RECENT NOVELS.* Man. FORRESTER is a practised manufacturer of fiction,
and she displays her mastery of her trade by a singularly careful and yet unobtrusive thrift in the material of invention. She takes thought for the morrow and for the novel of to-morrow, and therefore very wisely does not put too much into the novel of to- day. Her habit is to secure one effective situation or complica- tion, and to fill three volumes by working up to it or from it, by the help of conventional characters and incidents which keep the story moving on without any great drain upon the writer's imaginative resources. In Once Again, the little bit of invention which does such good service comes at the beginning of the first volume instead of at the end of the third, and the story con- sists of the unravelling of the skein which the heroine and her mother have between them so effectively tangled. This original complication has elements of absurdity, but is by no means deficient in ingenuity and freshness, two good qualities for which in the main body of the work we look in vain, as the story, after the first few chapters, is little more than a piece of fairly creditable hack-work. tinkle Vernon, an extremely weak, silly, obstinate, and not over-conscientious young lady, meets Noel Trevor, a frank and impulsive young soldier, and the man and maid lose no time in falling in love with each other. Noel, how- ever, is impecunious, as young soldiers are apt to be, and Mrs. Vernon, who is ambitious that her daughter shall make a " good marriage," frowns upon the love-making, and fancies she has nipped it in the bud. So far from this being the case, she has only driven the young people to extremities, and while the mother is perfectly at ease, the daughter is making preparations for a secret marriage at a registry-office. The marriage comes off, and then the complication begins, for the cab into which the couple get is overturned, and while the bride's injuries are so slight that she manages to return home, the bridegroom is carried to a hospital apparently in a dying condition. The wedding-ring betrays the secret to Mrs. Vernon, and the sole thought of the worldly but affectionate mother is how to make the best of a bad business. The thought that Trevor may die, and the hope that the marriage may tarn out to be invalid, both suggest a policy of silence ; and as, though the bridegroom does not die, he allows months to pass without making any attempt to communicate with his young wife, this policy is persevered in. Mrs. Vernon, though she is represented as being a shrewd and sensible woman, has idiotically complicated matters by treating her cherished doubt as a certainty, and assuring Dulcie that the marriage has been illegal, not even made- ceiving her when she herself has become aware of the unpalatable truth that the knot has been tied as feet as the law of the land can make it. It is needless to prolong the summary, for the most inexperienced novel-reader will discern the nature of the difficulties in store for the young lady who, being in reality a wife, is in the eye of the world an attractive unmarried girl. The suitors are not quite so numerous as Penelope's, but they are more embarrassing; and in dealing with them, both mother and daughter have their hands and their minds unpleasantly full. The story of their misfortunes is told with no special power or grace, but with Mrs. Forrester's usual facility ; and as a circulating-library novel, there is nothing much to be said against Once Again. No one will want to read it twice, but a single perusal will not be found wearisome by anybody.
When Mr. Hall Caine published his first story, The Shadow of a Crime, we were assured by various enthusiastic critics that the coming novelist had come, and that the greatest masters of English fiction had found a worthy peer. In talk of this kind there was, to say the least, a good deal of amiable exaggeration ; but every candid reader must have admitted that the book was
• Once Again. By Idre.Forrester. 3 vole. London Hurst sad Bl,4kett.—.4 Son of Hagar. By Hall Caine. 3 vols. London, Chatto and Windom—Spiders of Society. By Florence Marryst. 3 vols. London: P. v. White and Co.— Leeterre Dorset. By the Author of "Mies Molly." 5 vols. Edinburgh and London W. Blackwood and Sons.—Porleno's Buffet. and accords. By B. D. Prirarose. 3 vols. London T. Maher Unwin.—For Love or Gold I By Mrs. Henry Arnold. 2 vole. London Swan Sonnensohein and 0o.—The Copper Queen. A Romance of To-Day and Yesterday. By Blanche Roosevelt. 3 vole. Landau: Ward and Downey.—Fifine. By Alfred T. Story. 2 vole. landau: George Redway. one of real though vague promise. It is, however, the second book rather than the first which determines an author's place among his fellows; and we regret to say that Mr. Hall Caine's second book is decidedly disappointing. The Shadow of a Crime had many of the elements of true tragedy; A Son of Hagar is simply a confused and confusing piece of melodrama, the com- parative failure of which is rendered more obvious by the con- fessed pretentiousness of its aim. The following of Pope's sound but ungrammatical advice,— " In every work regard the writer's end,
Since none can compass more than they intend "—
