NEW NOVELS. * NOTWITHSTANDING the general barrenness of the season, there

has been no lack of fictions ; but their number has not made up for their want of interest and character. In a class of literature where specimens are continually appearing by the half-dozen at a time, and many of which are concocted expressly to meet the in- satiable demands of loan library readers, originality cannot be expected, whether in manner, in substance, or " school," or in- deed excellence even of an imitative kind. Any one, however, who aspires to write a work of fiction should possess a natural gift for telling a story, and some dramatic power in conceiving and exhibiting character. What kind of work such gifts may produce, will depend upon the means of observation possessed by the writer ; the knowledge ho may have acquired of books and men ; the " power o' thought that's in him " ; the aptitude for self-cultivation, and to what extent he may have cultivated his native qualities. But without the two gifts we have mentioned there will be no novel, for there will be no interest. There may be seeming exceptions to this opinion. A writer with some dis- tinct object in view which has been thoroughly mastered, or with some knowledge of a particular class of society and the persons who compose it, may, if possessed of sufficient literary skill, ex- cite attention in a higher kind of readers. It will not, however, be the interest of a tale which carries one anxiously along till its completion.

Whatever innate qualities the writers of the novels before us may possess, their works are mostly deficient in this interest, as well as in reality or substance—and, we may add, the earnestness which is necessary to inspire a corresponding feeling in the reader.

The author of Rosa Grey belongs to the school of Scottish no- velists of everyday life, which we think began with " Mrs. Mar- garet Maitland." In the present story there is a good deal of the usual novel superadded. Rosa Grey is the orphan daughter of an officer, whose mother retired to a village in Scotland. On the death of this parent, Itosa goes to live with the widow of her mother's half-brother,—a proud and formal lady, with little sym- pathy for sentimental sorrows, but not intending to be unkind. At Riversthwaite, the seat of Mrs. Clifdcn, Rosa has to put up with some unlikely though for the novelist convenient slights as a poor relation ; but, though only sixteen years old, she plays the deuce with the men's hearts. The parson of the parish is smitten with Rosa ; but the pleasant divine is a male coquette, and turns out fickle. There is a dull, rather disagreeable person, who is quite willing to succeed the Reverend Mr. Blakeney ; but he is rejected summarily. Then Robert Clifden, the scholar and as- piring Young England man, the hope and nephew of his aunt, falls deeply in love with Rosa ; but lie also is declined, from pride. This last affair compels the heroine to leave Riversthwaite, for a " situation" ; nor does she return till Robert is stricken with blindness, and his aunt broken in health and spirits.

There is nothing unlikely in the story as the world goes in novels : the characters on both sides of the Border, if not very staringly natural, are within the range of received experience ; the Scotch Dr. Turner and his family, indeed, are likenesses ; the faithful Scotch servant, Nelly, is a strong and truthful portrait. A species of numbness, however, hangs over the work, as if the full powers of the writer were not developed, or the complexity and varied range of the story were above them. There are scenes of considerable depth and interest ; but the writer scarcely rises to their height or sustains herself long. This is the scene of Robert Clifden's first avowal of his attachment, just after his aunt has reproached Rosa with mameuvering to entrap her nephew. " How long she sat under the ash-tree she did not know. It might have been hours, it might have been but a few minutes, for in seasons of violent passion we take no note of time.

"It was a wild autumnal afternoon, and the whistling of the leaves and the moaning of the wind prevented her from hearing footsteps which were hastening towards her. She was not aware that her solitude had been in- vaded, until an agitated voice close by her ear pronounced her name- ' Rosa !'

" She looked round, and saw Robert Clifdcn, with wild eyes and pale face, standing beside her. With a passionate impulse she turned her eyes away, rose, and would have fled, had he not seized her hand, and detained her with a strong though gentle grasp. " 'Let me go ! let me got ' she cried almost with indignation.

" 'No, Rosa, I cannot let you go—not at least till I have told you what for months has filled my heart, and what my lips have longed though never dared to utter. Rosa, I love you!'

"As he spoke he loosened his clasp of Rosa's hand, and she drew it away decidedly, but not ungently.

" Robert !' she said, what you say only completes my wretchedness. I do not love you except as a friend.'

" And is this all you have to say to me, Rosa ? ' he answered in a tone

• Rosa Grey ; or the Officer's Daughter. By the Author of " Anne Dysart," 4.c. In three volumes. Published by Hurst and Blackett.

