Snooded Tessaline ; or, the Honour of a House. By
Mrs. T. K. Hervey. 3 vols. (Saunders and Otley.)—The difficulty of making either head or tale of this novel is a serious drawback to the reader's enjoyment of some parts of it. Clement Favrel's character is well conceived, and comes out well towards the end, but a genuine artist would have brought out his character earlier in the book, instead of dwelling for nearly three volumes on the mere eccentricities which form the husk of his charac- ter. If Mrs. T. K. Hervey had not dwelt on the minor parsonages of her novel almost exclusively, and shrouded the story itself under a succes- sion of cross purposes, she might have made a good book instead of a rambling puzzle. As it is, there are so many weaknesses and incon- gruities in Snooded Tessaline that, though not bad as novels go, it is anything but praiseworthy. Mrs. Hervey should ask the first parish clerk she meets to inform her about the law of weddings, and she would learn that the double marriage in the first volume, where the bride- groom is made by a sudden pressure to marry one of the brislesmaids, and the bride is given to the best man, is an impossibility. Moreover, the couples are only introduced that they may be married off in this way, and neither they nor their strange weddings have any influence on the novel.
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