THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE.* ON a careful estimate, we believe

we have read five-sixths of this book,—we have read it, and survive. But we did not do it all at once,—it would have proved too much for us. It was only by taking it in small doses, and distributing the exertion over the best -part of a week, that we managed to get well towardi the end of the third volume. And there we stuck, the excitement rising to a pitch that threatened to be beyond our control. Perpetual amazement is not a pleasant frame of mind, constant blushing for the folly- of our kind not a comfortable sensation. Yet throughout the 960 odd pages or 25,000 lines which we com- pute this book to consist of, these were about the only sen- sations that stirred us. It is three days since we left off reading, but the effect is still upon us, and we doubt seriously whether we shall ever have courage again to open a novel by a writer whose name is unknown to us. 'Three such books on end ought to produce softening of the brain in any one who tried to read them.

The story professes to be one of "modern life," and deals with that phase of modern life which illustrates the relations of the dupes and rogues of the West End to the dupes and rogues of the City. It might have been called, in fact, "Life in the City, by one who never was there," had it been worth a correct name of any kind. For the fact is that the life here depicted does not, we believe,

* The Wheel of Fortune; a Story of Modern Life, By B. A. Ryder. London : Chapman and Hall. get lived anywhere on this earth, so that, in that case, one name is just as good as another. That being so, we do not see how it is possible to give an account of the book. It can do no good, unless we might by good-hap prevent the author from ever pub- lishing another ; it would afford small amusement to readers of the Spectator, except as an exhibition of a poor reviewer's misery. We cannot wax learned, eloquent, or anything else over the style, because the book has not got any style. The story ?— what need to quote the familiar couplet ? It might be told in as many lines as there are pages, and even then, well told, would hardly be a thrilling romance, treating, as it would, of pounds, shillings, pence, and blacklegism.

Still there is evidence that the writer of this bulky novel has plodded on his dull way—it must be a "he," we think, the effeminacy is not of a feminine kind at all—with a certain dogged, unimaginative persistence that has something pathetic about it. Three volumes were to be filled, and somehow he has contrived, by industrious pen-scraping and heaping-up of words, to fill them, which is itself a feat worth looking at, considering the resources at hand. In short, five-sixths of the book have been read, and what more need be said to justify a reviewer in doing his utmost with the material stuffed therein? So let us tell a bit of the story. It is all about two orphan girls and their lovers, one of whom accidentally shot their father, and never told any- body of his deed. They are worth—in a money sense—about £100,000 apiece when they become of marriageable age, and wards of a banker, and of their uncle, a blunt, stupid, old soldier. One of the girls loves a brilliant barrister, who has made the habits of the most disreputable of gamblers consort with many noble qualities,—with success at the Bar, and the language now of a draper's shopman, now of a cabman. He has frequented a Homburg "hell" kept in secret in London, and rattled dice till over head and ears in debt to the Jew usurers, and now needs a rich wife to put matters straight. So he courts Cicely Arlyn, and hopes to get her money. A needy hussar, a friend of this barrister's, is in the same box, and egged on

by his friend, makes love to the other sister. But here there is a rival, in the shape of the banker's nephew, who had been brought up with the girls, and who makes his offer first of the two, only to be thrown overboard—for a time. The hussar is about to succeed, Nelly being half-engaged to him, after some set love speeches, when complications in the love affairs of her sister save her for the cast-off lover and slaughterer of her father. Basil Fellowes, the black-leg, brilliant, Billingsgate-tongued bar- rister, succeeds in his base designs, and after a great fight with .the banker as trustee, and some resistance from the girl's uncle as guardian, gets a settlement drawn up giving him control of most of the fortune of his wife that is to be, and marries, only to find that the sleek West-End banker has lost all the money in specula- tion. The hussar's love cools at this news, and on an appeal from the unsuccessful lover, he owns the fact and gives Nellie up. Basil Fellowes turns very rough indeed when he finds his noose a trap, and gets by some means a good deal of the money out of the nephew of the absconding banker, that youth having by chance speculated as successfully (in a South-American silver mine) as his uncle had speculated unsuccessfully. The barrister is, in fact, the supreme scamp of the book, yet is a very buckram sort of rascal, and we are not sure what in the end becomes of him, but rather fancy that, having done all the mischief wanted of him, including murder, he bolts for good and all, leaving his wife to live as she may.

