Slippery Ground. By Lewis Wingfield. 3 vols. (Tinsley Brothers.) —Mr.
Wingfield, we suppose, has seen many things, and knows some- thing about some out-of-the-way places. And he has certainly studied recent revelations about commercial dishonesty with considerable dili- gence. The main plot of his novel is concerned with the adventures of a swindler, who raises money on forged warrants for goods that do not exist. This is not a very promising subjects but if Mr. Wingfield had kept steadily to it, and not diverted the reader's attention by inter- minable episodes, something might have been made of it. But some strange perversity has made him write a novel of about double the ordinary length, and fill up the space which it would have been far better to economise with descriptions of men and things, drawn very probably from the life—for Mr. Wingfield has, to do him justice, some art of this kind—but insufferably tedious. And then there is the trick which Charles Dickens is responsible for having invented, of the perpetual iteration of some characteristic of demeanour. The gigantic Caddich and the smiling Twiatleton become troublesome beyond descrip- tion. Let Mr. Wingfield shorten his next novel by two-thirds, and diminish his characters from a regiment to a moderate-sized company, and he may write what others besides critics may be able to read.
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