Vivienne. By Rita. 3 vole. (Sampson Low and Co.)—The title
, is not attractive to those who remember the "Idylls of the King," but the Vivien of the story is not the heroine who gives it a name, but a certain Countess de Verdreuil, falsely so called, who is as beautiful and wicked as can well be imagined. The Countess has left her husband, and made a victim of the old Count whose name she bears, slandered and robbed of his inheritance the nephew, and driven to destruction, if only her will could have compassed it, the niece, the beautiful Vivienne. But justice is not too lame to overtake the guilty, and everything comes right at the last. There is some good description, both of nature of human passion, in the story, but its real merits are obscured by a super- • tinily of fine-writing. This is a specimen:—:' Raoul knew full well_ that, often as he had tried to deceive himself, often as he had proclaimed, - his love conquered, it was so far from being really forgottea or eating.k. that its memory never left him ; it could torture, and pain, and dee,eive, him still. It could steal over his heart as silently, as tenderly, ae the. shimmer of moonbeams steals over the dark shadowy waters of a lake., while the depths below catch their beauty, and mirror their radiance,. for all that they seem so dark, and still, and tranquil. So his heart, long passionless, silent, unstirred, had caught the beauty and retained the memory of that one love." This is a sort of thing—if Rita will - only take the word of a critic who, anyhow, possesses the qualification of having read very much—that it is a great deal more pleasant to write than to read.
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