Denison's Wife. By Mrs. Alexander Fraser. 2 vols. (Tinaley.)— Mrs.
Fraser seems to get weary or ashamed of the baseness of the characters which she introduces into her novel, and ends by changing it into something like virtue. The heroine is a false and shallow creature in the first half of the first volume ; in the second half of the second we are evidently meant to think of her as true and noble. Then there is a Lord Castleton, a blase' dandy, who wishes to persuade Denison's wife to elope with him, bat finally sacrifices his life in endeavouring to save her boy. But the story is never anything better than a wearisome record of that which is utterly unworthy of being described. As for the literary qualities of the book, it will be sufficient to quote two or three phrases. An Indian officer is described as "isolated from the whites of his kind, and seeking the animus of any society in prefer- ence to a state of stagnation that would probably have been engendered by a perpetual solitude." A young lady is said to have "had none of the attributes of a seraphim about her." And we read that on a prima faeie judgment, man is "an anomalistical animal," a term apparently significant of great excellence, as the author continues, "but upon a closer analysation of his mental anatomy, we are forced reluctantly to acknowledge that he is very often many degrees removed from being the noble animal that he is represented to be." Might we venture to suggest that, if ever Mrs. Fraser's friends prevail upon her to use a nom de plume," Mrs. Malaprop would not be inappropriate ?
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