Mottisclijfi : an Autunin Story. By James Walter Ferrier. 2
vols. (Blackwood.)—We find ourselves, after reading this story, with little• else to say.about it beyond expressing a languid wonder why it should be called "an autumn story." It begins on a" bright and broiling August day," and ends just after the Doncaster meeting, which may be called an " autumn meeting," for the sake of distinguishing it from the "spring meeting" of the same name, but happens, nevertheless, in the earlier half of September. As for the story, SO misnamed, there is not much of it ; hence it is, we suppose, that Mr. Perrier seeks to enliven it by a certain display of more or less cynical humour. But the humour isnot particularly entertaining or instructive ; and so, without a single character in whose fortunes we can pretend to feel any interest, without any plot, without any incident, except the discovery that Monsieur. Gaspard. is really Monsieur Gaspard de la Mettrie, is the possessor of a million dollars, and anxious to make them over to some relations, to whom be has just discovered himself ; and with the disfigurement of two disagreeable caricatures, in Bishop Cope and the Cambridge Professor,. Mottiscliffe cannot be pronounced a suecess.
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