A Life's Lessons. By Mrs. Gore, Author of " Mothers and Daughters," 4-c. In three volumes. Published by Hurst and Blackett. The ifildmayes ; or the Clergyman's Secret : a Story of Twenty Years Ago. By Denby North. In three volumes. Published by Chapman and Hall. Decerell : a Novel. In three volumes. Published by Chapman and Hall.

The City Banker; or Lore and Money. By the Author of " Whitefriars," #c. In three volumes. Published by Skeet.

of the keenest disappointment, and looking as if he had received a death- blow.

" Rosa's heart smote her. She had been thinking only of her own wrongs, and the colour of truth Robert's declaration would give to his aunt's insult- ing suspicions. " Oh no ! Robert, forgive me. It pains me to pain you—it pains me to the heart : but you do not know what I have felt—how I have been wounded'

" Robert's face flushed to the temples, and his eye flashed I do know it, Rosa ; and whatever may be the claims upon me of the person who has dared to insult you, they can never extend beyond justice and truth. Rosa! pause and think, and do not answer me so hastily. It is not thus I should have sought your hand had I not been driven to it. I knew what you had suffered ; and I know how in a heart like yours, even when it discovers its affections have been unworthily, bestowed, lost feelings cannot be easily re-

placed. I had hoped, in time, Rosa, to have gained your love ; for mine for you has become part of my existence—part of every good wish, of every no- ble hope—of all that is best within me. Oh, Rosa! I understand you so well. Many may love you, but I doubt if any one will ever love you as I do. Rosa, without the aid of any one, I have enough for us both to live happily and usefully. Surely i we have not been unhappy together, Rosa ? ' " Rosa's heart was melted, and she might have given way had it not been for the recollection of Mrs. Clifden—and of what she had said to her. Should she be guilty of falsehood ; and had she not said that if Robert Clif- den were kneeling at her feet she would reject him ? " Robert, you could never be happy with a wife at whom the world should point the finger of scorn as an artful and designing—' "He interrupted her. " Rosa ! Rosa! and shall the world with its heartless folly and worthless opinion come between your happiness and mine ? Condescend to accept me, beloved Rosa, and you shall yourself teach the world to honour and admire you as you deserve. Oh, Rosa! what is the world ?' " It would be nothing, Robert, if I loved you as you deserve to be loved, or as I know I can love. Oh, Robert ! forgive me if I pain you. Till my last hour I shall cherish the memory of your undeserved affection ; but I cannot requite it. It would be wrong to permit you to sacrifice so much for a woman who has no heart to give to any one. At some future day, Ro- bert, we may be friends again' "She spoke with decision, and made a gesture as if to leave him. He did not answer. With one glance, half-tender, half-reproachful, he turned round and walked slowly away. Rosa threw 'herself on the seat again and wept."

In her new novel of A Life's Lessons, Mrs. Gore has not ex- actly ventured on a new field of fiction, for she has before at- tempted both passion and romance. She has, however, aimed at giving novelty to her fashionable life by introducing a new class of fashionables, and making old rural Lancastrian training the contrast to bon ton, instead of the trading or professional classes. The story of the Anglo-Dutch families is long and complicated even by itself ; it would become still more so if the events connected with the selfish, unprincipled, wicked Vamharm, pupil of the Jesuits, and heir-apparent to a peerage which he finally obtains, were unfolded. Let it suffice, that at the opening the reader is introduced to an out-of-the-way Lancashire village, with its primitive manners, as Lancashire manners were some half- century ago. The neighbourhood and the heroine are enlivened by the return of a Fleming family, possessed of ancestral property in the vicinity ; which serves to introduce the heroine, Naunie, in- to a more accomplished class than she had yet seen or had the means of reaching. Then we go to London; afterwards to Rome ; then to the Low Countries during the Revolution of 1830 ; and finally to England again. With these changes of place are min- gled changes of feeling, expansion of mind, love, mystery, and a denouement ; all of which may be read. in the book.

So far as literary dexterity and surface ability go, nothing can

be better than Life's Lessons. The style may not be so sparkling as in the writer's best works, but it is light, lively, and clear to a degree. The old house and gardens in the Dutch fashion that came over with William the Third is, for instance, a good piece of word-painting, slightly spiced. with all the pat sarcasms on the Court taste, and so forth, of that day. And the same praise may be given to each successive description either of the animate or inanimate, as they turn up in successive chapters. But the reader feels the want of something real and solid ; desires " more matter and less art." We seem to recognize some of the persons as old acquaintances under different circumstances and in new clothes. We surely met Mrs. Brent, the bold, original, eccentric wife of the King's counsel, in " The Hamilton."

