The Great Gulf Fired. By Gerald Grant. B vole. (Tinsley
Brothers,)—The "great gulf" is, we suppose, the difference between rich and poor, and the author's purpose is to show what love can and cannot do to bridge it over. Novels written with an intention of this kind start at a groat disadvantage. There is something formal about them, and the reader is prejudiced by the feeling that he is being lectured and taught. We can see very little in The Great Gulf Fixed to be set off against those drawbacks. It has much in it that is neither interesting in itself, nor relevant to the subject, nor of use in working out such a plot as there is. It wearies us with pictures of a life which, if it is not "dismal and illiberal," is, anyhow, dull. There is nothing, indeed, objectionable about it, and it is removed by some distance from the lowest deep of literary badness ; but it cannot be called a success, the less so, as the title-page informs us that the author has made more than one venture before.
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