24 JUNE 1893, Page 41

One Virtue. By Charles T. C. James. (A. and C.

Black.)—This is intended as a serious—indeed, a painfully serious—book. And yet it is hardly possible not to smile at the absurdities associated with the scoundrel-villain of the story, who drinks at least as much as his professional brother, Mr. Benjamin Allen, but does not otherwise take so wholesome a view Of life. One cannot, indeed, help preferring the orgies of Bob Sawyer and his friend to the talks of this man and the comrade whom, by a curious, inverted, and not very genuine humour, he persists in designating "Worthiest." It is but fair to the scoundrel-villain, however, to say that he has in him some of the raw material of character ; and to the author to say that he does that raw material a fair amount of justice in his second volume, in which Dr. Paul Ravender opens a way of happiness for the child he loves and the wifo he has ill- treated by eventually committing suicide in the company of the woman he has seduced, and who still loves him.