Tender Tyrants. By Joseph Verey. 8 vols. (Tinsley.)—Mr. Verey trusts
that "brother journalists and critics will recognise in Tender
Tyrants a spirit akin to that which has animated him on previous occa-
sions in writing for the Press." We have no disposition to doubt the excellence of the "spirit which has animated" Mr. Verey on this and previous occasions, but we have the strongest doubt about the wisdom of its manifestations. One of the "tender tyrants,"as by an absurd affectation he is pleased to call the women of his story, is a shameless creature, who jilts her first lover, marries a rich man for his money, makes violent love to a young man who happens to fall in her way, and finally succeeds in a scene which, to say the least, might well have been spared, in mak- ing him false to his true love. "I have drawn," says Mr. Verey, "with such skill as I could command, the portrait of a woman who sacrifices duty, self-respect, and, lastly, virtue, to the whim or pleasure of the moment." In our judgment, this sort of portrait has been drawn a
great deal too often. If we must have it again, let it be done with a taste and skill which Mr. Verey cannot command ; or if the inferior
artist must try his hand at it, let him at all events correct the crudity of his work by a sound moral. We can put up with a coarse painting of vice if the artist gives us in equally strong colours the vengeance which falls upon it. Here punishment halts sadly, and indeed lets the wicked one go. The unhappy man who is fairly hunted into sin drowns him- self ; the harlot who has ruined him enjoys all the happiness that she is capable of. Her husband takes her back. "They lived for some years in Italy and the South of France, where cheerful society and novel scenes gradually won Maggie from her painful remembrances." "Won her
from her painful remembrances!" Well, that is an odd way of patting it A dim consciousness that something else will be expected seems to occur at this point to the author. This is his epilogue ; "I fear my readers will think her fate far happier than she deserved, but it must be re- membered that Mr. Travers passionately loved her, and considering to what a degree such men are in the power of these Tender Tyrants, trust Maggie's career may not be wholly without its moral." If this has any meaning at all, it is that a beautiful woman married to a weak man may do anything she pleases without fear.
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