Mmes. —Dartmoor. By Maurice H. Hervey. (J. W. Arrow- smith,
BristoL)—Mr. M. H. Hervey may fairly challenge com- petitors in the matter of piling up sensations. Mr. Morley Griffin, who finds his way into Dartmoor through his habit of trusting people who are not trustworthy, contributes not a few incidents of a startling kind ; and Mr. Hugh Darrell, who is the villain of the story, is not behindhand. It is, compared to some of his proceedings, a mere peccadillo when he kills his mother. The story is readable, but we must own to liking our literary food less highly seasoned.—At the Sign of the Cross-Keys By Paul Creswick. (J. Macqueen.)—Mr. Creswick sets himself too hard a task when he tries to interest his readers in " Mr. John Dering, of Morton Hampstead." We cannot get over the pre- possession, the result of the earlier part of the story, that he was "a rogue in grain." So far the story fails, but it has the merits of having plenty of incident, and of being briskly told.—An Escape from the Tower. By Mrs. Marshall. (Seeley and Co.)—Mrs. Marshall takes the escape of Lord Nithsdale from the Tower in woman's clothes as the central incident of her story. She fills in details, and introduces subsidiary characters with all the skill of a well-practised band.—To Step Aside is Human. By Alan St. Aubyn. (F. V. White and Co.)—This is a somewhat common- place love-story, in which the form is certainly better than the matter. Bel and Patty are well-drawn representatives of two very distinct types of women.—Kate Grentille. By Lord Monks- well. (Smith, Elder, and Co.)—A story which gives opportunities to its writer of airing his opinions. The earlier part of Kate Grenville suggests that this was the final cause of its composition. The author, or his mouthpiece, Mr. Grenville, wonders that a sport-loving landowner should persecute a poor man who has erred from the same overmastering passion. Is it possible that Lord Monkswell has reached his fifty-first year, as the "Peerage" tells us, without losing the romantic fancy that the poacher is a lover of sport ? The poacher usually is an idle ruffian who finds that snaring hares, netting partridges, and knocking roosting pheasants on the head is an easier way of getting his livelihood than bricklaying or house-painting. In nineteen cases out of twenty he is a dweller in the towns. Another curious belief seems to be that at Eton the genius and industry of the oppidans is sacrificed to a system of routine which gives undue advantages to the King's scholars. Yet " K. S." generally follows the names that are high in the list for the Newcastle Scholarship. But as the tale goes on the writer becomes more absorbed in it, and does not fail to interest his readers. The plot is of an ordinary kind, but the story is sufficiently readable.—O'Grady of Trinity. By H. A. Hinkson. (Lawrence and Bullen.)—This " story of University life " is, we think, a distinct success. Mr. Daly, of Trinity College, Dublin, is a worthy successor of the immortal Webb, whose College career furnishes some of the most brilliant pages of " Charles O'Malley," a book that is, on the whole, anything but dull. There are other things besides fun in O'Grady of Trinity,—touches of pathos, for instance, which show real mastery of the literary art.
Silvio Bart holt, Painter. By Emma:Bentley. (T. Fisher Unwin.) —This "Story of Siena" is a pleasant, wholesome tale. Luigi, adopted son of the old painter, Silvio Bartholi, goes to Rome to widen his knowledge of art, and there forgets his fealty to his betrothed. But there is a silver lining to the cloud, and in the end all things are set as nearly right as the imperfection of human life permits. Miss Bentley will permit us to remind her that the hero of the gulf was Marcus Curtius. Quintus, whom she names among the Roman heroes, was a mediocre historian.— The Challeston Mystery. By E. Everett-Green. (James Clarke and Co.)—This is a good story with nothing remarkable in it. The " mystery " will be found without much difficulty, but it serves as an occasion for some fairly good social and character sketches. People who pride themselves on the skilful management of others may take warning by what happened to Mrs. Prothero. How sure she was that her submissive daughter was ready and anxious to do her bidding, and how she was taken in !— The White Feather, and other Stories. By Oswald Crawfurd. (Chapman and Hall.)—The first and longest of these stories is of the old-fashioned type, a love-story with hero, heroine, and villain who play their parts in the usual fashion, but with more vigour than is common. " Sonia " is a curious contrast. A man marries a fair Russian woman, who seems to be all gentleness, and finds that she has a horribly savage nature. Presumably this tale belongs to the present time ; but is it not an anachronism when Sonia exults in the thought that she can practise any cruelty that may please her on the peasants of her newly inherited estates ? Such things belong to what is now a somewhat remote past.—Three Men and a God, and other Stories. By Lieutenant- Colonel N. Newnham-Davis. (Downey and Co.)—The story from which this volume gets its name is a tragical version of Mr. Anstey's "Fallen Idol." Elsewhere, too, in the volume we find the same tragical note, with, as in the case of " The Ghostly Thug," an element of the supernatural. "A Modern Rajah" is a specially vigorous sketch.—/n the Valley of Tophet, by Henry W. Nevinson (J. M. Dent and Co.), is another volume of short stories with a certain connection of place and the interesting figure of Dr. Maguire. The " Valley of Tophet" is nothing worse than the Black Country, and the pictures of its life have much force. There is something farcical in the first story, where the sceptical doctor, intending to give a lecture on the functions of the body, finds that he has been furnished with a set of slides represent- ing the life of Christ; but it is turned to good purpose very skil- fully. There are proofs of the same power throughout the volume. —Ruth Farmer. By Agnes Marchbank. (Jerrold and Sons.)