Such is an outline of the main story, but the subsidiary incidents and characters crowd the pages by the hundred. The wearied reader can't come across a cabman or a flunkey without formal introduc- tions of a page or two long, some of which include samples of the style of conversation of the illustrious Jehus and Jeameses, and several of which attempt to be humorous. And shall we confess it after all? The whole book has its humorous side to those who can detach themselves from any literary or artistic feeling regard- ing it. The writer must be a plodding, proper person, and evidently feels that although all kinds of villany have to be got through as part of the day's work, it must be done circumspectly and in the orthodox manner. His efforts, therefore, make him droll at times, in spite of himself. For instance, when any of the flock of characters he tries to keep to- gether have occasion to swear,—which happens frequently,—their swearing is, through regard to the proprieties, as original as Bottom's personation of the lion ; and like Bottom, the writer of this book feels it necessary to explain matters to prevent misconception. A sample or two of this new and improved cursing is worth quoting. Here is a Scotch company-promoter, to begin with, who

had been caught by a designing widow, much to his ultimate chagrin:— " 'As for that luciferous old cat, he would take his oath that he had never really proposed at all. He had been spoony and all that, like a tarnation fool, but he had never absolutely popped the question ; ho would be cauliflowered if he had.' (The reader is at liberty to exercise her or his ingenuity in substituting any asseveration that may occur as appropriate for the somewhat original one I have placed in the Highlander's month.)"

Here is another instance, taken from the conversation of the enraged gambler Fellowes, after finding that his wife's money

had taken wing :—

4,, You want this robbery kept quiet. do you, Mr. Banker,' said Basil, with a sneer. 'I dare say, if the truth were known, you are in the swim, and as great a rascal as that sanctimonious old thiet your uncle him- self. But by Mars and Vulcan, I'll make a bankrupt of your infernal concern, stock, lock, and barrel!' (The ejaculations and affirmations which Basil made use of during this conversation are not exactly those which have been given, but with our author's licence, euphemisms have been substituted which as little as possible destroy the sense of the barrister's caustic sayings.)"

We should wonder, if it were worth while, for what word " in- fernal " may be a "euphemism." The Conversations are nearly as curious in some respects as the swearing; and the love-scenes would be drollest of all—if one had not to read them—but then the author confesses that love is a subject about which he knows nothing. All the men in their ordinary talk address each other, more or less, as "old man," "dear boy," "old fellow," &c., varied in the case of Jews by " ole " and " deah b'hoy." Jews, of course, speak of "clishcount," monish," "silent. per shent.," and so forth, and bad grammar generally prevails in the most refined circles.

Sentences begin and wander on till lost in the wastes of verbiage, like a stream in the desert ; and whether it be love, war, or policy, the language is peculiar. Take, as a last sample, this bit of coaxing talk with which gambler Basil indulges his wife, when excusing his absence at the gambling-house :—

"4 My own darling must not fret itself. If I don't go to the club to- night, poppet (or some such word), how am I to get on with Parchment and Prater, and the other big-wigs ! You know as well as I do, dear heart (sic), I hate being out so late ; but it isn't my fault if these elderly buffers will be such night-birds, and only come out of their shells when sensible people should be thinking of sherry-and-water and bed. I know, my dear Cistikums (such, I believe, was the veritable term made use of) doesn't wish to spoil her Basil's chances in the race for fame.'" This was picked out at random, and bushels more of the same sort may be found, running through the entire scale of namby- pamby stupidity. The sic, and other parenthetic remarks, are the novelist's, of course, not ours. It will be noticed in the above extract that two intendedly humorous fancy-names occur. In these the ingenuity of their author is great, fearfully great, the book through. A few may help the reader to comprehend our grief :—The Honble. Maydenblush Fairface, N ettlestrip, Grenadine, Collywobble, Mr. Commissary Sparefeed, Tom Plethora, Mrs. Col. Roosterpeck, Tom Contango, Bob Transfer, Freddy Scrip, Cross Buttock, Hardbake, Paper-Weight, Platepaste, and so forth,— enough to give any ordinary person nightmare for a fortnight.

We are sorry to have to say it by way of wind-up, but this is a slangy, vulgar book, that has not in it any spark of indication that its writer is capable of better things, so far as our plodding perusal could discover. The language in which we are told that the critic of the Athenian Censor dismisses the feeble attempt of the Hon. Maydenblush Fairface to win fame by writing a story called, "My Neighbour's Wife," and which ekes out a page or two of this dreary production, is the fittest with which we can bid Mr. Ryder himself adieu :-

"But we warn him, if he appears in print again, that we will not follow out his weary lucubrations, for we confess that the effects of such a course of reading—what they may be upon other people we cannot say—upon us are simply dephlogisticative."

What " dephlogisticative " is we have not the remotest idea, but we are sure it must be something very horrible—worse than the " Jabberwock " by many degrees—but whatever it may mean, it is probably accurate enough and severe enough to be applicable to this foolish book.