Mrs. Gray's Reminiscences. By Lady Blake. 3 vols. (Hurst and
Blackett.)—Mrs. Gray, the widow of a physician, tells us five stories of the love-affairs of persons with whom she had become acquainted in her native town of Castleford, and with whom she or her husband had had more or less to do. These narratives are ordinary enough, nor is there anything striking or picturesque about the personages who figure in them. Nor do they commend themselves the more by the somewhat doleful character which most of them have. It is a well-known fact in actual life, which writers of fiction would do well to remember, that common-place characters are, for the most part, more endurable when they are cheerful, and that it is only a great sorrow, nobly borne and tragically described, that elevates them out of themselves. We must except from our judgment one story, "Mr. and Mrs. Fanshawe," which strikes us as being greatly superior to the rest. Whether the secret is an absolute novelty, we cannot pretend to say—absolute novelties, in these days, are not easily to be obtained—but it is certainly well kept. To most readers, except those whose unhappy sagacity permits them to enjoy no mystery, the denouement will be a complete and agreeable surprise.
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