There is some earnestness, or at least some fresh though un- tamed vigour, in The Mildmayes. Danby North also appears to possess the power of telling a story, albeit he clogs and encum- bers it with too many matters, and explanations in the wrong place. These qualities are neutralized by the incongruous mix- ture he has concocted for " a story of twenty years ago." The chronology, the manners, the concomitants of life, are those of the day. The hard relentless character and crimes of Lady Rock- forest would only be in place during the worst period of the Me- rovingian dynasty ; the substitutions, • abductions, and similar af- fairs, belong to last century, if the kind of persons and events ever had existence save in romances. Lady Rockforest is an old and wicked demirep of fashion, who has retired to solitude and mystery at her estate in Kent, but not to repentance. She entertains deadly hatred towards the Misses Mildmayes, on account of their mother, and to young Wilmot, hero and lover, on account of his father. Before the story opens, she has been the death of Mrs. Mildmaye, and then turns " body-snatcher " ; having had the coffin of her enemy removed from the grave to her mansion, that she may gloat over it. She keeps servant-spies in noble families, to inform her of what is going on, and, from sheer malignity, writes anonymous letters thereanent. She foists a false heir into the title and estate, by means of a wicked confidant ; whence

arise numerous scenes and "complications." She lays hands upon a fashionable and rather foolish Tractarian divine, and shuts him up in dread if not in danger of his life, because, in a moment of superstitious terror on a fancied approach of death, she had confessed her manifold offences and suspects he may di- vulge them. She patronizes an abduction of one Miss Mildmaye; as an American would say she " indorses " the abduction of an- other; and all this goes on side by side with county balls, the gossip of West-end clubs and coteries, and the tattle of you ladies out shopping. Here is a sample of the latter on country beaux, suggested by a coming ball. "' I hope,' continued Caroline, that Mr. Wilmot will come to the ball.' " ' Yes, replied her sister, ' it would be a treat to have a new partner. I am wearied with dancing with the three Scarsdales, and their insipid con. versation ; with the silent John Deane, and the chattering Sir Thomas Osborne ; with the stupid and philosophic Doctor Gillespie; with Mr. 110p. wood, whose face symbolizes his broad acres in their extent.' " Not forgetting Lord Latimer, the middle-aged widower, looking out for another wife, with his absurd airs of second-rate ton; and Captain Dose. ling, who fancies himself another Marryat, because he wrote a nautical tale in the J)rsjford Gazette.' " And IhIr. Brettel, still blushing with the honours of having been the senior wrangler five years ago. Well, of all kinds of partners, preserve me from these college dandies!'

" Why,' asked Caroline, do you except them particularly ? Sureh they are not more stupid, and they are more good for something, than other dandies.'

" But they are a great deal more affected. They pretend to careless talent, while always at home poring over their lexicons ; they affect rap. tures about a new coat, like would-be Pelham, while thinking all the while of cheapening an old cyclopmclia ; they feign to be loungers, while they slave like miners; they have heads stuffed with Greek and the differ—some- thing calculus (whatever that may be) ; but their tongues can talk nothing but twaddle.'

" ' The lawyer dandies,' rejoined Caroline, are the worst of all. Their bottled-beer briskness, which they make to pass off for champagne wit, is very unplearing, after one has been dosed with it for a couple of nights, The military dandy is the best of all ; he likes the fun and romance of life, and acts his part more naturally than his rivals.'

" No, Cary, the clerical dandy is still better. Beau Brummel did very well, but if he had turned parson he would have been quite bewitching!' " Why, girl, what things you do say ! You don't mean to say that the beau would have become the pulpit better than the ballroom ? ' " Oh, depend upon it, he would have been irresistible, and invented some new way of doing up old sermons, and stiffening into strength the platitudes of modern eloquence. He would have told the story of Ruth with an epigrammatic felicity that might have made pursy old dowagers think it was the last new novel spiritualized. The wave of his cambric handkerchief would have charmed many an antiquated spinster ; he would have preached such nice, crisp, sharp, and pleasant sermons, flavoured, perhaps, here and there with some Orientalism of style. Oh ! he would have been the prophet of fashionable preaching. Why, Cary, do you suppose there is no foppery in the church, as in other professions ? " I am quite sure that if there be—and no doubt there is some—that it is far more odious and contemptible than any other kind of foppery.'

