Roy and Viola. By Mrs. Forrester. 3 vols. (Hurst and
Blackett.) Roy" and " Viola " are, as might be expected, lovers ; but -"Roy," or at foil length, " Sir Douglas Roy," does not make the acquaintance of the heroine till she is an unhappy wife ; and the story tells us how he loved her in secret, sacrificing himself in every way for her, even to feigning a friendship which concealed a very hearty detestation of her husband. This, it strikes us, is some- what of an innovation. Married women with lovers are common enough—a great deal too common, to our taste—in the fiction of the day,—but it is a novelty to take the very title of a novel from a pair so situated,—a novelty which, we may frankly say, is anything but pleasing. Pleasing, indeed, Mrs. Forrester's book is not, though it is written with some ability. There is a public, it is to be supposed, that likes this sort of thing (which is quite blameless, it must be understood), but we cannot guess where it is to be found.
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