The Shipowner's Daughter. By John Saunders. 3 vols. (Tinsley Brothers.)—The
title tells the story of the book. An unprincipled ship- owner has a lovely daughter, whose beauty and goodness interpose to mitigate, if not to avert, the punishment which his misdeeds have de- served. It is, indeed, somewhat strange that the very determined young Man, who has come to exact vengeance from the virtual murderer of his father, should suffer himself to be entangled by a passion which could not but lead to fatal complications, but the complications are needful for the plot, and tho strangeness must be excused. The lover's adven- tures after he has once got on board the fatal ship are told with much spirit and vivid painting of detail. We can only hope that the scene in the magistrates' Court at Cardiff is not consistent with facts,—at all events, as facts now are. The characters and motives of the seamen are
excellently described, but the after-part of the story, especially the im- prisonment of Mr. Humphrey and his daughter on board the ship by the hero, strikes us as being less meritorious ; while the final scene, where the shipowner dies, in the presence of the underwriters whom he has attempted to defraud, is melodramatic in the extreme.
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