27 MAY 1865, Page 24

Beatrice Leigh. A novel in 2 vols. By Laura Jane

Curling. (T. C. Newby.) Behind the Curtain. A novel in 3 vols. By Lieutenant-Colonel H. R. Addison. (Maxwell and Co.)—Neither of these novels calls for much criticism, nor have they much in common, except that both turn on that ordinary incident the abduction of the child of a man of great station and fortune by its uncle. In each case the child grows up a model of purity and honour, and is immediately recognized from its striking likeness to its sainted mother. This, together with the evi- dence of the infamous person who was the instrument of the abduction, at once restores it to its property and rank. It would, however, be un- jnst to deny that Miss Carling has written a pleasing though rather lackadaisical story, while Colonel Addison's three volumes are a mass of impossible crimes. He does not even preserve common consistency in his characters. Coleman, the valet of the Hon. George Sydney, at Vol. I.,

p. 9, speaks like a highly-educated —in Vol. III., chap. 19, he can-

not open his lips without an error in grammar. But as the author wrote Coleman developed from a respectable upper servant into a villain, and it is well known to authors of novels pf the calibre of Behind the Curtain, that vice always makes a man spealc bad grammar.