NOVELS OF THE WEEK.*
SYDNEY SMITH'S nickname for a beau of the "forties "— " The Cool of the Evening "—might well be applied to the hero of Mr. Marriott Watson's whimsical sketches, The Skirts of Happy Chance. Lord Francis Charmian, the gentleman in • (L) The Skirts of Happy Chance. By H. B. Marriott Watson. London Methuen and Co. [6s.)—(2.) Mary liamitton. By Lord Ernest Hamilton. London: Methuen and Co. [6s.) His Lawful Wife. By Jean Middle. plass. London : Digby, Long, and Co. [6s.]—(4.) The Wooing of Sheila. By Grace Ithys. London Methuen and CO. Del —(5.) Alice of Old Vincennes. By Maurice Thompson. London Cassell 'MU Co. [6s.]--(6,) The Lion's Brood, By Duffield Osborne. London: W. Heinemann. C65.]—(7.) The KinfsSoret : a Story of kiwodsn. By Richard Henry Savage. Londsn : F. Y. White and Co. [Gs.] question, sometimes by chance, sometimea"- of set puspneefis described in this series of adventures" aa.htiAtir sinnrisy-fintbf a profitless existence in pretending 'to' be some one eke in places where he was not expected. The book in which these disjointed episodes in his career are.retailed is written with a certain airy grace. The stories are, perhaps, ranger like whipped cream, which tastes a little too rich to be enum quite alone. It .would be impossible to deny that they are quite inoffensive, yet, like Lancelot Gobbo's father, they do "something smack," they have "a kind of taste." Tia3 syllabub of fiction, which should be irresponsible, graceful, and fantastic, is, in fact, the most difficult thing in the world to concoct. It were, indeed, a task worthy the creator of Touchstone and Feste to give life enough to such ephemeral characters, to prevent insipidity, and yet to keep the outline sufficiently slight to prevent them 'from coming within the limits in which they could be criticised as the solid creation of fiction. That Mr. Marriott Watson should occasionally have leant with too broad a pen upon his subject is not a matter for wonder. Rather let us congratulate. him on the measure of success he has obtained. For the sketches can be read with some pleasure, and the ingenuity of the situations contrived goes far to conceal their entire impossibility.
Lord Ernest Hamilton with an unconcerned land inci. dentally destroys the legitimacy of James I. (of England) in his new story, Mary Hamilton. This lady, one of the " Maries" of the unfortunate Mary Stuart, is made to contract a secret marriage with Darnley before the marriage of that young gentleman with his Sovereign. The result of this is an intricate imbroglio which ends in madness and death for the unfortunate Mary Hamilton. The story is told by Mary's faithful gentle woman, Anne Cunninghame, and the accounts of life at Mary Stuart's Court are picturesque, though they give an anything but enticing account of that hotbed of intrigues. The boob is in no sort of sense a great historical romance, but it is quite readable, and is pleasantly written.'
Miss Middlemass has not been particularly felicitous in the title of her newest story, His Lawful Wife. The story does not turn on any one being in reality the lawful wife of. a supposed bachelor, but the bad heroine does contrive at one and the same moment to have two husbands alive. The discovery of this gives her such a shock that she reforms from that moment—with the exception of telling a fib to husband number two—a habit of which she finds it difficult to rid herself. In the plot itself the reader is always expecting tremendous developments from embarrassing events, which really lead to nothing,—nothing, that is, lut good hard lying on the part of the people who ought to have been CM promised by them. In truth, the novel is a rather disjointed piece of work, though written in a fairly lively and readable style.
