NOVELS OF THE WEEK.•
INTERNAL evidence, as well as that afforded by the name on the title-page, warrant our identifying the author of A Roman Mystery with the writer of the striking article on the policy of the Vatican in the November number of the National Review. This fact at once lends special interest to the story and pre- pares us for its weakness. Mr. Bagot has given us a most interesting book, but he has not altogether succeeded in the difficult task of welding a pamphlet and a romance into a homogeneous and artistic whole. The romance of the tale grows out of the terrible curse attaching to the family of the Montelupi, a princely race liable to a gruesome form of epilepsy in which the sufferer simulates the gait and voice of a wolf. Shut up in a disused wing of the castle of Brancaleone, the rightful heir, a "lupomanaro," has long been immured in safe keeping, the only persons who know the secret of his birth being his mother, the widowed Princess, and a faithful retainer and his wife, who pass off Don Camillo as their afflicted nephew. Meantime the younger brother, Prince Ludovico, a veritable Prince Charming, in blissful ignorance of the continued existence of poor Don Camillo, marries a rich and beautiful young English widow. Prince Ludovico, though all his sympathies are on the side of Liberalism, has not yet made his final choice between Quirinal and Vatican, and on his return to Italy with his bride an elaborate campaign is conducted by the Dowager Princess, a fanatical adherent of the " black " party, and Cardinal Savatelli, one of the leading papahili, to secure the adhesion of the Prince and his wife. Defeated in diplomacy by the young Princess, the Cardinal, learning of the existence of Don Camillo from a workman employed at the castle, decides to employ his knowledge as a weapon to force the Princess to purchase his silence by securing the adhesion of Ludovico to the Clerical party. As a precaution, however, he desires the police to make inquiries into the antecedents of his informant, and falls a victim to the knife of the revengeful workman. The opportune but tragical death of the unhappy brother relieves the Prince and his mother from the family incubus, and the story ends with Ludovico's secession from the clericals and entrance into political life. The construction of the book is faulty, but the portraiture is often excellent, and the author's intimate knowledge of Italian society is mani- fested at every turn, At the same time we are bound to say that he does not represent the adoption of the role of the • (L) A Roman Mystery. By Richard Bagot. London : Digby, Long, and Co. [6s.]—(2.) Donna Teresa. Br F. SL Peard. London : Macmillan and CO. (68.] —(S.) Janice Meredith. By Paul Leicester Ford. London : Constable and Co. [Gs.]—(4.) My Lady and Allan Darla. By C. Donnel Gibson. London : Mac- !Milan and Co. [68.] —(5.) The Guests of Mine Host. Br Marian Bower. London : Cassell and Co. [63.)—(6.) The King's Deputy. By H. A. Hinkson. London : Lawrence and Bullen. [6a.]—(7.) The Transgressors. By Rosallne Masson. London : Hodder and Stoughton. [Gs.)—(8.) The Emperor's Candlesticks. By Baroness Emmuska Orczy. London : C. A. Pearson. [3s. Sd.] --(ft) The Bronze Buddha. By Cora Linn Daniels. London : Gay and Bird. [64]—(10.) The Undoing of John Brewster. By Lady Mabel Howard. London : LoDgmara and Co. [6s.]
blackmailer—for that is what it practically amounts to—by the Cardinal in an altogether convincing light.
Amid the more strident voices of most of our younger writers, the gentler note struck by Miss Peard is welcome for its intrinsic charm as well as for its comparative unfamiliarity. Donna Teresa, like Mr. Bagot's novel, has for its heroine a young widow, and its scene is also laid in Italy. There, however, all similarity ends, as the young widow's marriage with an Italian nobleman was a dismal failure. Italy is used merely as a picturesque background, and the dramatis personce are all. English. Teresa—the widow—having been freed from pecuniary troubles by an opportune legacy, determines to give her beautiful and amiable sister Sylvia a really "good time." Walter Wilbraham, an eligible English friend, brought into constant contact with the Marchesa and her sister, proposes to, and is accepted by, the latter. Nothing at first sight could be more satisfactory ; but Wilbraham, who has been infatuated by a pretty face, soon finds himself contrasting Sylvia's intellectual inefficiency with the alertness and fascination of her elder sister. Teresa for some time only sees one-half of the truth : she realises that Wilbraham is no longer in love with her sister, but does not see that he has trans- ferred his affections to herself. The discovery, when made, only distresses her, for she is disinterestedly and devotedly attached to her sister and does not in the least return Wilbraham's feelings. Sylvia, on her side, for all her stupidity, not only detects Wilbraham's defection, but penetrates its cause, and releases him from his engagement, though it nearly breaks her heart to do so. At this point we cannot help thinking that Miss Peard has succumbed to the not unnatural tempta- tion to import dramatic intensity into a study of still life at the expense of verisimilitude. Anyhow, to extricate poor Sylvia from this impasse she might have devised some less drastic solution than her death by the bullet intended for the fickle Wilbiaham by a vindictive Italian Socialist. With this reserve we have little to say against a charmingly written story. Teresa herself is so attractive a personage that we sincerely hope to meet her again. She is not five-and-twenty when we part from her, and really nice people, in fiction or out of it ought not to be lost sight of at so early an age.
