Novets.—Lady Gleadonwyn. By James Grant. 3 vols. (Tinsley Brothers.)—We do
not like Mr. Grant's " novels " as much as we like his "romances." The fact is that he is not very skilful in dress- ing up his characters in the costume of modern society. The peer who flies into a furious rage because his wife has had a first love, and who runs away from his home to spite her, the young lady who dwells in a cottage with her nurse and is a baroness in disguise, the young man who is so cruelly distracted between the peer's wife or widow and the baroness, and who ends by being turned into a groom,— all these would have been better if they had been attired in mediseval habiliments, when such personages and incidents were, or, at least, may be easily believed to have been, more common. Lady Glendon- wyn is not an interesting story, and any feeling that it rouses is of a painful kind.—A Costly Heritage. By Alice O'Hanlon. 3 vols. (Tinsley Brothers.)—Here we have the story of a "claimant," very much like other stories of the same kind. The great trial was, per- haps, the most tedious thing that has ever afflicted mankind within human memory, and the stories which are founded on it seem to catch something of the same quality. In this case, the motive of the personation is quite inadequate, and the proceedings of the per- sonator inconceivably rash. There is little in the other characters of the story to make it agreeable or interesting. A preternaturally silly and vulgar young c!ergyroan, who threatens to be a great nuisaece, happily disappears in the course of the first volume ; but his place is fairly well supplied by " Alec " Northbrooke, the real baronet, whom the pretender keeps out of his own, and who is selfish and foolish through three volumes, but is turned in the course of the last few pages into a sensible and amiable per. son. The heroine has, of course, all the conventional beauty and virtue that become her position.—The Belstone. By J. A. Lake Gloag. 2 vols. (Chapman and Hall.)—It is a great relief to turn to a novel that has really something of value in it. The early scenes of the story are laid in one of the Hebrides, the time being the close of the last century ; and a very curious picture, evidently drawn from authentic sources, is given us of the social condition of the people. The hero, son of a proprietor in the island, whose for- tunes have been dismally depressed, takes service as a volunteer with Lord, then General, Lake, who is occupied in repressing the Irish Rebellion of 1707. He distinguishes himself by his courage, rises into high favour with his superior, and accompanies him as aide-de- camp, when he is appointed to the chief command in India. Both the Irish and the Indian campaigns are vigorously described. The story of the hero's own life is full of stirring incidents. Altogether, this is a story which has the look of being a genuine study from reality. —White and Red. By J. R. Henslowe. 2 vols. (Kerby and Endean.) —This is a story, and a well-told story, of the French Revolution. Paris in the days of the Terror, the massacres of September, the prison of the Abbaye, with its strange medley of inmates, fine ladies and gentlemen, philosophers and priests, all facing death with the calmness of a Socrates, are described in vigorous language. The style, without ceasing to be good English, has happily caught some French characteristics, and is throughout well suited to the subject. The author does not forget to hold the balance fairly between the old regime and the new. Pere Florian, with his stirring warnings that in France, as elsewhere, children must suffer for the sins of their fathers, exactly expresses the truth. The savages who filled Paris and the provinces with blood are painted in lurid colours, but we are not allowed to forget that this brutality was the natural outcome of the levity and selfishness which, during the centuries of the rule of the privileged, had brought France to what it was. The book should have appeared in seine shape more convenient than these two loosely-printed volumes.—Lord Farleigh. (Marcus Ward and Co.)—This is a story almost wholly composed of love-making, a love-making which is sometimes of a very singular kind.
The hero and heroine meet in a small Irish village ; he is in- different, and she is rude. They do not say, as far as we can make out, a civil word to each other, yet all the while they are consumed with a secret passion for each other. This he avows, and sbe acknowledges, in a conversation which is a most surprising contrast to all that has before passed between them. An engage- ment having been made, the heroine goes on a visit to England.
Great pressure is put on her to make her marry "Lord Farleigh," an amiable and somewhat sanguine young person, who writes to his cousin, the hero, that be is going to be married to the heroine. After
the manner of lovers in fiction, who are properly alive to the necessity of furnishing material for their biographers, the hero at once renounces
his faithless love, and never dreams of asking an explanation. The heroine, who has really been a model of constancy, is furious at being so treated. So we get a pretty complication, which is summarily severed by Lord Farleigh's death, a very probable occurrence, if, as we gather from the chronology of the novel, be rode a steeplechase about the end of July. The hero becomes Lord Farleigh, finds an unfinished letter, and so forth ; the two lovers quarrel up to the very last page, and then make it up. So ends about as meaningless a story as we ever read.