is rendered easy in the case of I Son of Hagar by the fact that Mr. Hall Caine has told us what he intends in the somewhat inflated preface by which he introduces his story. His first intention, we learn, has been "to find a character which shall be above all common tendencies to guilt, and yet tainted with the plague-spot of evil hidden somewhere; then to watch the first sharp struggle of what is good in the man with what is evil, until he is in the coil of his temptation ; and finally, to show in what tragic ruin a man of strong passions, great will, and power of mind may resist the force that precipitates him, and save his soul alive." His second intention is to urge "a plea for the rights of the bastard," which, he tells us, "have been recognised in every country and by every race except one, since the day when the outcast woman in the wilderness hearkened to the cry from Heaven which said, God /lath beard the voice of the lad, where he in.'" This is too rhetorical to be very intelligible ; but it is clear enough to justify us in saying that the story fulfils neither of these intentions. Hugh Ritson, so far from being a man "above all common tendencies to guilt," who struggles against an overpowering temptation, and at last succumbs, is simply the ordinary villain of the melodramatic stage who, after one faint protest, evidently made for the sake of appearances, eagerly welcomes every sug- gestion of scoundrelism from his fellow-villain, Mr. Bonni- thorne, and proves himself such an apt pupil that he soon leaves his preceptor far behind. To speak, as Mr. Hall Caine speaks, of the story of such a man as possessing a "pathetic and purifying interest," is a misuse of terms that is simply ludicrous. Then, as to the "plea for the rights of the bastard," we confess ourselves wholly unable to see in what the plea consists. If it is to be found in the record of Paul Ritson's undeserved misfortunes, it must be remarked that those misfortunes had their immediate cause not in his illegitimacy, but in the fact that he had a scoundrel for a brother. Hugh Ritson, indeed, took advantage of the illegitimacy, as he might have taken advantage of a physical infirmity such as blindness or deafness, as a means to the carrying out of his evil designs ; but even with this lever he would have been powerless had he not been aided by the extraordinary, and practically impossible likeness, between Paul Ritson and Paul Drayton. A certain strain upon our powers of belief is allowable to the romancer ; but a substitution of A for B which deceives people who have known B all their lives, and only lost sight of him for a few days, can be allowed to no one but a writer of farcical burlesque. But this unreality pervades the whole book, and is not confined to any single incident or situation. We will not refer to the extraordinary exposition of law in the third volume, as Mr. Caine, in our own columns, has announced his intention of rewriting that portion of his work ; but the scene in the convent, the scene in the police-court, the scene in the chamber where Mercy undergoes her operation, all stand in equal need of rewriting, because they equally betray the author's imperfect knowledge. In dealing with the incidents of rural Cumbrian life, Mr. Hall Caine is evidently more at home, and here and there through the book are passages of real power ; but the story as a whole can only be praised with reserves that leave the effect of censure.
Miss Florence Marryat is a vivacious writer, and her vivacity and love for strong effects sometimes tempt her to offend against good taste ; bat on this score no reasonable complaint can be made of Spiders of Society. The title is certainly unpleasant, but the story itself is very bright and entertaining, well con- structed, and well told_ Mien Marryat is fond of dealing with matters theatrical, and her present novel deals with the fortunes of a popular actress, who is known to the world by her maiden name of Georgie Harrington, though she is really the wife of the Hon. Gerard Legh. Captain Legh is an ill-conditioned brute, who insults his wife, on whom he is dependent, and M- uses her orphan sister to such an extent that Mrs. Legh, who is a woman of high spirit as well as of noble character, accepts a theatrical engagement in America, and leaves her husband to his own devices, which are not specially creditable. In America, " Georgie Harrington" is a great success, and as the fact of her being a wife is known to very few, she receives several splendid offers of marriage. Foremost among her admirers is one Hiram Bloch, a wealthy and high-minded man, who pleads that she will take advantage of the law of the country in which she finds herself, and procure a divorce from Legh. She is touched by his devotion, and is deliberating upon his proposal, when, hearing suddenly of the serious inmate of her husband in England, she realises for the first time that her love has not been dead but only dormant, and breaks her engagement that she may burry to his side. At first she meets with a chilling rebuff, for the mischief-makers who are, we suppose, the spiders of the title, have been doing their worst to widen the breach between husband and wife ; but finally, all mils- understandings between the pair are cleared up, it is to be hoped permanently, and Hiram is rewarded with the hand of "Georgia Harrington's" sister. Natural characters and brisk narrative go far towards making a good story, and both are to be found in Spiders of Society.
