The Judge of the Four Corners. By G. B. Burgin.
(A. D. Ines and Co.)—This is a novel with a good deal in it that reminds ns of Bret Harte, a good deal that reminds us of Dickens, and a fair remainder of original matter and manner. Mr. Burgin's touch is alternately realistic and melodramatio. He invents nice people of an unconventional and rather improbable sort, and then sets them down in a world so remote from the ways of civilised people that reviewers, who have not been reared in the bush, cannot positively affirm that the circumstances are impossible, though they may shrewdly suspect that such is the case. However we are not strict realists here; and whether or not there actually are at any Canadian bush station such capital "rough diamonds" as Old Man Evans, and such romantically devoted girls as Janie, we
are delighted to read about them ; and we think Harry Davenport an enviable person in spite of his broken head and the rather agitating activity of revolvers at Four Corners. Sadie does very well for the hero. But the heart of the romance lies in Janie's unrequited love for the dying poet, and the dying poet's un- requited love for the other girl. The grotesque humour of Miss Wilkes we do not care very much about; and the return of Colonel Vankleek to domestic happiness is a little too theatrical. But the just condemnation of the official Judge by the Lynch Judge is good. And altogether we like the book.
Previous page
