The Sporting Quixote ; or, The Life and Adventures of
the Hon. Augustus Fitzmuddle. By S. Laing. (Ward and Lock.)—This is a sporting novel, but not of the ordinary type. Mr. Laing has a good deal to say about many questions, social and political, and says it sensibly and well. Sport, of course, he describes, fox-hunting and grouse-shooting and deerstalking, &c. His hero begins by being of the Winkle type ; but he has a good sense and a capacity for learning, and before the book is half through, we begin to feel that his name is a mistake. Authors should either not label their characters in this fashion, or obey Horace's maxim and keep them consistently to the end such as they were at the beginning. The latter Mr. Laing has not done, and we find no fault with him ; but he must have felt, when his tale became serious and his hero a rational philanthropist, that the " Fitz muddle " was a nuisance. Two little criticisms we mast make on details. The heir to the Earl's title—for the Hon. Angustua becomes an Earl—could not have been styled "Lord Augustus" (p. 432), and the bad Latin of
" via prima Salutis Minims quam verse Grain pandetnr ab arbe,"
cannot be put down to the printer.
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