COLLINS'S HIDE AND SEEN. * WrrxrE Comars succeeds better in fiction

with the distant than the near. No one in an historical subject selects low or common life for a theme; probably because the Muse of History has not troubled herself about any classes below the highest, so that there is a want of data ; and though there are many authors who cannot rise to the heights of a great argument, Mr. Collins can at least mount the stilts of rhetoric. Another rea- son for his greater success in his first novel, Antonina, was that his tendency to over-description was less felt as an obstruction. The reader took minute particulars about the degenerate Romans, and the rough vigorous barbarians, for information ; but long word-pictures of the suburbs of London, their interiors, and simi- lar things, are wearisome, because they are mere repetitions of

familiar common objects.

Hide and S'eek,however, is a great improvement upon Mr. Collins's novel of Basil. There is less offence in the main drift of the story; the characters have more vigour, variety, and purpose; and though it cannot be said that the book is very natural, it is not so un- natural as its immediate predecessor. An object of the author is to expose the inutility of forced religion and over-strictness in the bringing-up of children. This is done by the example of Mr. Thorpe, whose son Zachary quarrels with his father, and leaves the paternal roof when he is old enough. Beyond a starched re- ligion and a rigid "propriety "—which wears an air of hypocrisy— Mr. Thorpe has the motive of remorse for his own sinful youth to keep a tight rein upon Zack. Under a fictitious name, he had seduced a country girl ; he was suddenly called abroad, in the regular old- established way ; his letters miscarry ; and Mary Grim dies, leav- ing a daughter, who cannot, except by the reader, be discovered till the close of the third volume. The sufferings Mr. Thorpe under- went from this cause induce him to make Zack miserable lest he should make himself so if left alone.

Middle and humble or perhaps low life are the classes of society depicted in this novel, and with much distinctness and force, but hardly with thorough truthfulness. We see them not exactly as they are, but as they appear after passing through the author's mind. This, no doubt, is inseparable from all representation in art; but some artists, while, they hold their mastery over the nature they are about to depict, sympathize with it, retaining the higher qualities, but rejecting or subduing what is common. Mr. Collins too often lets the common predominate ; and thus gives a species of lowness or vulgarity to his scenes and persons. Or he derives his "good feeling" and humour too much from the theatre or theatrical novelists. In all cases he is too literal.

With a good deal that is questionable in taste, or of an effect below the labour bestowed upon it, there are passages of power and feeling. One of these is the interview of the brother of Mary Grice with Mr. Thorpe after he has succeeded in finding the burial- place of his sister and tracing out her daughter. The "highly respectable" Mr. Thorpe has just received an address from his

friends, descriptive of their respect and so forth.

"Mat did not seem to hear the question. He took up the address from the table, looked at the list of signatures, and turned to Mr. Thorpe.

"'I've been hearing about this,' ho_ said. 'Are all them names there the names of friends of yours ? '

"Mr. Thorpe looked a little astonished ; but he answered, after a moment of hesitation, 'Certainly ; the most valued friends I have in the world.'

• " 'Friends,' pursued Mat, reading to himself the introductory sentence in the address, 'who have put the most affectionate trust in you.'

"Mr. Thorpe began to look rather offended as well as rather astonished. Will you excuse me' he said coldly, 'if I beg you to proceed to the busi- ness that has brought you here.'

"Mat placed the address on the table again, immediately in front of him; and took a pencil from a tray with writing materials in it, which stood near at hand. 'Friends who have put the most affectionate trust in you,' he repeated. 'The name of one of them friends isn't here. It ought to be ; and I mean to put it down.' "As the point of his pencil touched the paper of the address, Mr. Thorpe started from his chair. What am I to understand, sir, by this conduct?' he began haughtily, stretching out his hand to possess himself of the address. Matlooked up with the serpent-glitter in his eyes, and the angry red tinge glowing in the scars on his cheek. 'Sit down,' he said, 'I'm not quick at

writing. Sit down, and wait till I'm done.' •

"The sky was still darkening apace, the rain was falling heavily and more heavily, as he traced the final letter, and then handed the paper to Mr. Thorpe, bearing inscribed on it the name of Mary Grice.

"He looked at that name, and his face changed instantly—he sank down in the chair—one faint cry burst from his lips—then he was silent.

