A Heart Well Won; or, the Life and Adventures of
Arthur Oldfleld.. 3 vols. (Tinsley Brothers.)—Oar author calls his book "a tale of the modern time." Its action, for the most part, takes place in the City,. where some of the peculiarities of commercial life are described with a minuteness the accuracy of which we shall neither question nor affirm. Of the drug-trade especially, and of the Examination of what is, we presume, the Pharmaceutical Society, the writer seems to have had some experience. And here, again, we shall not venture on an opinion as to the character of hie descriptions. We may suggest, however, that the incident of the secretary of the society, impressed with the idea that an examinee was in correspondence with a person on the roof, climbing up among the chimneys, falling through a skylight, and hanging by his heels till he was on the point of suffocation, is somewhat farcical. In another part of the book we have what strikes us as a novelty in the ad- ministration of justice. Some money has been misappropiated. The guilt- lies between two men,—ono of them clerk to the firm which' had paid the money, the other clerk to that which had received it. Both are arrested, taken off to prison, and brought, the next day, before the magistrate, who, however, better acquainted than the police with the usual coarse of such proceedings, commits one only to prison. We hope that Mr. Old- field's estimate of commercial morality is not more accurate than his knowledge of judicial affairs. He thinks that an honest man cannot prosper in trade, and so betakes himself to literature. He writes a novel, and all the critics express a hope that he will favour the world -with another. When we began the book we should have said that nothing could be more unlikely than that we should join in such an invitation. But the third volume is much better than the first ; there are amusing things scattered through the story. On the whole, if this is really Mr. Oldfield's first novel, he may write a second which would be worth reading.
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