Richard Tregellas. By David Lawson Johnstone. (Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier.)—Richard
Tregellas is supposed to write in the first person " a memoir of his adventures in the West Indies in the year of grace 1781." Here, again, the motive is one that writers, and, we may suppose, readers of fiction, find to be of inex- haustible interest, buried treasure. The treasure in this instance has been hidden by Richard Tregellas's uncle. " To me," he remarks on discovering it, "the most marvellous thing about it was my uncle's persistence in hiding it here instead of carrying it home to England." Just so ; but then, he possibly guessed how indispensable this kind of thing would be to the purveyors of tales of adventure. This particular tale differs little from its fellows. The bloodshed is moderate in amount; that is something to be thankful for. On the other hand, the hero is more insanely fool- hardy than usual. We had hoped that Dorothy would have turned out to be the daughter of some one else rather than the villainous Zephaniah Thorne. Such transformations are quite easy in fiction, whatever they may be in real life.
Previous page
