CURRENT LITERATURE.
A Queen of Bohemia. By Joseph Hatton. 2 vole. (Chapman and Hall.)—Mr. Hatton's hero is Lord Rokeby, a young democratic pear_ liedoes not, we must say, make a favourable impression. We find him in the first chapter "smoking a cabana over his last glass of Margaux.' What could be a more atrocious combination ? Then he talks of " graduatiug for the University" of Bishopstown. And finally we find him going to sloop after dinner, a quite unpardonable act,. considering that he was not more than thirty. Nor does he improve• very much on acquaintance. It was hazardous for the author to intro., duce to his reader a noble genius, such as we are led to expect iu Lord Rokeby. How brilliant we ought to find him, and how disappointing it is to discover that ho is somewhat dull I The story is of an ordinary kind. A woman of the world plots to win the heart of the hero from the daughter of a poor artist, and meets with the success that she de- serves. But the novel is not meant to depend for its success on its story. We are to be interested in the strange country in which the 6,00/10 is for- the most part laid. Come ignotzon pro tore,fieo. Readers are igno- rant of this wonderful Bohemia, and are supposed to follow eagerly a guide who leads them into its recesses. After all, when we have been taken about it, wo find nothing very different from what we have be accustomed to outside. The Mansion House is not, we suppose, within the. border of Bohemia (which the author oddly enough describes as having c; its geographical limits between Kensington, Brampton, St. John's Wood, and Regent's Park "), and we may therefore, without impugning Mr. Ratton'e knowledge of that country, remark that it is not common. to find Queen's Counsel engaged in " police-court actions."
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