NOVELS OF THE WEEK.* YEARS ago, when Madame Ristori was

playing Lady Macbeth in Manchester in English, her strange accent led to some rude remarks from the gallery, and these in turn provoked an indignant letter in the local Press from an old playgoer. He felt sure, he declared, that no Manchester man could have been guilty of such an insult to the famous actress ; the offender must have come from Chowbent or some other centre of Philistinism. Whereupon a native of Chowbent wrote with equal indignation to protest against the insinuation. Had not Chowbent a town hall, a public library, and what not ? The moral of our story is that if you wish to accuse a place of provincialism you should either adopt a synonym or choose some city of at least over half a million inhabi- tants. Smaller towns are more sensitive, and we have little doubt that Newcastle will resent Miss Violet Hunt's indiscretions, at the expense of its climate and culture, as keenly as Chowbent resented the imputations of the Manchester critic. Mr. Mortimer Elks, the husband of the heroine in The Human Interest, had all the proverbial canni- ness associated with the Tynesider in his business. For the rest, he was a coarse-fibred, ugly, bibulous and cantankerous little solicitor, married to a dainty little butterfly of a wife who aspired to keep a salon, and, after entertaining a famous lady novelist, decided to carry the teaching of Ibsen's Doll's House into practice. So this Newcastle Nora combed out her fringe, disguised herself like a French General with blue spectacles, and disappeared into the wilds of Yorkshire, where, under an assumed name and after many rebuffs, she at last succeeded in engaging the affections of an eminent but misogynistic lan d- scape painter, for whom the famous novelist cherishes an un- requited affection. At this point the wife of the local clergyman,

a (1.) The Human Interest. By Violet Hunt. London : Methuen and Co. [6s.) —(2.) Adam Grigeon, By Mrs. Henry de Is Pasture. London : Smith, Elder, and Co. [6s.]—(3.) The Colossus. By Morley Roberts. London : Edward Arnold. [6s.]—(4.) The Island ; or, An Adventure of a Person of Quality. By- Richard Whiteing. Second Edition. London : Grant Richards. [11s.]—(5.) A Sailor's Bride. By Guy Boothby. London : F. V. White and Co. [Ss.)— (6.) The Shadow of the Bear. By Headon Hill. London : C. A. Pearson. [3s. 6d.]—(7.) Purple and Fine Linen. By William Pigott. London : Cassell and Co. [6s.]—(8.) The Greatest Gtft. By A. W. Marchniont. London : Hutchinson and Co. [6s.]—(9.) The Stepmother. By Mrs. Alexander. London : F. V. White and Co. [6s.]—(10.) A Crimson C`rime. By George Manville Fenn. London : Chatty and Windus. [65.]—(11.) Heronford. By S. R. Keightley. London : C. A. Pearson. (68.)—(12.) The Tower of Dago. By Maurus Jokat. With Illustrations by A. M. Bishop. London : Sands and Co. Ds. Sti.) penetrating Mrs. Ellea's alias, informs the deserted husband of the whereabouts and conduct of his missing wife. The guile- less and guiltless landscapist, who had believed Mrs. Elles all along to be an unmarried woman, finds himself accordingly confronted with the prospect of being made a co-respondent, and with but little chance of establishing his innocence. At this crisis " Egidia," the novelist, rises to the occasion. Devotion to her cousin unites with self-interest in impelling her to clear Rivers—the artist—since he is determined to marry Mrs. Elles if she is divorced, and evidently resolved to give her a wide berth if cleared ; but in the end, after Mrs. Elles has again nearly wrecked Rivers by an abortive attempt tocommit suicide, the solicitor closes the incident by considerately and suddenly dying from natural causes. Mrs. Elles, the Muse of New- castle, and a perfect incarnation of pose, is cleverly drawn ; clever, also, is the shrewd, sensible, but kindhearted novelist ; and there is an amusing sketch of Mrs. Poynder, the terrible old aunt who lives with the Elles. The artist is inconsistent and incomprehensible, and the solicitor unnecessarily revolt- ing ; but Miss Hunt's mordant humour enables her to carry off scenes and situations which in other hands would be unpleasant or absurd.