"' Be it so ; but the foppish parsons for me against any other kind of fops. Their foppery, to me, is very amusing, for its comedy is thrown into high relief by the gravity of their profession. Talk of military fops, and their love of tailoring and fine clothes—what is it to the absurdity of one like our friend Parson Humphreys, who preaches salvation, and is only profoundly intent on his personal appearance !' "

It is possible that the vigour spoken of in connexion with the narrative may be merely the excitement of a " first burst," rather than inherent force and stamina. In the most favourable view, the author has a great deal to accomplish before he will be com- petent to produce a novel, even if the germs of the novelist are really in him.

Like the preceding book, Deverell has some freshness of style, but there commendation must stop. The want of likelihood is in its way as great as that of The Mildmayes, without the fo rce which, that work possesses. There is, too, a want of the moral sense necessary to fiction, which impairs the sympathy of the reader for the dramatis personae; though quite nnhkely to have any evil influence. St. George Deverell is a young lady of striking beauty, great force of character, and unshrinkmg resolution. Her firmness is not sufficient to prevent her from clandestinely marrying a young gentleman under age—she herself being in her teens—because he threatens to throw himself into a river. Neither does her mar- riage or the difficulties of hdr position prevent her from nourish- ing a most dtemoniac hatred against her school friend Aline, be- cause an acquaintance of St. George's pays attention to her. She is able to carry out this revenge, because her half-Byronic hus- band is drowned; her child is brought up secretly fill she dies; St. George marries the father of Aline, and Aline herself marries clandestinely, parting at the church-door ; St. George is aware of this wedding, and of course there are ample means for melo- dramatic distresses. Besides the freshness already alluded to, there is some delicacy and some tenderness, as in the picture of Aline's sister Iola. Some may think there is a degree of energy in delineation; but to us it is merely "prose on stilts." However, the reader can judge for himself. The mode of obtaining St. George's consent to her first marriage is convenient as an extract for its shortness. "Tor a long time I permitted the tyrannical sway he had at once assumed over me, and was obedient to his smallest wish ; but this necessity, for sub- mission soon wearied me, and roused my pride, and I began to cool down in those feelings of enthusiasm with which I had regarded him. "One night we met, as we were accustomed to do, in a sort of half-ruined terrace, that battlemented with grey-stone, and overlooking a steep decli- vity, permitted a view of a river of considerable depth a long. distance be loo by a clear moon I stole down to meet him, resolved on giving him his final dismission. I saw him there, impatiently awaiting my arrival, but leaning over the low parapet intent on maturing some scheme. I stood aloof from him in silence, pondering how I should break my determination to him. Re gloomily asked me why I had come to meet him if I had nothing to say. my anger was ready to be 7dndled : I told him at once my resolve, and that I was quite ready to part at once, and set him free. The impetuous feelings of my nature burst forth. I reproached him with his past tyranny, told him that I even scorned and hated.

When I had uttered these words, I almost as soon repented of them; for, advancing towards me, he took both my wrists firmly within his own, looked steadily at me in the calm moonlight, and said, St. George, do you know what you are saying?' " Yes,' I replied firmly, although in a more subdued tone, since the ex- pression of his countenance alarmed me.

' You do—that is, you think you do. You imagine that others, like your- self, take ties upon them which they never intend to fulfil. Yet hear what I say. I love .you, and in spite of everything you shall be any wife : you need not utter a single remonstrance either it shall be as I say, or I will, before your eyes, cast myself over yonder parapet into the river.

D !' I cried.

" ' Well !' he said, it is your wish and determination that this should be so ? ' and he mounted on the crumbling parapet.

"The little tenderness that I cherished for him, combined with my wo- manly fears, made me beseech him to come back. Not until you utter your consent : you have my life in your own hands.' " ' Well, return, dear William.'

In an instant he came ; and, bursting into tears, I was a weak tool in his hand again."

If the reader has seen a kilted Highlander or a jet black Negro serving as an attraction to a tobacconist's shop, he can form an idea, of the school of The City Banker. The shop-figures are not living ; in an artistic sense they are not life-like ; and instead of flesh there is only wood. Still they have shape and feature, are clearly cut, and there is no possibility of mistaking what they are meant for.

Thus, in the novel before us, there is no resemblance to reality. The rogues are too roguish, the fools too foolish, and when the two qualities meet together the combination is equally in extreme. The incidents, too, are of the most unlikely kind, whether in Old England, New Orleans, or the Indian Ocean. Still, everything is clearly defined, stands out sharply and distinctly, and with a consistency of the author's own. The story, we believe, ori-

y appeared in some weekly publication ; and that fact in- cates its class in fiction. But The London Banker (the scenes, by the by, alternate between England and wilder lands) is a good work of its family—the best we have met with by the author of " Whitefriars."