Graymorth : a Story of Country Life. By Carey Hazelwood.
3 vols. (Samuel Tinsley.)—The country scenes and persons are excellently described, but we cannot say much for the story, which is inconsequent and disjointed to a strange degree. It seems as if the author found it very difficult to make a heroine to his mind. Two be makes and breaks in a most ruthless fashion, regardless of his reader's feelings. First we have the love affairs of a certain Abel, who is apparently intended for the hero, but proving unmanageable, is quietly dropped, and a young lady whom he saves from a furious bull, saves her, but alas ! too late, for she dies shortly after her marriage from the effect of injuries re- ceived. Then comes in heroine number two, one of the children of a marriage celebrated on the same day with that of the unfortunate Abel. Her loves, too, are described, and they involve the real hero of the tale, the learned Mr. Benson, curate of the parish. Very prettily described they are, but we are not permitted to rest here. She dies in giving birth to heroine number three. Satisfied at last, the author permits her to be happy, though not till after she has escaped very serious dangers. Meanwhile there is an immortal dootor, who lives through all those troubles and joys, and acts the part of a chorus, only that he interferes with advice and action of a more practical and energetic kind than we commonly get from a chorus. This doctor is an excellent character; so is the curate. We might, indeed, extend the praise to other of the characters. Had a little more care and art been expended in the com- position of the figures, the effect, so well drawn and life-like are they, would have been excellent. And to repeat for the thousandth time th well-worn criticism,—if the three volumes could have been compressed into two, or even one ! By the way, is not Mr. Samuel Tinsley the publisher who promised the public, not without much solemnity, one- volume novels, and gave us, too, one or two very good ones ? Ubi haec
promissa ?
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