Sir Hubert Marston. By Sir F. Vincent. (Chapman and Hall.)—Read-
able, and simply written by a man who has probably seen many men, but
that, we fear, is all we can say. Sir Hubert is the regular novel hero, Susan the regular novel heroine, except that she has once been very much oppressed. The plot is of the old kind, a breach between husband and wife which would have been healed in ordinary life by five minutes of explanation and common sense. A wife who follows her husband to the Crimea, fancying herself doubted or disliked, but loving him still; meets him at Malta, and site by him on a bench, while he pats his and her infant, but does not reveal herself, may be very interesting, but in these matter-of-fact days is rather wearisome. The nearest approach
to a real character is an attorney too well educated for his profession, whose honesty and goodness are spoiled by a certain worldly hardness and cynicism. He is very real, and the reality of the impression is pro- duced by those slight and hardly apparent touches which are the secret of the true portrait painter.
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