29 SEPTEMBER 1877, Page 23

For This Coast: a Novel. By Robert Thynne, author of

" dale," "Torn " Tom Delany." (Sampson Low and Co.)—Mr, Thynne's novel produces on ono's mind the impression of rather good talk, unduly and unreasonably prolonged, until at last it becomes wearisome ; the attention of the listeners wanders, and that which was amusing in the beginning turns into a bore of portentous dimensions. The story of For This Cause might have been told with much more effect in ono volume than in the three volumes which are, not devoted to it for they straggle off into innumerable irrelevancies, but put forth under its title. As it is, the story is so misty that one grows tired of trying to discover it, through the clouds of digression and the crowd of oddities which intercept one's view. Mr. Thynne apparently labours under the delusion that eccentricity is per se interesting and entertaining. This is a mistake, whose results are apt to be grievous for the reader of a novel in whose construction it has usurped the place of a principle, especially when the novel which furnishes the oddities with a stage on which they are to exhibit themselves is an Irish ono. The chief comics personage of this story, Major M'Oonnicle, is a very molanoholy failure indeed.