Though the romance proper of Adam Grigson occupies only a few years, no less than four generations are included in the dramatis personce,—viz., Sir Wilfrid and Lady Mary Evelyn, their children, grandchildren, and one great-grand- ahild. Sir Wilfrid is an inferior modern version of Squire Western, a deep-drinking, hard-swearing, self-indulgent ex- " M.F.H.," reduced to penury by his extravagance, who never opens his lips, even in mixed company, without an oath. Lady Mary, his faithful but ill-mated wife, daughter of an im- poverished Earl, and married from the schoolroom, is a fine but narrow-minded old aristocrat. Disappointed in all her children but one, and estranged from him in consequence of his mesalliance, she lives again in her grandchildren, and schemes for a marriage between the heir—a young Guardsman—and one of his cousins. Of course, Captain Francis Evelyn falls in love with the wrong girl, who is already engaged to a terrible young Yahoo with expectations, and who promptly jilts the Guardsman for the Yahoo's uncle, an Australian millionaire of homely exterior and no pretensions to birth or breeding. Of the other two granddaughters, Margaret, the Madonna-like beauty (the Captain's destined bride), makes a love-match with a burly young sailor, greatly to the disgust of her grandmother, while Elizabeth, the bluestocking, finally subjugates the susceptible soldier. The name of the novel is quite a misnomer, for although the Australian millionaire is a good fellow, and shows great forbearance towards his feather-pated wife, the central figure is not Adam Grigson, but old Lady Mary. And Lady Mary, we regret to have to say it, for all her courage and stately manners, has a good deal of the snob in her composition. Rosamund's vagaries are at least as much due to unsympathetic treat- ment as to the fact that her mother was a tobacconist's daughter. The death-rate amongst the characters is quite unduly high. Sir Wilfrid's three sons and three daughters- in-law are all but one disposed of in the first chapter, and the death of the young sailor—though it enabled his widow to become a Duchess en secondes notes—strikes us as an act of sheer literary homicide.

The Colossus inaugurates a new school of portrait fiction. It cannot be called a roman a clef, because no key is needed. Mr. Morley Roberts takes for his hero the best-known Colonial statesman of the day, appropriates his public form, political antecedents, physical appearance, and social charac- teristics without any modification whatsoever, and having labelled him Eustace Loder, proceeds on these data to con- struct an imaginary issue to a certain grandiose scheme on which the said statesman is, and has been for some time past, actively engaged. The new and disturbing factor in the situation is a woman, young, ambitious, and in love with the Colossus, who, piqued by his inattention, devotes her abilities, her charm, and her wealth to the unscrupulous removal of the obstacles which thwart her hero, in the hope that gratitude for her services may lead to a requital of her one-sided affection. Mr. Morley Roberts, to do him justice, is no obsequious hero-worshipper. The portrait of the central figure is painted a la Sargent, and there is a curious contrast between the magnitude of Loder's

aims and the sordid international intrigues which he nurses to achieve his ends. Mr. Morley's dexterous dovetailing of fact and fiction, of photography and imagination, is un- deniably clever ; but we cannot bring ourselves to admit the legitimacy of a method which adds a new penalty to the attainment of political eminence by bachelors.

Encouraged by the success that has greeted No.5 John Street, Mr. Richard Whiteing has brought out a revised and enlarged edition of The Island, that humorous and graceful fantasy of which the later work was the offshoot and complement. The hero of The Island is a young nobleman bewildered and

disgusted by the complexity, the sophistication, and the in- sincerity of modern civilisation, who, after a brief but un- satisfying plunge into the vortex of Parisian decadence, seeks rest and refreshment in a long sea voyage, and is wrecked on

Pitcairn Island, where he regains his confidence in humanity among the blameless islanders. Sentiment, satire, and

romance are most effectively combined in this charming volume, which has the additional attraction of a style at once elegant and picturesque.

