THE LEADEN CASKET.*

WnEN we find the nephew of a village butcher turning out a highly-polished and gentlemanlike artist-hero, we feel that the title of this book is justified, since art, culture, romance, and heroism are not, as a rule, associated in people's minds with the prosaic trade of slaughtering oxen. At the same time, we rather doubt the wisdom of taking a man with such plebeian re- lations for the hero of a novel whose heroine belongs to the upper classes, because it is likely that many readers will regard the inequality of social position as a jarring element in the story, however much it may be kept in the background throughout. We also object to the picture of the heroine in her childhood; her nature seems to us as uulike that of a real child as a street showman's puppet moved jerkily by strings is unlike living and breathing flesh and blood. We can imagine no little girl of eight years old moralising as she is supposed to have dou e when looking at some birds woven into a chintz bed-curtain. And it is in- consistent to represent her (when ton years old) as making childish mistakes about long words at the beginning of a speech, and bringing similar words out all pat at the end, as in the following extract :—

" And when they Pay to you, as I am afraid they will some day, Willie—for you see, unfortunately, my relations are of a superior rank to yours—' We cannot suffer our daughter to make this missy- hence—your station, young sir, is an insuperiorable bar to any union with our house,' you are to lay your hand on your heart, and flash defiance with your lustrous brown eyes, and say, Measure not my rank by my birth, but have regard to my achievements.'"

This sort of incongruity, trifling as it may be, gives an idea of careless work, and mars the general abet. Again; it seems absurd to represent Sir John Ellerton as sitting down and writing a proposal to the young lady with whom he is in love,

when he is actually tete-a-tac with her at that very moment, and might every bit as well have declared himself by word of mouth. Nothing short of the very best authority would make us believe that any proposal was ever made in this fashion, for we think that a gentleman who could not screw up his courage to the point of asking the momentous

question audibly, when face to face with the lady, would have been most unlikely to choose that opportunity for committing the questiou to paper. He would have been far too much flustered to be able to perform so nervous a task whilst she was watching him. We have to complain, also, of that surprisingly accurate insight into feelings, intentions, and past histories which fictitious characters are too often able to acquire by glancing into the faces of other people ; in real life, this perspicacity does not exist, and therefore it makes a book seem unnatural. When we find, for instance, that merely because a lady happens—not unnaturally—to look concerned at hearing of her brother-in-law's illness, his wife thereupon immediately discovers that the lady must have been his first love, and engaged to him some twenty or more years before, we do not know whether to marvel most at the eitraordinary expressiveness of the face that could reveal so much, or at the sagacity that could interpret it so well.

But notwithstanding the faults of the Leadm Casket—whioh are not few—it is very amusing, and would have been even

more so had a good deal of the conversation been left out, so as to curtail it from three volumes to two. A pre-Raphaelite party given by two young poets is admirably described. We are told how every lady, on her arrival, received a heavy-headed flower to hold ; bow the floor was strewn thickly with rose-leaves,

* The Leaden Casket. By Sirs. Alfred W. Hunt. London : Chatto and WIndes.

carnations, and pinks ; bow the gentlemen were allowed no seats', except cushions on the ground ; and how, furthermore,—

" Most of these fair guests were clad in soft white or faint blue or amber dresses, freakishly made ; tight where other-people would have had them loose, or loose where it might have seemed more con- venient to have them tight. They fell in pretty folds, and looked creamy and delicate, and not extravagant in the quantity of material used. None of these ladies sat very upright; all lounged and lolled a little' some stooped forward, like tho in their own hands when stalk and stem began to grow limp. Some arranged themselves in wistful and sentimental-looking curves, which reminded —that is to say, would have reminded any one who did not enter into the feeling of the assembly—of the letter S."

Then, too, there is not a bad sketch of stall-holding at a fashionable bazaar. The till was a tall china jar, which had got cracked on its way to the scene of action. This jar had the

advantage of being so narrow-necked that no band could be introduced to get out change for the bank-notes and coins that were dropped in, and it had to be broken to pieces with a walking-stick at the end of the day, when the gains were to be counted up. The holder of the stall was a reigning beauty, Mrs. Bertie Warrington, who, having got ten other beauties to

dress alike and help her, then set vigorously to work to sell, with the ambition of clearing off all her own things in time to be able to go and help some less fortunate lady, so that she might have the delight of hearing it said that two stalls owed their success to Mrs. Berth) Warrington and her fair assistants. In this, some of the leading characteristics of fancy fairs seem to be happily touched off. There is the amateurishness which made the intending sellers forget all about the necessity of providing themselves with a receptacle for money ; and there, too, are the rapacity, extortionateness, recklessness, love of display, and readiness to work for a petty motive, which arc inseparably mixed up with all bazaars, or " satires upon human nature," to quote the expression which we recently heard one of our elected legislators apply to them.

Finally, we have a word to say on the subject of the milliner, Madame Filoselle,—

" A lady who, as it was well known—though such things are not spoken of—was in the habit of taking six young ladies under her protection, as it were, and clothing them entirely, from their first entrance into society until their marriage. This she always did with the utmost liberality and secresy, but, of course, under certain conditions. Thu first was that the young lady herself was so beautifnt and attractive in every way, that it was absolutely certain that she would be sought in marriage by men of rank and wealth, if only she was enabled by Madame riloselle's assistance to appear to advantage in the society which they frequented. Then, too, she was to make this good marriage within a reasonable time. Thirdly, Madame Filoselle'e bill—which would naturally be much larger because of her having to wait for the money, and because the transaction involved some risk—was to he paid by the bride soon after she had secured her rich husband ; after which, common gratitude would demand that she should continue to order all her dresses from the arbiter of her fate,—Madame

If the original of the character really exists, then by all means put her into print, and make her known as far as possible, and open men's eyes as to the debts. which may be expected to form part of the trousseaux of exceptionally beautiful and well-dressed brides. But if Madame Filoselle be a pure invention, we think she would have been better left out altogether, for the simple reason that there are quite enough figures on the canvas without her, and that she really is of no particular use to the story. A novelist should strive to get rid of all needless matter,—characters and conversations not needed for the development of the story, and such-like superfluities,—even as a man in training for an athletic competitiou strives to get rid of every ounce of spare flesh. At least every novelist of an aspiring turn of mind should do so, since there is obviously a vast difference between the condition requisite for the racer who is to win renown by outstripping other competitors, and that of the easy-going hack destined solely to take out old Mrs. Grundy at a gentle jog-trot for her- daily airing in the Park.