• There is more than a touch of romance in Mrs. Grace Rhys's novel, The Wooing of Sheila. That is to say, not that the book is full-of romantic plots and adventure, but there 13 a great open-air charm about this story of the life of Irish peasants and small squires. Mrs. Rhys draws a lifelike picture of a detestable old man in the hero's father, old jots Power; and Sheila, the heroine, is an attractive figure, whose elusive charm the author has been wonderfully successful in conveying in the prosaic medium of black and white. The hero, more through his misfortune than his fault, commits a murder, but the Magistrate to whom he goes to give himself up takes a most lenient view of the cirenmstance,—the murdered man being . considered a good riddance of lad rubbish. "So begad," says this genial J.P., "well just keep it quiet and say nothing about it." Sheila, however, does not take that charitable view of this little accident, and it is long before she will consent to have anything to do with her one- day husband. But in the end she relents, and we leave her .happy with husband and child,—leave her reluctantly, because, in spite of the rather rude brutality of parts of the book, the story breathes out a fresher, purer atmosphere thaa that which it is the fashion of modern authors to present tothSr readers. . Alice of Old Vincennes is a very good example of a killa of American novel which we are glad to see coming prominence,—a . bustling romance based upon the historTee the earlier. days 'of the . Colonist and Revolution P' 13, The dedication tells explicitly what one guesses fin the narrative,—that ,family documents and family tradi- It the- basis of the plot, and that the con- tkal. fq1111# -
aveatte: bas- been completed with the help of
a careful study of historical books. Vincenned was in the days of the War of Independence "a lonely picket of religion and trade" far out in the North-West. It became important by its capture, at the beginning of the hostilities, by the American forces under Colonel George Rogers Clark. French, Enalish, Virginian, Indian,—all meet in war and peace, and their different points of view and characteristics are given with distinctness and sympathy. It is curious to read an F,aglish book treating of fighting in which England had part, with a national prejudice against England. But the national bias is not bitter, and the character of Colonel Hamilton strikes one as• truly drawn, though it shows him up un- pleasantly in the matter of the encouragement given to Long. Hair to scalp the white enemies of the English flag. Vincennes was the home of Alice, the adopted daughter of Monsieur Gaspard Roussillon, a well-to-do middle-aged resi- dent who had come to Canada in youth. The mettle of the girl is well described at the end of the story by Adrienne Beurcier, the other girl of the book. "You always do superb things. You were born to do them. You shoot Captain Farnsworth, you wound Lieutenant Barlow, you climb on the fort and set up your flag—you take it down again and run away with it—you get shot and you do not die —you kiss your lover right before a whole garrison ! Bon Dieu ! if I could but do all those things !" But two heroines of Alice's heroic temper would be too much. On the taking down of that flag the plot of the story turns. Alice took it down and hid it, for it was the flag of George Washington, and she could not bear that it should fall into the hands of the English. When the English commandant .bade her produce it—threatening to kill her adoptive father if she refused—she was fain to give it up. But the flag was gone from its hiding place, and Alice—though her word was not believed by Colonel Hamilton—knew not who the culprit was. Father Beret, the good priest of the district, fell under sus- picion, and it was to avenge an insult to him that Alice shot Captain Farnsworth. She Was an adroit fencer as well as a good markswoman. Her lover, Lieutenant Beverley, owed his escape from scalping to a locket of Alice's, found on hia person by the Indian Long-Hair, who had known the girl in childhood, and for her sake spared the man she loved, and sent another Englishman's scalp to Hamilton. Alice is by the same locket found to be a member of the old Virginian family of Tarleton, and ultimately Beverley takes her to Virginia as his bride. There is plenty of sentiment as well as incident in the book, which will not fail to interest the large class of readers who are not afflicted with the modern taste for over-subtle psychology.
Mr. Osborne's story of The Lion's Brood transports us to Rome and Carta in the days of Hannibal. Marcia, daughter of Titus Manlius Torqua,tus, loves the soldier Lucius Sergius, but plays the game of plide and coquetry, and drives him away when she might have him. Sergius by an act of heroic disobedience which in our day would have won the Victoria Cross falls into disgrace with his general, and farther than ever out of Marcia's favour. At least so it seems on the surface of things. - But there are indications of a kindly solicitude below the surface. After the disaster of Canto, in which Sergius is believed to have Perished with his whole legion, Marcia, brooding over the danger to Rome involved by the presence of Hannibal in Italy, conceives the bold enterprise of conquering the conqueror and winning a reprieve for the city. She travels to Capua, seeks the hospitality of a powerful patrician who is her father's friend, and is taken by him to a magnificent banquet where she will meet the Carthaginian. But Hannibal's virtue is proof !iaainst her wiles. She makes, however, without attempt- ing it, a complete conquest of the priest Iddilear, and 'gins from him the promise that he will persuade Hannibal to the delay she believes may ensure the safety of Rome. The Price is to be herself: the example of Lucretia is before her eyes, and she looks forward to dying as Lucretia died when the deed is done. But Sergius comes to life again, and saves her from the sacrifice. The story is well told, with much 'ilia detail or Roman and Capuau manners, and more vitality in the characters than generally gets- into the historical tale. In The King's Secret we find a revival of the inflated style of old-fashioned romance of the commoner sort. Captain Elie Lassen loved the Countess Christine Storm, a whom we are told that "fate cruelly robbed the young beauty of her Marital estate in the untimely .death of her husband." That is to say, Christine was a young widow with charms. Eric was a younger son and penniless. His elder brother, Councillor Charles Lassen, also loved Christine, and to get her for himself, plotted wickedly with the King of Sweden, Charles XV., and Christine's worldly-wise guardian, the Baroness Axelstrom. Eric was sent away on special service. In time he was reported dead, and the Councillor married Christine. But before dying he entered the American Army, distinguished himself, and married. Charles and Christine died also. So the story goes on to the next generation, and ends with the marriage of Eric's son to Christine's daughter. That is the outline of the story : the substance of the book is dark plot, intrigue, secret chambers, scaled cases, hidden papers, buried. treasure mysteries, intricacies, French phrases ill-spelt and printed without italics, periphrases most elaborate, and notes of admiration galore. It is exceedingly wild, but perfectly harmless.
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