20 FEBRUARY 1864, Page 22

Maude Winthrop's Life Charge. By Mace Anstruther. Two vols.

(C. J. Skeet.)—If this novel is the work of a novice, it is of some pro- mise—the story is fragmentary to a degree, and the conclusion marries off only the insignificant personages and leaves all those in whom we take an interest quite at large ; but still the narrative is good, and all the separate scenes are distinctly conceived and vigorously rendered. As we shall probably hear of the author again, may we suggest that a novel in which there was no allusion to clergymen, or the aid which can be given them by ladies, or to sermons, or to dissent, or to any species of parish work, would merely as a novelty be likely to sell well?