—The lady who calls herself " Ruth Farmer " goes through some strange experiences, but the strangest thing aboutit, is that having been what she was, she should be what she is. To say more would be to discover Miss Marchbank's secret. But it is in this that the weakness of the story, which is well written with easy and brisk dialogue, lies. One does not recognise real life in this trans- formation.—Her Point of View. By G. M. Robins (Mrs. L. Baillie Reynolds. (Hurst and Blackett.)—Two rival novelists,. who might be rival Emperors, so great is the importance attached to their work, are in love with Cecily Rutland. This is the story of how their courtship fared, and a good story it is, with some really strong drawing of character in it. But the writer, herself a novelist, certainly magnifies her office. Even the very best novels do not make such a stir in the real world as they do in the world that is pictured here.—Nets for the Wind. By Un.s. Taylor. (J. Lane.)—This is a collection of what we suppose may be called allegories, even more unintelligible than allegories commonly are. Miss Taylor seems not to care so much for what she says as for how she says it. The result is something that might be very fine, if one could only understand it. —Tales of Our Coast. By S. R. Crockett, Harold Frederic, Gilbert Parker, W. Clark Russell. (Chatto and Windus.)—These are four good names to commend a book to the public, nor can we say that the contents of the volume are unworthy of it. Still, the short story is becoming tiresome. It fills a place in the magazine, and as magazines increase in numbers, so must short stories. But must they all be republished?—The Brown Ambassador. By Mrs. Hugh Fraser. (Macmillan and Co.) —This story is an ingenious mixture of the real and fanciful. There is a tale of the usual kind, but told with something more than the usual skill, of the fortunes of the Pellew family at Ryll Court, how the property had been left away from the rightful heir by a doting old man, and what happened in consequence. But this human world is intermingled in a strange way with the kingdom of Barbotz, for which a certain dachshund, known to men as Tip,' but in the diplomatic world as Antoninus Crocodilus Elongatus Pius,' is the " Brown Ambassador," and with the allied power of Berbitz, inhabited by a race of Angola cats. Both parts of the book are good, but perhaps the "nonsense" part—we use the word with due respect—is the better.—West Dens Manor. By J. A. Owen. (Jerrold and Sons.)—The Warhams, an old family impoverished by various causes, are the inhabitants of West Dane Manor. Mr. Owen tells us. in a pleasant, not over-exciting fashion, of how their fortunes are reinstated. In fiction, at all events, there is a pecuniary Providence that takes care that old families are rescued from impending ruin, though it be at the last moment. In real life rich men are not so accommodating as they are in West Dens Manor. Oae gives substantial help on the condition that he enjoys the friendship cf the family which he benefits ; the others follow the more commonplace course of dying at an opportune moment.—At the Sign of the Ostrich. By Charles James. (Chapman and Hall.)—This is how Mr. James's story begins :— "The time is that of King George of the sloping forehead and the sloping chin, otherwise King George the Third; a very festive and exciting time too, as everybody knows. Say the eighteenth century is ageing rapidly—let us finish it out in a right royal fashion, then, and make the best we can of it !" One recognises at once, and the recognition becomes more obvious as we go on, Charles Dickens, when Dickens was not by any means at his best. There is a peach-stone which some one is supposed to have swallowed coming again and again with a most " damnable iteration.' The story seems to us as unnatural as the style. That there may have been inns in which the best guest-chamber was arranged as an oubliette we can easily believe ; that the 'Ostrich Inn,' less than twenty miles from London, on a frequented coaching road, should have been a place where this kind of practice was carried on seems to us extremely unlikely.—Persis Yorke. By Sydney Christian. (Smith and Elder.)—This is one of the "Novel Series" issued by the publishers, a powerful story, but, if the expression may pass, with the "agony piled up too high." Persis has a scoundrel of a father, and a sister who is absolutely without principle; she loves her brother, of whom, indeed, we are only permitted to hear. In fact, her troubles " in battalions," and we can only wonder that she endures them. But the study of her character is undoubtedly a fine one. Bristow, on the other hand, the Orson whom love for Persis turns into a Valentine, strikes us as being somewhat conventional, the kind of man whom a woman evolves out of her consciousness, not real. The story is too long, and the ending does not ade- luately balance the beginning.—John Ellacombes Temptation. By the Hon. Mrs. Henry Chetwynd and W. H. Wilkins. (Bliss, Sands, and Foster.;—The " Temptation," which, by the way, we do not reach till we get nearly two thirds through the book, is one which the least experienced novel.reader will have anticipated. John Ellacombe finds that the inheritance which he has supposed to be his really belongs to another. How will he act ? There is plenty of money flying about in the region where this drama of life takes place, and the testators who have the disposal of it are at least as eccentric as they are in real life. The story is interesting, and perfectly wholesome.— A Master of Fortune. By Julian Sturgis. (Hutchinson and Co.) —Mr. Sturgis has at least endeavoured to write up to the title of the series of fiction to which he contributes,—"The Zeit Geist." Miss Archer, who anxiously inquires from young Alan Carter (alias Carteret) " How about Denver Second ? " is decidedly a "new woman." The story moves briskly from beginning to end, and may be read without any drawback to one's pleasure Bohemia Invaded, and other Stories. By James L. Ford. (F. A. Stokes and Co.)—This is a collection of comic sketches, of the broad and farcical kind, and fairly amusing.
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