A Match Pair. By Ames Savile. 2 vols. (Kegan Paul,
Trench, and Co.)—Mr. Ames Savile, whose name is new to us, seems likely to prove an addition to the number of capable novelists of the second rank. The first books of writers who have anything in them are often distinguished by a certain amount of power ; indeed, in this respect they are not infrequently superior to their successors; but they are still more often marked by an obvious crudity which testifies to a lack of experience in the handling of literary material. There is hardly any such crudity in A Match Pair; it is a thoroughly workmanlike book; and it is obvious that the writer has served his literary apprenticeship in private without any of the usual eagerness to rush to the printers with the clumsy performances of his nonage. The book is, in the first place, well written, in a style which is at once easy and brisk, and which is quite free from the defects which usually detract from the good qualities of ease and briskness. There is, of course, a good deal about love ; there is also a good deal about hunting ; and both the love-chapters and the hunting-chapters provide capital reading. Elsie Davenant is a winning and whole- some heroine, and Mr. Savile manages to make his readers really interested in her choice between the two men—both fine fellows in their way—who are rival suitors for her hand. Some of the subsidiary characters are capitally drawn, and though the book is in no wise remarkable, it is so uniformly good that it cannot fail to be enjoyed.
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