Grantley Grange : Benedicts and Bachelors. By Shelsley Beau- champ.
3 vols. (Tinsley Brothers).—It must be allowed that this writer, though he does not want literary ability, tries somewhat severely the patience of his readers. He describes country life with skill and taste. The beautiful valley of the Tame, from one charming village of which he takes his pseudonym, is the scene of his story, if story it can be called. Its scenery, unsurpassed in England for richness and depth of colour, is drawn with no unpractised hand. Art is discussed with taste and knowledge. The rustics introduced are real country- folk, and their talk, sometimes amusing and sometimes tedious, is always faithful to its model. The sporting scenes are described with vigour, though they are not to be compared with such masterpieces as Major Whyte-Melville and Mr. Trollope can produce. But then three stout volumes of such descriptions want some connecting-thread of incident, or failing this, the characters must be real human per- sonages. Such they are in Miss Mitford's Our Village, of which no one would weary, did it reach to ten volumes instead of two. We cannot say that in Grantley Grange there are either inci- dents or character. There is, indeed, as the second title indicates, plenty of love-making ; but this is of a very pale and colourless kind, no scene impressing itself on our memory, except, indeed, one where the writer describes almost as many kisses as Catania enumerates in his famous " Qua3ris quot mihi basiationes." But no one can feel a shadow of interest in his heroes and heroines. The heroes ride well to hounds, and the heroines are very pretty, and the villages are very neatly orna- mented when the wedding-day comes, and that is almost all that can be said of them. Still, "Shelsley Beauchamp" shows quite enough ability to warrant us in hoping that we may see something else from his pen. One criticism on a description we will venture. Would a room at a hunt-dinner, occurring some time towards the latter end of April, be adorned with "evergreens and ferns"? Would these be old fronds or now ?
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