The method and manner of the author of Miss Molly have altered a good deal since the days when she wrote that bright book, which, in spite of all its crudities, was irresistibly fas- cinating. Her latest novel is much more highly finished and much less faulty than her first ; but it must be added that it is also much less interesting, at any rate to people whose interest is of the popular, old.fashioned kind. Lesterre Durant is clever in many ways, but even Mr. Henry James himself has never pro- duced a novel containing so little story; and the ordinary novel- reader appreciates story so highly that hardly any amount of cleverness will quite console him for the loss of it. Nor is the cleverness here of the kind which is generally the most attrac- tive, though we do not mean this as an impeachment, but simply as a characterisation. There are no satirical sketches, no epi- grams, not even any striking felicities of phrasing. Miss Batt shows her skill in working by means of exceedingly fine faint strokes, which singly seem to accomplish nothing, but in the mass achieve singularly vivid and lifelike effects of portraiture. The figures are admirable in themselves, and are grouped with such artistic effectiveness that we cannot but admire; and yet, in the midst of our admiration, we look back with a shade of regret to the days of Miss Molly.
If Fortune'e Buffets and Rewards be, as it seems to be, the work of a beginner, it is far from being destitute of promise. In the art of construction the author has a good deal to learn, for the centre of interest shifts about in an awkward sort of way, the hero being at one part of the story left for so long a time that we almost forget him ; while one or two of the episodes are terribly, indeed almost fatally, clumsy. But Mr. Primrose has a fair grasp of both character and situation, and the story of the life of a poor Edinburgh student is told in the first volume in a way that is both vigorous and interesting. John Glegg, the man with a talent for getting on, is conceived with real skill and humour ; and some of the best chapters of the book are those devoted to the schemings which are at first so successful, and at last so disastrous. The hero and the heroine are much less interesting than this crafty rascal.; but heroes and heroines are apt to be dulL
When in the first chapter of a novel we meet with a young lady who, in the course of conversation with a strange young gentleman whom she has met by accident, assures him that he is the handsomest man she has seen for three years, we are at once reminded of Miss Rhoda Broughton. Cynthia Davenaut, the central figure in Mrs. Henry Arnold's story, For Love or Gold ? is, however, in one respect very unlike the heroines of that popular novelist. They are warm-blooded beings, given to loving not wisely but too well, whereas Cynthia's heart is so admirably regulated that when the choice between love and gold is presented to her, she decides unhesitatingly for the latter. In the matter of the novel there is nothing that is fresh ; both persons and incidents are very old friends ; but the story moves along very vivaciously, and the style is smooth and pleasant. We have noticed one curious piece of carelessness. Lord Ravenholm's mother is represented as being disappointed that he does not enter the House of Commons, a step which, as he is an English Peer, it would, of course, be impossible for him to take.
Of the two last novels in our batch we need say little. Con-
corning The Copper Queen we can, indeed, say nothing save that it deals with vulgar people in an intensely vulgar manner, and —if Miss Roosevelt be, as we conjecture, an American—in a very unpatriotic manner as well. Email MOM can hardly be said of the pork trade, and society in Chicago, the metropolis of pork, may not be of the highest class ; but for the credit of human nature, we refuse to accept the picture of it given in these pages. There is really nothing to praise except a description of the great fire ; and even this, graphic as it is, is spoiled by the pervading vulgarity.
Fiflae, on the other hand, is a refined and pretty tale of lower middle-class life in a provincial town in Germany. Mr. Story evidently knows what he is writing about, and writes, too, as if fie had some literary experience, though, as no previous work is named on the title-page, we conjecture that this is a first attempt. He evidently knows how to dispose of his material to the best advantage, and though we are never absorbed in the story, we never lose interest. There is not very much in the book ; but the characters and incidents—with one exception—are all life. life, and the kindly but impecunious professor is really a very winning figure.
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