May Faisfax : a Novel. By Helen Mar, author of
the "Loyal and True." (Tinsley Brothers.)—It would be unreasonable to expect that every lady who writes a novel should understand the French and Italian languages, at least well enough to write with correctness the few but reiterated sentences with which lady novelists are in the habit of disfiguring their productions. The author of May Faisfax is an incorrigible offender in this respect, even committing the absurdity of making English people talk among themselves in abrupt bits of "voca- bulary" Italian, because they happen to be in Italy, calling each other " carissima," and saying " grazie," instead of "thank you." This writer is one of the numerous novelists who make us wonder how they ever conceived the notion of writing for publication ; and whether there really does exist a class of persons who believe of novel-writing, as Dickens says there is a class of persons who believe of husbandry, " that it comes by nature." She has not any talent for construction, or even an average knowledge of the art of English composition. The story of May Fairfax is very silly, and anything but edifying, indeed the min- gling of fervent piety with base intrigue is objectionable in the extreme ; and the virtuous heroine is colourless by the side of the young lady, Bronna Bailey, who travels with a married couple, becomes the husband's mistress, and has herinconvenient baby taken off her hands by the wife, after which she reaps the reward of all this by booming the wife of a very rich and happily old Italian count. We are sorry to find a lady attempting to lend the false light of romance and sontirsent to so repulsive a picture as that of a young girl girl guilty of two such sins as an intrigue with a married man and a marriage made from the basest motives. When the widowed countess falls in love again, and wishes to marry an irre- sistible Italian—a young one, this time—she is made gushingly pent. taut, but in this new aspect she is hardly less objectionable than before. The book is not a wholesome one, and its grammar is not more corn-
mendable than its episodes. " He paid her equally as much attention,"' is one of the author's mildest mistakes. The following sentence is only one among scores which might be quoted as terrible examples :— " Indeed, had he boon Grand Sultan of all the Turks, he would have instituted a law to compel the drowning of every woman in his kingdom who had no claim to some attraction." Bem- is another instance of the author's imperfect acquaintance with. English grammar, — she is especially feeble in her use of verbs : —" Walter, being on the point of exchanging from the —th LftrICBrEr, into a Line regiment, wearied out with waiting for promotion,. and sickened with the humiliation of having men passed over his head who had no right to do so, beyond their ability to purchase their stop„ --men, in ROMS instances, who had never been in action, or rendered their country a single service beyond purchasing their commission."
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