"Low, stifled, momentary as it was, that cry proclaimed him to be the Man. He was self-denounced by it even before he cowered down, shudder- ing in the chair, with both his hands pressed convulsively over his face.

"Mat rose to his feet, and spoke ; eyeing him pitilessly from head to foot: 'Not a friend of the lot of 'em,' he said, pointing down at the address, 'put such affectionate trust in you as she did. When first I see her grave in the strange churchyard, I said I'd be even with the man who laid her in it. I'm here today to be even with you. Carr or Thorpe, whichever you call yourself, I know how you used her from first to last! Her father was say father; her name is my name: you were her worst enemy three-and-twenty year ago ; you are my worst enemy now. I'm her brother, Matthew Grice

"As he said this, he involuntarily turned away his head; for the hands of the shuddering figure beneath him suddenly dropped, and the ghastly un- covered face looked up, with such a panic stare in the eyes, such a fearful quivering and distortion of all the features, that it tried even his firmness of

• Hide and Seek. By W. Wilkie Collins, Author of " Antonina," "Basil," 84e. In three volumes. Published by Bentley. nerve to look at it steadily. He went back to his chair, and sat down dove gedly by the table, and was silent. "A low murmuring and moaning, amid which a few disconnected words made themselves faintly distinguishable, caused him to look round again. He saw that the ghastly face was once more hidden.He heard the discon- nected words reiterated, always in the same stifled wailing tones. Now and then, a half-finished phrase was audible from behind the withered hands, still clasped tight over the face. He heard such fragments of sentences as

these. Have pity on my wife accept the remorse of many years spare me the disgrace—'

After those four last words, he listened for no more. The merciless spirit was roused in him again the moment he heard them. " 'Spare you the disgrace ? ' he repeated, starting to his feet. Did you spare her ?—Not you!' "Once more the hands dropped ; once more the ghastly face slowly and horribly confronted him. But this time he never recoiled from it. 'fhere was no mercy in him—none in his looks, none in his tones—as he went on.

"'What! it would disgrace you, would it ? Then disgraced you shall be ! You've kep' it a secret, have you ? You shall tell that secret to every soul that comes about the house ! You shall own Mary's disgrace, Mary's death, and Mary's child, before every man who's put his name down on that bit of paper ! You shall, as soon as tomorrow if I like ! You shall, if I have to bring the girl with me to make you; if I have to stand up, hand in hand along with her, here on your own—' "He stopped. The cowering figure was struggling upward from the chair ; one of the withered hands, slowly raised,. was stretching itself out towards him the paniestricken eyes were .growing less vacant, and were staring straight into his with a fearful meaning in their look ; the pale lips were muttering rapidly—at first he could not tell what ; then he succeeded in catching the two words, Mary's child ?' murmured over and over again —quickly, faintly, incessantly reiterated, till he spoke in his turn.

Yes,' he said, pitiless as ever. ' Yes ; Mary's child. Your child. Haven't you seen her ? Is it that you're staring and trembling about ? Go and look at her ; she lives within gunshot of you. Ask Zack's friend, the painter man, to show you the deaf and dumb girl he picked up among the horse-riders. Look here—look at this bracelet ! Do you remember your own hair in it ? The hands that brought up Mary's child took that bracelet from Mary's pocket. Look at it again ! Look at it close—'

"Once more he stopped ; for he saw the frail figure which had been feebly rising out of the chair, while he held up the hair bracelet, suddenly an heavily sink back into it—he saw the eyelids half close, and a great stillness pass over the face—he heard one deep-drawn breath; but no cry now, no moaning, no murmuring—no sound whatever, except the steady splash of the fast-falling rain on the pavement outside.

" Dead ?

"A thought of Zack welled up into his heart, and troubled it."

The ideas of the story cannot be considered new ; but there is one character which has the effect of novelty. Mr. Blyth, the good- hearted painter, has followed art with the liking but not the ge- nius for it ; and he it is who rescued Mary Grice's little daughter from the circus and in fact fulfils the part of the good genius of the piece. There may be somewhat too much of minutice and painting technicalities, but Mr. Collins has here succeeded in the difficult part of making a man who is unsuccessful in his pursuit interesting in his character. A similar remark may be made on Mrs. Peckover, wife of the clown of the itinerant circus, who

brings up the little deaf and dumb orphan child till Myth adopts her.