In the Change of Yeara„ By Mee Lovelaoe. (Vizetelly and
Co.) —The "realistic novels" which Messrs. Vizetelly take such a pride, it would seem, in introducing to the British public are bad enough ; but they are not so bad, in our judgment, as the class of tales to which In the Change of Years belongs. The hero is a worthless young fellow of the type which some female novelists, in contempt, it would seem, of their sex, are so fond of describing,—" a man before whom women fall like the proverbial ninepins." There is a bad heroine, labelled by the name of Circe, of whom it ie needless to speak, and a good heroine, according to the author's conception of goodness, "high, pure, and noble," who nevertheless does not refuse to fly with another woman's husband. Of course, the story winds up with the usual distribution of poetical justice. Circe is killed by an old lover, who commits suicide at the same moment; Dymplina (the barbarous name by which the second heroine is known) dies of a broken heart ; and the hero wanders like another Cain on the face of the earth But Miss Lovelace is much mistaken if she thinks that her is is improved, either as to morale or to art, by these melodra Co retributions.
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