14 DECEMBER 1901, Page 22

The House Divided. By H. B. Marriott Watson. (Harper and

Brothers. 6s.) —It is not often one comes across a novel in which the tragedy is so complete and so uncompensated as in The House Divided. Mr. Marriott Watson here follows the example of that school of American novelists who take their first inspiration from "The Virginians," and then develop their conception of civilised England in the middle of the eighteenth century with the help of historical reading, and without any bias or prejudice in favour of the Old Country. The redeeming character, which in most English hands would have been the as yet uncorrupted cadet of a depraved family, is here the Colonial cousin who comes across the Atlantic. The story is gruesome, but it is powerfully told.