A CASTLE IN SPAIN.* Tars book purports to be written

by John de Mille. Whether the author means by assuming the name of De Mille to convey to his readers-that he is one man in a thousand we do not know ; bat certainly his book is one book in a thousand. From his style and matter we should judge the writer to be an American, and, if not an Irisb-American, at least an American who has lived amongst the Irish, or has imbibed a love for Irish modes of speech and life from Lever. If he is an Irish-American, we can only say that we are very grateful for the existence of this specimen ot a race not in great favour at the present moment.' This novel is as original as things American, in spite of the false platitudes about the deadening influence of democracy, so often are.

Classifying novels as plays are classified, this book begins as a genteel comedy and ends as a broad farce. The plot of it is peculiar. There are three pairs of lovers, who are engaged to each other before the story begins. When the story ends the same three pairs are distributed in love and in marriage, but each pair is differently composed. A, who was engaged to X, is married to Y; B, who was engaged' to Z, is married to X; and C, who 'was engaged to Y, is married to Z. The involutions - and evolutions-produced by such a. plot may be easily imagined, especially when all-three sets of lovers are brought together in the same castle in Spain, inhabited by a band' of Carlist brigands, and full of secret passages. Of the. heroines the first young lady to whom we are -introduced is the most attractive, and of the heroes the last. The former is an English damsel, lively, fair-haired, and elegant, named Katie Westowson ; and Ashley, her lover, manages to be in love with her to the point of urging her to run away with him from a dragon of a tailor guardian in the beginning of the first chapter, while by the end of it he is head-over-ears in love with heroine No.. 2, a Spanish Creole of the name of Dolores, who has brown eyes and a pathetically low voice. In the second chapter, Ashley's friend, Harvey, who is in despair at having failed to meet his betrothed, * d Castle in Spain. By James de Mille: London: Chatto and Windtm. 1884.

named Sidney Talbot, who had come out from England to marry him, and is in hot pursuit of her, falls in love with Katie. Meanwhile, without the knowledge of. her lover, this same Sidney Talbot is in the same train with the whole party, who are journeying to Barcelona, when it is stopped by a party of Carlists, and all the English travellers are carried off to a wild castle in the mountains. Among the Spanish

travellers who are allowed to go free, after being robbed of their money, is a Spanish priest, who turns out to be an American journalist in disguise, whose name is Brooke. He turns out to be hero No. 3, and takes up with poor Sidney Talbot wandering about.almie. To avoid the dangers they fear

from Carlists and Republicans, she takes on 'the dress of the Spanish priest, and he comes out as the pare-blooded American citizen. The necessary pathetic element in the book is supplied by their adventures together. The Republicans in pursuit of the Carlist brigands, headed by the Captain, who is in love with Katie, catch pair No. 3, and want to shoot Brooke as a spy, for no better reason, apparently, than because he is an American and the Spaniards bate the Americans on account of Cuba. A great deal of pathetic " pretty play " goes on between Brooke and the young lady, who have agreed for safety's sake to call each other by their surnames—an agreement which they carry out with somewhat wearisome iteration, and they alter- nately try to die for each other, but happily without success.

The somewhat aimless tragedy of this part of the book is re- deemed by the humour of Brooke, who has a way of saying comic things and singing snatches of comic songs of an American strain of his own devising,—the most comic always being forth- coming at the most tragic moments. Thus, when they wete ordered to descend from the tower in which they had taken refuge to go to probable death, this was the song he sang :—

" Come en, you 'tarnal Mingo

I'll make you walk your Chalks ;. D'ye think I care, by Jingo, For all yer tomahawks ?

. I'm more of salamander, And less of mortal man

You cannot shake my dander— I'm a real American !"

A more complete specimen is :— "John Bunyan was a tinker bold, line name we all delight in

All day be tinkered pots and pans, All night he stuck to writing.

In Bedford streets bold Johnny toiled, An ordinaxy tinker.; In Bedford gaol bold Johnny wrote, Old England's wisest thinker.

About the pilgrims Johnny wrote, Who made the emigration ; And the Pilgrim Fathers they became Of the glorious Yankee nation.

Ad urbem ivit Doodlius 'cum Cabello et calone, Ornayit plums pilenm, Et dint, Macaroni."