General Hamley has reprinted from Blackwood, Thomas Carlyle ; an Essay (Blackwood), an article published many years ago.—Touring in Shetland and Orkney (Adam and Charles Black) is a reprint of letters published in the Times in the autumn of 1880. They are well worth reading. The islands are not yet thronged, and probably will not be yet awhile, and have something both in sights and in sport that will well repay a visit.—Davos Plats, by J. E. Maddock (Simpkin and Marshall), is a fair, unprejudiced account of the famous health-resort. Appended are useful climatic tables.—We have to notice a fifth edition, "revised and enlarged " of the Biblio- graphy of Ruskin (Elliot Stock), described on the title-page as "a bibliographical list, arranged in chronological order, of the published writings in prose and verse of John Ruskin, M.A. (from 1834 to 1881).
Of books dealing with various branches of theology and philosophy, we have received :—The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, by John Ken- nedy, M.A., D.D. (The Religious Tract Society), an argument deal- ing with the evidence for the Resurrection as an " historical fact."
Christ, the Divine Man ; or, Deity Veiled, by the Rev. H. E. von Stfirmer, B.A. (Hamilton, Adams, and Co.), in which it is sought to ex- plain theology and its practical application to life.—ScriptureEchoee in Our Church's Collects, by the Rev. John P. Hodson, M.A. (Home Words Publishing Office.)—Here the Scripture references for each col- lect are set forth, and there is a selection of appropriate hymns.— Family Readings on the Gospel of St. Mark, by the Rev. Francis Bourdillon (The Religious Tract Society), containing an exposition, arranged inconvenient portions for use, of the whole of the Gospel.— Joshua, by George C. A. Douglas (T. and T. Clark), one of the series of "Handbooks for Bible Classes," dealing with a book which, for good reasons, is a favourite one with teachers.-----The Coptic Morning Se, vice for the Lord's Day, translated by John, Marquis of Bute (Masters and Co.), is primarily intended to enable "English-speaking travellers to follow intelligibly the morning service of the native Christians."—Is Li lc Worth Living ? by John Clifford, M.A. (E. Marlborough and Co.), answers the question from the point of view of Christian beliefs.—Certainties of the Soul and Speculations of Science, by the Rev. Joseph Cook (Ward, Lock, and Co.), is one of the well-known series of " Boston Monday Lectures."—Messianic Prophecies, by Franz Delitzch, translated by Samuel Ives Curtiss (T. and T. Clark), is a valuable contribution of the best learning of Ger- many to the orthodox cause.—A Discourse on Scottish Church His- tory, by Chas. Wordsworth, D.C.L. (Blackwood and Sons), is an able apology for the Episcopal Church of Scotland.—Difinitions and Axioms of a Future Science of Existence, or Ontology, by Karl Fried- rich Frfibel (Williams and Norgate.)—Kantian Ethics and Ethics
of Evolution, by J. Gould Schurman (Williams and Norgate), is a tractate of some value, which we owe to the Hibbert Trust. The author's thesis is that "the ethics of evolution can give no explana-
tion of the facts of humanity." It is here that the battle must be fought, and we are glad to find an able young thinker taking what
we believe to be the right side.—Evolution, Expression, and Sen- sation, by John Cleland, M.D. ; Conscious Matter ; or, the Physical and Psychical Universally in Causal Connection, by W. Stewart Duncan. (David Bogne.)—Materialism, Ancient and Modern, by a late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (Macmillan), argues the existence of an intelligent cause of creation.—A Student's Hand- book of Psychology and Ethics, by F. Ryland, M.A. (W. Swann Sonnenschein and Allen), is a manual "designed chiefly for the London B.A. and B.Sc. examinations."
We have received The Educational Year-book, 1882. (Cassell and Ca)—It contains a full, and, as far as we have been able to test it, a trustworthy account of the Universities, higher colleges, and schools (for secondary education of all grades) in Great Britain and Ireland. This is a most useful undertaking, to which we wish all possible success.
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