19 MAY 1866, Page 18

CURRENT LITERATURE.

The Dogrel& A Domestic Story. By the Viscountess Enfield. I voL (Warne.)--This is very domestic story indeed. It is all about a number of cousins of high degree, who live in the mansion and par- sonage-houses respectively of a country village, and make love to ene

another. The most serious incident in the story seems borrowed, in a faint degree, from the proceedings of Miss Constance Kent, and relates to the diabolical conductor Master Redgie, aged seven, who is jealous of his baby brother, and pushes him off a chest of drawers. But it all comes right in the end, though there is one death; this, however, makes no difference, as the girls -whom we are made to care about most both get married. Anybody who is tired of flaxen-haired murderesses will find this simple story quite refreshing, especially as the dialogue is remarkably natural and yet amusing. We rather like the following scrap of conversation between Gertrude and her papa. "Oh! then, do tell me directly," said Gertrude, all eagerness. "Curiosity, thy name is Woman," said Mr. Dayrell, sententiously. Yes, dear papa, it is ; but tell me all the same." We are rather amused in another place at the odd inference that the authoress draws from the cheap houses modern builders run up. "To my mind," she writes, "they are an additional testimony to what I believe is a great truth, that the day of the world's death is nigh." She evidently knows nothing about leases falling in, and houses being built to last just as long as the lease, and considers that these builders are providentially over-ruled. Let her Ladyship -prevail upon one of the magnates who hold the metropolis in fee to grant a freehold, and we undertake to say that the building erected would be of a durable character.