21 SEPTEMBER 1867, Page 23

CURRENT LITERATURE

Woodburn Grange. By William Howitt. 3 vole, (Charles W. Wood.) —This is a good specimen of the chatty, sketchy novel, without any central characters, or any clearly defined central interest. Mr. Howitt brings in stories he haslearcrand incidents which haVe become notorious, and by putting the first in the mouth of a fairly drawn narrator, and connecting the second with characters that are consistent with them, he makes up an accurate composition. It is a pity that he should be so much out of his depth on points of-law, as a part of his story turns on a trial for murder. How it comes about that a peer is a recorder of some town, and as such has great influence with the Government, will be a marvel to the bar of most borough sessions. But when Mr. Howitt describes trials for murder he makes the counsel for the Crown call witnesses first, and then make his speech ; the counsel for the defence also proceeds to call witnesses, and yet-the-Crown has no reply. After- wards it seems that two witnesses for the Crown are tried as accessories. We can only attribute this confusion to the effects of the dream which Mr. Howitt makes the most important element in his plot, and which evidently bewilders him as well as his characters. But the dream. enables him to give his third volume a more concentrated and more sustained interest than belonged to the other two, and if we criticize the third volume too severely, we shall be bearing hard on the very part which will be most acceptable to the novel reader.