, who does not seem to have been spoilt by any parental indulgence ? And why -should it extend to a number of other innocent people ? However, it is Mr. Penn's spdcia2itd to deal in horrors, and as he follows the honest course of forewarning his readers as to what they may expect, by de- scribing his novel as "The Chronicle of an Unhappy Family," no one has a right to complain. Still, we cannot help thinking that he might employ his undoubted ability, of which this tale, repulsive as it is, gives sufficient proof, in a more pleasant and profitable way. Why Should he speak, by the way, of the shooting of an escaping convict at Dartmoor as a "judicial murder ?" If the men are to be sent in working parties outside the prison-walls, there is no other way of deterring them from attempts at escape ; and it is right, not wrong, to deter them at any coat.–Exchange no Robbery, and .other Novelettes. By M. Betham Edwards. 2 vols. (Hurst and Eflackett.)--The short story which gives a title to these two Volumes is very good. The daughter of a farmer changes places with a girl, her foster-sister, who belongs to a German grand-ducal house, an exchange made possible by circumstances. The young lady has lived remotefrom Court. She was the child of an inferior marriage, and is suddenly brought into importance by the difficulty of finding a proper match for the heir of the daohy. The scheme, a jest at first, though not without an arri6re pensde of earnestness on the part of the ambitious plebeian, becomes a reality, and both parties, after a period of trial which is skilfully managed by the novelist, fill their new positions with admirable fitness. None of the other stories are at all equal to this, though "The Three B.A..'s " is a bright little sketch of the life of activity which will, doubtless, become more and more common among the young women-students of the day. What a contrast between the full, cheerful life of the teacher Eugenia, and the dull and objectless existence which thousands of young women uselessly drag out at home ! The collection would have been dis- tinctly better for the omission of "Priest and Maiden." In a neat little volume of neat little sermons, bearing the title of Towards the Sunset ; or, Teachings after Thirty Years (Isbister), the now veteran author of "The Recreations of a Country Parson" puts one not a little in mind of one of the heroines of Lord Beaconsfield's " Endymion." When her husband died, she "went into very pretty mourning ;" "A. K. H. B." has gone into very pretty seriousness. We had almost said pessimism, for our author thinks "there are now- a-days divers ominous signs, social, political, moral, that point towards the decline and fall of Britain," and, speaking specially of church attendance in Scotland, says :--at" It has been very strongly pressed upon me, in these last years, that not merely the old in many cases wish to have as little of public worship as is decently possible, but that the young—I mean children, and lads and girls—have lost much of the old, simple-minded enjoyment in going to church." Bat, in spite of such statements as this—which ought to have a grave signi- ficance for Scotland, if its author is correct in holding that the preaching in Scotland now-a-days is "incomparably better" than it used to be—and in spite of half-pathetic references to "the days when I was a boy," and to "my Ayrshire bring- ing-up,"—we have much of the old and careful daintiness, the old air of artistic lounging among the Eternities and Immensities. Who but "A. K. H. B." could have began a sermon on "the spirits of just men made perfect" in this fashion :—" Late one night, not long ago, I left the room in which I work, the day's work being over. I put oat the lights before going, and there was sadden and complete darkness. Many times before, one had done the same thing, with no special thought in one's mind. Bat on that night the thought came upon me—some day, all outward light will go from these eyes in like manner." The solemnity of the incident is spoiled by the lapse into the feminine and unreal self-renunciation involved in " one " and "these eyes." When should a man be himself, if not when in the presence of death, or when filled with the idea of it ? Yet there are shrewd and sound things in Towards the Sunset, as in all "A. K. H. B.'a " volumes. If his language is sometimes rather too ladylike, his sentiment is always healthy.
It is impossible to be very severe on Mr. Alan Muir, the author of Hearthrug Farces (Hogg), even though he says such strange things as "I believe laughter and religion to be the two things that chiefly make life bearable." He is not pretentious. He says he is no hamourist, and that one page of Dickens, or "one sentence of a Weller, or a Gamy, or Bailey Junior, or other uf his comic immortals, has provoked more laughter than all I shall ever write or speak." He is full of what he himself would probably call "honest" animal spirits. There is originality, too, in one of his Farces, which he styles " Selina's Revenge." The idea of a widow making a man who had jilted her in her maiden days give up Liberalism, Nonconformity, and teetotalism, before she will marry him, is at least fresh. Mr. Mair's fun is, however, rather too broad, and in the longest of his Farces is very thin as well. He is justified in his admiration of Dickens, but why speak of "his friendly, cleansing mirth?" The phrase has a. disagreeable "patent-medicine" look.
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