A Week of Passion. By Edward Jenkins. 3 vole. (Remington
and Co.)—This is beyond doubt a powerful novel. It is disfigured, indeed, by various blemishes, more or less serious, but the ability with which it is constructed and the literary merit of the style are beyond question. It is a pity that Mr. Jenkins should go oat of his way to say that a religions man must necessarily be a "casuist," by which he means one who does not think honestly on moral subjects. There is more than one other wanton attack on what many of Mr. Jenkins's readers highly value. The social mistakes are incompre- hensible. How can a man have seen anything of the world and not know that an Earl is not addressed as "Earl," and that his younger son cannot be called " Lord Charles" P But these are trifling matters. The plot of the story has been suggested by dynamite outrages, and, in a way, by a recent disappearance, much talked of at the time, of two solicitors in large practice. Mr. Barton,
agent to the Earl of Selby, is blown up by dynamite in broad daylight in Regent's Circus. The story, as it is gradually unfolded, lets us see why the crime was committed, and by whom. With this main thread of the narrative is intertwined another,—the passion, apparently hopeless, of George Barton the younger for Lord Selby's daughter, Lady Blanche. This love-story is very prettily told, and some of the scenes show much skill of management in the writer.
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