Ralph Norbreck's Trust. By W. Westall. (Tinsley Brothers.)— This is
not one of Mr. Westall'e most successful efforts. The first volume contains several of those sketches of Lancashire "characters" and manners in which he excels, and which made "The Old Factory" charming reading even to men who, as a rule, are not attracted by novels. Nothing can be better than the descriptions of the brothers Ncrbreck, Roger in particular being a perfectly original variety of the half-scoundrel, half-ill-conditioned man. The last two volumes are, however, mainly occupied with scenes in Venezuela, and here Mr. Westall fails, for a.curious reason. His descriptions are most of them excellent, and give a clearer idea of Venezuela than most booka of travel ; but he does not resist the feniptation which besets all novelists who place their locale in Spanish America, the temptation to use the catastrophes, natural and political, which distinguish thak division of the planet as a sort of supernatural machinery. When the good hero is to be tried, an earthquake swallows him ; when the bad hero is to be punished, he is forced to ride through a river full of biting fishes. The facts are doubtless correctly described, but the effect on the reader is exactly as if the author had invented a mythology, and called upon its gods to put the events of his story. straight. An unreasonable impression of stage-trickery or of romance gone mad destroys all interest, as it used to do in Mayne Reid's stories. The disappointment is the greater, because Mr. Westall, though occasionally unaware that a fact may look most. improbable in fiction, is a genuine novelist, with a repertoire of original characters, and a profound knowledge of one interesting,. though limited, side of English life.
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