The Cleicbend. By "Dephias." (Samuel Tinsley.)—"Dephias " does not keep
us waiting long for "sensation." In the first few chapters (which suggest the hand of a lady not unacquainted with the London Journal) the hero secretly marries the heroine, and leaves her at the church-door for an indefinite period, for no other reason than that people might say his father had not been dead very long. The discon- solate Ariadne, after narrowly escaping being drowned by her husband's brother, goes into hiding, for fear he might try it again. Her lawyer, fortunately, is very accommodating, and pays her income, though he does not oven know she is alive, without asking any questions. The husband, having been informed by "the villain "of the death of his wife, writes to say that he shall never come home, and directs his brother to "be master." Acting up to this permission, the estate is soon put up for sale, though we should think "the title," under such circumstances, would hardly be good for much. Some of the characters are very fairly drawn, but the book would be much more readable without such a too-apparent striving for effect. There is one passage that we cannot too strongly condemn ; it is where a man is described as taking the hand of the vulgarest character of the book "with all the reverence of his first Communion." This is not only nonsense, but something worse.
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