Jaco Treloar. By J. H. Pearce. (Methuen.)—This is a very
clever, very carefully written, but also very melancholy story dealing with a district in England, which readers will have no difficulty in identifying from the recurrence of such names as " Treloar," " Permewan," and " Trelawarren." The author may possibly have had Adam Bede and Hetty Sorrel in his eye when he sketched the strongly passionate Sil Treloar and the too light- hearted Jaco, whom he makes his wife; and there is a slight sug- gestion of the Martha who comes across the path of poor Emily in " David Copperfield," in a certain Millpool girl with her baleful songs. But the story is obviously original in all respects, and perhaps, it should be added, original in nothing so much as its genuine Cornishness. The downward career of the wretched curate, whose sensual passion for Jaco finally brings death to himself, to the woman whom he seduces, and—in the shape of the murderer's doom—to her husband, is traced with painful skill. Even better sketches in some respects than either Jaco or Sil- though both are admirable—are their simpler and more Puritanic relatives, such as Temperance and Priscilla. The author is equally happy in describing physical and moral storms.
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