Not in Vain. By Armor Groye. 2 vols. (Chapman and
Hall.)— The title-page recalls to us a previous work of the same author, "One too Many." Of this all that we can remember is the dreary reflection, which seemed the only thing to say, but which we hope we did not print, that the book was " one too many." Again, we are struck with the same poverty of ideas. All that suggests itself i that such tales are quite "in vain." A young lady resolves to dismiss her lover because he is not serious enough for hbr ; whether he becomes more serious or she less so is not very easy to discover ; anyhow, the difficulty is made up, the making-up being much helped forward by a useful fit of jealousy, which discovers to the young lady the fact that she cannot part with her worldly lover. All the subordinate characters are caricatures of a common type, labelled in this fashion, "Mr. Prowle, a High-Church parson," and so on. This is one of the books in which we can see no good at all.
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