My Friend Prospero. By Henry Harland. (John Lane. Os.) —All
Mr. Harland's readers would have a perfect right to be sadly disappointed if he did not give them in his novels a good dose of the sunshine and the romantic charm of Italy. An adequate supply of both these is provided in My Friend Prospero,_ and if the story is of the slightest, with a very transparent mystery as its theme, no one who has ever read any of Mr. Harland's former work has any right to complain. Intangible charm is the commodity he promises to his readers, and faithfully does he keep his word. There are, however, four lines of Tenny- son which, if Mr. Harland committed them to memory and acted on them, would vastly improve his writing, and would relieve his readers from the feeling, when they put down one of his books, that they have been dining on the ices and dessert only :— " Because all words, though culled with choioest art, Failing to give the bitter of the sweet, Wither beneath the palate. and the heart Faints, faded by its heat."
In this particular book, too, there is a great question as to who is (in the Austrian sense) geboren, and the plain British reader will think most of the characters are a good deal too much geboren.
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