Sir Gilbert Leigh. By W. L. Rees. 2 vole. (Sampson
Low.)—These two volumes are at least equal to three of the ordinary novel, with its large type and wide margins, admirable features, any sneers against which whereof we may have been guilty in time past we heartily repent. In fact, to speak plainly, Mr. Rees has written too much. He, like Ovid, is nimiunz anzator ingenii sui. He goes on describing and sentimentalising in the "finest language," when his readers want to be getting on. The middle part of his book, when he gets us to India and the scenes of tho Mutiny, is good. We travel, indeed, over familiar ground, and amidst scones of which we have already read much, but it is in the company of a good guide. Yet even here, when he has more to say, he sometimes loses effectiveness by fine-writing. But the earlier part of the book, the life in Australia, might very well have been spared, or anyhow, out very much shorter. Such a story as that of the drunken defaulter who commits suicide is nothing more than a quite irrelevant episode. It has absolutely no connection with the story of the hero. Not that this story, "The Story of an Eventful Life," as it is called on the title-page, is the best part of Sir Gilbert Leigh ; that, as we have said, is to be found in the skilful adaptation of Indian history. The last hundred pages of the first volume, and the first hundred of the second, with some twenty or thirty by way of introduction and dis- course, and these printed with a little more regard to the prejudices of novel-readers, would have made a good story. If Mr. Rees will take these hints, chasten his style somewhat, and perhaps we may add, not " exercise his sod too much in great matters," he may do very well. We must not omit to mention a very interesting paper which occupies the end of the second volume, under the title cf "The Great Proconsul." It is a sketch of the career of Sir George Grey.—We cannot hold out great hopes of future success to another tale which carries us to the Antipodes, A False Step ; or, Real Life in Australia, by Irene. (Remington.) For "real life," the coincidences are about as astounding as anything which we have ever heard. And as for the island on which the hero is wrecked, we flatly refuse to believe in it. For a place "a mile id circumference," it is marvel- lously elastic, for the shipwrecked inhabitants find it necessary to divide into parties, that they may thoroughly search the coast. It could not have been much bigger than Trafalgar Square. In such an island, one ceases to marvel at the cavern in which Godfrey finds such won- derful provision made for his wants, by the very gentleman whose offer of a situation be had rashly refused. The descriptions of Australian life indeed are reasonable enough, and not without interest, but the writer's. passion for making everybody meet in the most surprising way goes far to spoil them.
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