The House of Serravalle. By Richard Begot. (Methuen and Co.
6s.)—The first part of this novel is, it must be confessed, somewhat tedious, Mr. Bagot's talents lying rather in the narra- tion of events than in delineation of character. His hero, Walter Heron, is a complete nonentity, and as for the personage who presumably may be called the heroine, she never appears at all till the last chapter of the book, and is a name only. But in the later chapters the studies of life in a great country house in Italy are very interesting, and there is no lack of excitement in the awful series of melodramatic events in the course of which Walter Heron contrives to rescue the Duke of Monteleone from his enemies. The villain, Don Torquato, an evil-minded priest, is almost too villainous ; indeed, it is difficult to believe in such unrelieved wickedness. It is a comfort for the reader in humble circumstances to study one of Mr. Bagot's books. His people are all so magnificent and so rich, and their servants so numerous and so well trained. A feeling of sleek self-satisfaction cannot but come over the ordinary man at the reflection that both England and Italy are so full of large, well-conducted "establishments."
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