In an Alpine Valley, By G. Manville Fenn. 3 vols.
(Hurst and Blackett.)—We hope that Mr. Manville Fenn has not drawn his Bedford Row solicitor from the life. As it is, his story will sensibly diminish the confidence with which we traverse that thoroughfare. The solicitor undertakes a secret mission to possess himself of some papers which compromise a client. He proposes to do some business on his own account, and the villainies which he meditates or commits, while acting in this double capacity, are perfectly appalling. But it is a spirited story. The irritable old Colonel is a somewhat conventional figure. He would hardly, we venture to think, have been so rude to strangers, nor so unmanly in the expression of his hypochondriac fears. His daughter is an attractive figure; and the Swiss guide is a striking sketch, not unworthy of the better type of that class.
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