The Valley of Poppies. By Joseph Hatton. 2 vols. (Chapman
and Hall.)—Mr. Hatton's novel is readable enough, and contains some bright and lively sketches of life in a cathedral town. We should be inclined indeed to object to the ending, for which there seems no adequate cause. Still, on the whole, it possesses at least average merit. But Mr. Hatton has committed a grave fault in introducing into his tale a melancholy family history well known to many people, in which the chief actors are still alive, and which no one can fail to recognize under the very thin disguise which here conceals it. And he has made an unlucky blunder in putting his narrative into the mouth of a learned man. To do this you should be learned yourself. "The Perpetual Curate of Summerdale- in-the-Water " acknowledges indeed that he knows "little Greek and less Latin." This may account for his speaking of the children of Ccelns and Terra, and possibly for his calling a bookseller a bibliograph, when he presumably means bibliopoie. But then he claims to "know the Fathers almost by heart." The achievement is a stupendous one, as any one who knows the outside even of the Benedictine edition of Chry- sostom—to mention one name only—may be aware. It is strange, there-
fore, that he should speak of " Clementine " as one of the writers with whom he is so well acquainted. Possibly the labour of learning their writings by heart has made him a little hazy about their names.
Previous page
