A Foregone Conclusion. By W. D. Howells. (Boston, U. S.:
Osgood and Co. London : Triibner.)—Mr. Howells's tale has at least all the fine qualities of humour and pathos and delicate drawing of character- which we expect to find in what he writes. Don Ippolito, an Italian priest, with no turn for his profession, into which an unfortunate com- bination of circumstances has brought him, and a most unlucky turn for inventions, makes the acquaintance of Mr. Ferris, American Consul at Venice, and is by him introduced as a teacher of Italian to -Mrs. Vervain and her daughter, two American ladies at large. Mrs. Vervain is a lady of the Mrs. Nickleby type, only very mach refined and, so to speak, uncaricatured. The daughter and Mr. Ferris are portraits of a less common character, both of them leaving on the mind of the reader a quite uncommon impression of reality. But the masterpiece of the book is poor Don Ippolito, pure and simple of heart, with his dim, hope- less longing for a freedom from which he has hopelessly out himself off. A more genuinely pathetic story we have never seen.
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