4 OCTOBER 1884, Page 24

Ulrica. By Cecil Clarke. 3 vols. (Tinsley Brothers.)—We see no

particular reason why this story should have been called a "romance," unless that title may be taken as a sufficient excuse for the characters not talking or acting as men and women talk and act in common life. The personages of the story and its circumstances are ordinary enough. There is a Parisian couple who desire to marry their daughter to a suitor, wealthy, but vulgar and elderly. There is the daughter herself, who, after showing considerable energy in making the necessary "respectful summons to her parents, when she comes of age, lapses into feebleness; a lover who never emerges from that condition, and a wandering Englishman, himself the hero of another love-story, who takes upon himself the part of a Providence. We have found the story melancholy and tedious, and scarcely relieved by some representations of French life at the sea-aide.