Three Recruits, and the Girls They Left behind Them. By
Joseph Hatton. (Low and Co.)—This is a vigorous novel, in the best style of the author, who can tell a rattling story literally well enough, and can paint villains and heroes of the old-fashioned sort, and set them to belabour each other to decided purpose. There is less in it than in most of Mr. Hatton's works of what better judges than Mr. Edmund Sparkler would call "nonsense," although the reader will be occasionally irritated by some of his peculiar egotisms, and by digressions beginning in this fashion,—" If you would study this philosophy of love in a philosophical way, you will turn to dear old Burton's famous work." The soldiers who are driven by stress of circumstances to take part in the war with Napoleon are flesh and blood ; and of the heroines, one at least, Susan Hardwick, is fresh and full of spirit. The villains of the story, however, are, without exception, sad caricatures.
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