The inexhaustible Mr. Boothby recounts in A Sailor's Bride the amazing adventures of Lieutenant Philip Dudley,

RN., despatched by the Admiral of the Cape station on a secret mission bristling with deadly perils. Although the gallant officer failed to achieve the main purpose of his expedition,

he at least succeeded in rescuing his ladylove from the clutches of her nefarious uncle, "and the Admiral gave the bride away." It is disappointing to learn that Dudley has left the service now, but we are consoled by the information that " he still takes the greatest interest in things naval" The epithet " thrilling" may be safely applied to The Shadow of the Bear, an ingenious, occasionally ridiculous, but undoubtedly exciting story of intrigue, abduction, and diplomacy, in which the scene is laid at Pekin. The account of the hero's interview with the Dowager-Empress of China in the middle of the night, and of his finding her false teeth, is tasteless, but innocuous. Much less defensible is the

episode which represents the Russian Ambassador (the villain of the piece) as setting fire to a house containing his own daughter, who is aware of some of his intrigues. The repre- sentation of Russians as monsters of spite and ingenuity is both preposterous and offensive. Of course, one must have a villain in a story of this kind, bat the villains here are villains because they are Russians.

In Purple and Fine Linen Legitimism is drawn upon to provide a romantic motive, with very pleasant results. An

old Scottish Lord organises an annual gathering of Jacobites on a mysterious island, at which they treat the last descendant of the house of Stewart as King. On the occasion of the story the old Lord's daughter learns that the " rightful heir " is prevented by the police from paying what should have been his first visit. As, however, her stepson and a friend of his, Geoffrey Deacon, are very anxious to explore the island, she arranges for their visit, and exacts from the latter a pro- mise that he will " perform any part required of him." The friend, who is also the hero and narrator, is taken for the king, and a fine masquerade ensues, in which Anarchists and dynamite are introduced with most exciting results. The book has a distinctly romantic flavour, and is altogether extremely readable.

The Greatest Gift by no means maintains the promise of Mr. Marchmont's earlier romance. Captain John Drury, an excellent county gentleman, has brought up two nieces and a nephew, and the elder niece, to please her uncle, promises to marry his crippled son Godfrey, but complications arise through the intervention of the female villain, a young woman whom Godfrey had deceived by a mock marriage. She is so unpleasant a person, and so too is the cripple, that the reader is much relieved when the latter sails to his doom in an open boat, and the former is pensioned off. The plot is not pro- mising, and Mr. Marchmont has not mended matters by his handling of it.

In The Stepmother the usual roles are reversed, the step- mother being the good angel of the poor little boy whose

father, a great financial magnate, neglects and dislikes him.

It is true that Mr. Merivale has the excuse of not believing that the child is his, but in view of their striking resemblance no one else shares his disbelief. For the rest, Mr. Merivale is a gilt-edged snob of ineffable vulgarity, while the stepmother P —who rejoices in the highly non-Christian name of Deen—is a aragon of birth, breeding, and virtue. Mrs. Alexander's novel may be safely prescribed to those who like a sedative novel.

The rash act which gives its title to A Crimson. Crime is not committed till quite the end of the story, and though the hero must, according to the rules of the game, be accused of it, the real culprit—or rather her body, since she drowns her. self—is speedily found, and all ends well. The earlier scenes are enacted in a country village, whence two youths issue forth to seek their fortunes in Australia. The villain, Mike Law, comes back, and, to wreak vengeance on the hero— Oliver Reeves—declares that he is dead. Now Oliver is secretly engaged to the heroine, and as he is a bad corre- spondent—a strange weakness in a hero of melodrama—the account of the mendacious Mike gains credit, and after a decent interval the heroine, Chris Brandon, promises to marry the opulent Mr. Dunstone, who has rescued her father, the vicar of the parish, from disgraceful financial embarrass- ments. Oliver returns, but Chris is forced to keep her word. But on the eve of the wedding Dunstone is opportunely mur- dered by a discarded mistress. For a sensational novel we 2onfess to finding A Crimson Crime rather insipid.

Beronford, a story of the last century, is concerned with the fortunes of the house of Cassilis, and is narrated by a mysterious youth, a poor relation and amanuensis, who tarns out to be Lord Heronford's legitimate son. The book is a creditable, rather than notable, specimen of the romantic school.

The Tower of Dago is a short but remarkably vivid tale of fraternal vengeance. A Russian Count betrayed by his brother, and with his whole nature poisoned against his kind, turns wrecker in the Gulf of Finland, and finally decoys his brother into his clutches. In the denouement the Count is balked in his Satanic plan of vengeance by the devotion of a servant, and the fratricidal feud is healed by the reconciliation of the children. Here, as in so many other instances, Jokai displays his genius for handling melodrama in a really impres- sive manner.