. Mr. Paul Leicester Ford, already favourably known as the author of The True George Washington, gives us in Janice Meredith an excellent, if somewhat exuberant romance of the American Revolution. It is possible that some insular readers may be a little " put off " by the fact that the hero, John Brereton, who makes his first appearance as bond- servant and mock yokel on the country seat of a New Jersey squire, should—after having served as an officer in the British Army—join the forces of the Revolutionaries, and rise to the rank of General on Washington's Staff. Though we may go as far as Sir George Trevelyan in his admiration for the American Revolutionaries, this trans- ference of service ill accords with the traditions of romance. Apart from this blemish, if it be a blemish, the story is an -excellent and carefully executed romance of love and war ; the development of the squire's daughter out of a vivacious and susceptible hoyden into a full-blown heroine is skilfully contrived, while the numerous historical personages intro- duced are portrayed with vigour and picturesqueness. The weak point in the construction of the story is the extra- ordinary number of occasions in which the principal characters are unexpectedly brought into immediate contact —much after the fashion of the writers of the modern "musical comedies."
Another American romance, this time of the fantastic rather than the historic order, is Mr. C. D. Gibson's curiously named My Lady and Allan Darke. This is a tale of " Ole Virginny,' presumably long before the war of North and South, and describes how a young country gentleman, summoned to join his troop and take the field against the Indians, is shipwrecked while on his way to headquarters, washed ashore on an island, and, on mentioning his name to his rescuers, is kept in a mys- terious captivity, his attempts to escape being foiled by a herculean and sinister personage named Burton. Inasmuch as the owner of the island and his daughter—a handsome Amazon, with whom the captive promptly falls in love—are rational and even amiable people, Allan Darke is entirely at a lois to understand the reason or his inhuman treatment by
their lieutenant. At last Burton, after several abortive effort' to make away with his prisoner, ties him up preparatory to burning him to death and tells him the whole story. It appears that his master, who is related to Darke, is an outlaw, unjustly suspected of having murdered his cousin, Darke's uncle, the real murderer being Barton himself, and that Allan Darke's arrival on the island is construed as an attempt to bring its owner to justice. Allan is rescued from the flames by Marjorie, alias "My Lady," and shortly afterwards Burton, who has now developed into a homicidal maniac, after a final attempt to kill Allan, in which he wounds Marjorie, con- siderately drowns himself in a quicksand. The reader is kept in a perfect fog for two-thirds of the story, the plot of which is certainly original, but so wildly improbable as to exhaust the patience of the present writer.
Viewed as an artistic whole, the effect of The Guests of Mine Host is impaired by certain melodramatic chapters treating of a gentleman who is always described as "The Outcast." The reader knows perfectly who the man must be. As a matter of fact, though the villain of the piece, he rejoices in the gentlemanly, not to say romantic, Christian and surnames of Gerald Anstruther. Why, therefore, always allude to him as " The Outcast," with a capital " 0 "? The rest of the story is an amusing, even interesting, account of life in a big moun- tain hotel. The plot is quite adequate, the characterisa- tion decidedly above the average, and the book is evidently the work of an author who really does know the way of life of the people she writes about.
The King's Deputy gives us a lively picture of Dahlia society at the end of the last century. The hero, who tells the story, bears the eminently Hibernian name of Theobald Dillon, but, unlike the present John of that ilk, his loyalty to the English, especially to the Viceroy, the Duke of Rutland, is a matter of extreme pride to him. The book is a vivacious and sometimes exciting specimen of the "costume novel."
It is not unfitting that The King's Deputy and The Trans- gressors, by Rosaline Masson, should be noticed side by side, for as the former deals almost exclusively with Dublin society, so the scene of The Transgressors hardly changes from Edin- burgh. On the other hand, the interest of Miss Masson's book lies in the characters rather than the plot, and the time is our own. Some of the author's ideas will astound the innocent English reader,—for instance, the theory s.he advances that "young men in love are supposed to discuss their religion." This may of course be true of Scotland, or it may be an occult evidence of the author's humour, which is more manifestly displayed elsewhere.
No one can complain of The Emperor's Candlesticks as lacking in incident. The Czarevitch (presumably the present Czar), a Cardinal, an Emperor, many Nihilists, and a Russian spy—r7 lady of high rank—all figure in the list of characters, and between them, as the Americans say, they "make things hum." It is just the book to beguile a tiresome railway journey, for the incidents, if extremely improbable, are thrilling as well as ingeniously contrived.
The Bronze Buddha is an American psychological romance wherein the author does not scruple to make astonishing demands on the credulity of her readers. Personally, the present writer finds the tax excessive, but those who can digest the miracles, to which an appropriate Eastern flavour is given, will doubtless enjoy the narrative.
The Undoing of John Brewster is a most promising first attempt, if we are correct in taking it to be such. The irony of fate which pursues the genial, gentle-natured hero in his will-o'-the-wisp courtship of the charming Italian lady, for whom he changes his religion, only to be baulked by her final retirement into a convent, is set forth with no little charm of manner and delicacy of characterisation. We may add that this is probably the first novel in which Rachmani- noff's Prelude is included in the repertory of one of the characters.
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