8 APRIL 1865, Page 21

By the Sea. By the Author of Hester Kyrton. (Smith

and Elder.) —By the Sea is a decided falling off from Hester Kyrton, the sensational element being extravagantly predominant. There are novel-readers,

we fancy, who may take an interest in the career of a country girl, who being unscrupulously jilted devotes her life to punishing her lover, and

to do it steals his child, but to us her whole conduct seems unnatural.

The author has evidently thought so too, for she hints at Phosbe Flower's insanity, but the hint does not relieve the painful strain upon the reader's belief. Henry Cass's wife, the pretty, silly, fretful shrew, is well drawn, but the remainder of the characters are of little more interest than the subordinates in a modern three-act drama.