Freda. By the Author of " Mrs. Jerningham's Journal." 3
vols. (Bentley.)—We must apologise for the accidental delay which has retarded our notice of this most entertaining book. One good has come of it,—that Freda happened to come in the reviewer's way as a book to be read for pleasure, and not for business, and that he can therefore say in the most unhesitating way that he found it a most delightful story to read. To say that it is eccentric would not be an exaggeration. Such creatures as Freda, happily perhaps for the peace of male mankind, are not found wandering about the world ; but they are not the less attractive to read about. Of course, she represents something in actual life ; she is the type of a number of very inferior realities, but the writer has contrived, without making her in the least unnatural, so to glorify and idealise her, to make her so charming, so naïve, so amusing, that we recognise in her a creation of singular merit. To have made so striking an addition to that gallery of imaginary portraits which a reader's mind possesses is no slight achievement in a novelist, and the author of Freda has attained it. As for the tale, it is needless to criticise it. Of course, it is highly improbable, but the improbability is quite in keeping with the whole of the book. We are better pleased with such delightful crea- tions as these, than we have often been with characters drawn on the strictest rules of art, and plots constructed with a most dutiful regard to probability. We feel that we have not given our readers the least idea of what Freda is, and can only recommend them to find out for themselves. Men will probably share our enthusiasm, but some women will think it silly.
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