Artingale Castle. By T. Adolphus Trollopo. Three vols. (Chapman and
Hall.)—The old, old story of a secret Scotch marriage preceding the grand, orthodox, English marriage, and vitiating the descent of a thoroughly aristocratic family. Mr. T. A. Trollop° has not worked out this well worn plot with any novelty. The discovery of the first mar- riage is effected by as flimsy a chain of sequences, and by as many blind. leaps at a climax as generally mark this class of story. A young woman. is packed off to America at the beginning of the first volume. A young man comes accidentally from America into the region of Artingale' Castle, and proves to be like the Artingales. His grandmother, it appears, has been illused by some titled villain, whose name is only known to the reader. A cunning lawyer finds cause to suspect that the last Baronet has illtreated some young woman whose name is also- known to none but the reader. Some one else puts this and that together,. and finds out part of what is already known by tho reader. Another person still goes over to America, and brings back the grandmother,. who is instantly recognized by the reader. And then the marriage certi- ficate turns up at once, the two witnesses to the marriage are found,. and remember all about it, everybody sees everything, and the cha- racters in a chorus wonder that they were not as clever as the reader.. This is really the outline of the story, which is pleasant enough to skim, and is neither inartistic in its putting together (the plot alone excepted). nor unnatural in its characters. Some of the characters are, indeed,. worthy of marked praise ; the little Bertha who, to her own surprise,. becomes Lady Artingale, and Mary Artingale, who, to her own delight, proves illegitimate, and marries the man of her choice, are not un- worthy of the present Trollop° generation. Sir Hildebrand Artingale reminds us too much of the typical English baronet, though the sketch of the way in which his one pair of gloves, that was never worn and never- replaced, cost him 9/. 2s. 6d. a year, is new and telling. But the worthy baronet's phrases recall Sir Robert Hazlowood of Haziewood, and Scott is not to be lightly brought to memory. Least of all should we be re- minded of him when a novel is hampered by its own plot, and when the' characters seem to be engaged in acting charades for the express par- pose of letting every one guess the mystery.
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