The same love for scraps of song is shown by the chief burlesque character of the book, the chief of the Carlists,

who turns out to be- an Irish adventurer. A large part of the book is taken - np with his pranks. He imposes him- self on the tailor's wife as Don Carlos himself, convinces her that he has put her husband to death for treachery, makes love to Katie through the old lady, who takes it for herself, and is quite ready to marry her husband's supposed murderer for reasons of state, and to wear the " cr-rown " of Spain, as he

calls it. His Iberian Majesty is wont to enforce his remarks with Hibernian illustrations of a poetic form. When Ashby and Harvey meet in one of the secret passages with which the Castle is riddled, Ashby abuses Harvey furiously for snaking love to Katie, though he has long transferred his own affections to Dolores. They propose a:duel; but have only

one pistol between them, and have tossed up whoa is to have first shot at the other with it, when they are interrupted by his Majesty, who will not -allow them to imperil his chances of making money out of their ransom, although- - " Meself does admire the beat

Av all that's undber the Ban, . To stand facia' the frind av me sowl Wid blunderbus, pistol, or gun ; The word av command it is given, The weapon we both of us raises, After which—sure the one laves for home, An' off goes the other to blazes."

The Irishman, after having pronounced for the tailor's wife, as

he can't get Katie, and declared that he'd be loike poor Tins in the song— "Oh, a widdy she lived in Limerick town, Not far from Shannon Water ; An' Tim kept company wid her,

A curtin' of Biddy, her daughter.

But Micky McGraw cut in between, And run away wid Biddy ; ' Begorra,' says Tim, the daughter's gone, • So, fair, I'll take the widdy. The widdy !

Not Biddy !

The fond and faithful widdy"

—is disappointed by the resurrection of the tailor, who had run away with a Spanish handmaiden with whom the Irishman has to content himself.

- The castle is taken and retaken by Carlists.and Republicang, and after fearful tragedies, the lovers all come together, and feel very uncomfortable :—

"For, Harvey saw Talbot, and felt sure she bad come after him to demand a new explanation, and to reproach him for this new perfidy. She had suffered wrongs that were intolerable at his hands. He seemed to himself base beyond all expression, and no words could be formed with which he might excuse himself.—Brooke saw Dolores, and his only thought was that abe bad now come to overwhelm him with dishonour, and he felt that he must be dumb before her.--Ashby saw Katie, and thought she had surely come in pursuit of him—that she loved him, and had come to tear him from Dolores.—Talbot saw Harvey with guilty terror. She bad fled from him. He bad pursued ; be had come to claim her band—hei promised hand.—Dolores saw Brooke with the same feelings. She had broken her word—she had fled. With what eyes woald she look upon him ?—Katie's face clouded over with fear and apprehension at the sight of Ashby. COnscience told her that she had treated Ashby badly, very badly, and that he had followed her to make her keep her plighted word. And so she only clung to Harvey more closely than ever.—And so, in fact, did the other couples. They all clung to one another more closely than ever. There was a moment of embarrassment, intense, awful, tremendous. But, to their great relief, they all alike made one discovery. It was this,--each one saw that his or her old love had become strangely indifferent.—Harvey saw that Talbot was clinging to that strange man whom he had never seen before, bet who now, as he thought, seemed uncommonly sweet on her.—Brooke saw that Dolores was clinging for support to another strange man. She, had evidently no thought for him.—Ashby saw at once that Katie thought of no one but Harvey. Talbot saw that Harvey was devoted to that lady whom he was so assiduously supporting and consoling.—Dolores, in her delight, saw that Brooke took no notice of herself, but devoted himself to the lady with him, and in such a formal manner that she understood it all without being told.—Katie also saw that Ashby had forgotten all about her, and thought of nothing but Dolores.—Each one felt equally guilty, yet equally glad."

In the nick of time the real Don Carlos- turns up, and the lovers, having thus sorted themselves, are incontinently married off by him ; and so ends this story, like the " Stranger " in Rejected Addresses :-

" With their seutimentalibns, lachrymce roar'em, And pathos and bathos delightful to see,

And chop and change ribs it-la-mode Germanorum, And high.diddle, hey-diddle, pop, tweeclle-dee."