Warrawarra, the Carib Chief: a Tale of 1770. By Henry
H. Breen, F.S.A. 2 vols. (Tinsley Brothers.)—In former days, Mr. Breen would have styled his story a" A Narrative of a Two Years' Visit to the Island of Sidonie, in the Antilles," and a reader would have had some notion of what he was undertaking in beginning its perusal. As it is, he has produced under the guise of a novel the record of an interesting episode in colonial history, some stirring adventures, a good deal of what now-a- days would be mere penny-a-lining, and an amount of stilted and verbose description of aristocratic life and conversation that is really appalling. Of course every sensible reader will skip the accounts of the entertain- ments and joustings given by the Marquis de Vaudreuil and his family, and the interminable speeches with which they were generally accom- panied. The motif of the story is of the slightest, but it is natural enough, and the denouement has the merit of being surprising without being altogether absurd. The people have the advantages throughout of being either the most irredeemable scoundrels or types of manly virtue, or in the case of the ladies, models of angelic purity and grace. This saves all of us an immensity of trouble in the way of analysis of character and psychological puzzling, and cannot be too highly com- mended. By the way, what was the enterprise the Marchioness was about when she went out " shoping ?" (Vol. I., p. 119.)
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