Sherborne ; or, the House of the Four Ways. By
Edward Heneage Daring. (Smith, Elder, and Co.)—This is an honest, outspoken, earnest, and uncompromising Catholic noveL If we were not averse, on principle, to the conduct of controversy by means of works of fiction,— believing them to be unfit for that purpose, and greatly disliking to take up a novel and find ourselves in for a series of controversial essays, in which the author's opponent is invariably and inevitably a man of straw foiithe excellent reason that no man can sustain both sides of an argu- ment with equal vigour, if he really believes in either—we should be able to accord a good deal of praise to Mr. Dering's book. It is written with the ease and elegance of a cultivated man, who knows the world of society and the world of books ; it is rather ingenious as a story, and there is some clever character-drawing in it. But there is too much of the book ; the reading of it becomes a task. It is almost absurd to speak of it, apart from its controversial aspect, for it is all controversy, or at least, the exposition of the convictions and sentiments of an ex- ceedingly zealous, ardent, and single-minded convert to Catholicism, and yet it is hardly fair to judge it exclusively under that aspect, having avowed our dislike of the class of fiction to which it belongs. We very gladly admit, however, that Sherborne is a favourable specimen of that class, for it is neither silly nor vituperative, and it is our experience that those two epithets must in strict justice be applied to controversial novels of every colour and complexion of creed, sect, or system.
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