Paolo Gianini. By Pericles Tzikos. 3 vols. (Tinsley Brothers.)— We
have in this novel pictures, drawn with no little vigour and spirit, of literary and social life in Italy. The hero is a man of letters, and the result of his experience is the conclusion that Italy is not the place for a great career, which should be rather sought in England. Nothing contributes more to this result than his connection with a certain journal, called the Northern Echo, a narrative which has every appearance of being "founded on fact." It is noteworthy that the salary proposed to him for his editor's work is five hundred francs (220) per month, and this is apparently meant to he liberal. It is not wonderful that England should have a more promising look than Italy. Paolo has a sister, lob, and through him we make the acquaintance of a certain Baron Enrico Ernano, and of various circles of fashionable society. It is an ac- quaintance that does not impress the reader at all pleasantly. Every- where one sees a dreary level of frivolity and profligacy. The author writes English with uncommon facility and correctness. The indications of a foreign origin are very few, and these of a trifling kind, such, for instance, as "the stoop ascent of that rugged moun- tain in Phocide." It is more characteristic of a Southern nationality, when we find him relating with some surprise that the hero did not weep when he was parted from the lady of his love. "Paolo did not shed one tear,—some moo do not." Grief for the dead is the one cause which the Englishman acknowledges for tears, and even of that be is half ashamed.
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