NOVELS OF THE WEEK.* THOUGH the scene of Dr. Barry's
new novel is laid in Ireland on the eve of the Famine, there is little or nothing to daunt or repel the Sassenach reader in tue way of dialect or local colour, politics or theology. The element of nationality is not really pronounced in The Wizard's Knot, for all the author's enthusiasm for Irish literature ; of the principal characters the chief is an Englishwoman, another is half Russian, and the two jeunes premiers both belong to the landlord class ; while the tone and temper of the whole is so fantastically romantic, so detached from the actualities of Irish life, as to render the choice of a definite period and the occasional refer- ences to historical facts and personages a jarring and incon- gruous element in this fine but lurid melodrama. The Wizard's Knot is practically a novel without a hero or a heroine, for all the partisans of the angels are entirely eclipsed by the beautiful witch, Lady Liscarroll, whose career has been marked by the death or ruin of every man who has fallen under her spell. Having eloped from her husband, Sir Walter Liscarroll, with a gambler who subsequently com- mits suicide, she returns unabashed at the opening of the story to the neighbourhood of her son's Irish castle—Sir Walter has died broken-hearted—her arrival coinciding with Sir Philip's seizure by a mysterious malady which brings him to death's door. At this juncture Sir Philip's cousin and heir, Edmund, a poet, but a man of action as well, comes to the rescue, and acting on the sick man's orders, keeps Lady Lis- carroll a close prisoner in a tower of the castle, where she is waited on by Joan O'Dwyer, the beautiful daughter of a hedge-school master,—the wizard of the story. Sir Philip is eventually healed of his illness or enchantment by a magic potion compounded by the wizard and administered by Joan, with whom he falls in love. The tower in which Lady Lis- carroll is imprisoned is shattered by a thunderstorm, and her son consents to her accepting the hospitality of Miss Lisaveta O'Connor, the half-Russian heiress, who lives by herself not far off with a trusty retainer named Yegor. Lady Liscarroll, who has captivated Miss O'Connor as well as Joan, now exerts her siren arts upon a squireen young enough to be her son, and eventually marries him clandestinely. Sir Philip
forces a duel on his new stepfather, is wounded mortally, and on his deathbed marries Joan, who, having fled away to avoid compromising her lover, has been discovered and brought back just in time by Miss O'Connor. Then Lady Lisc,arroll takes poison, her husband disappears on the Continent, and Edmund, the poet-cousin, marries the Russian heiress. But it is only fair to Dr. Barry to add that the bare outline of this fantastic and unreal plot gives no notion of the brilliant literary quality of the writing, the spectacular picturesqueness of the narrative, the boldness with which situations are conceived and por- traits drawn. And there is not the faintest trace of any desire to edify, to instruct, or to persuade. The book is simply a brilliant melodramatic fantasia on the theme of the Belle dame sans 'nerd, with a vein of theatrical semi-super- naturalism running throughout it very much like what is to be found in Bulwer Lytton's earlier romances.
The working out of Mr. Bagot's new novel, Casting Nets, belongs pre-eminently to the category of the un- expected. Given an agnostic Peer who marries a &arm- ing Roman Catholic, given an Anglican clergyman—a relation of Lord Redman's—with an uncompromisingly anti-Romanist wife, and given, above all, the fact that the author is himself a member of the Roman Catholic Communion, and it ought to follow naturally enough that the Peer should be converted to his wife's creed, in spite of the efforts of the vicar and his wife. Readers, however, who may happen to be acquainted with Mr. Bagot's articles on Vatican- ism in the National Review will be prepared for a development on different lines. Lady Redman—nee Hilda, Cawarden- marries her husband on the strict understanding that they are mutually to abstain even from the discussion of each other's religious opinions, but that the children of their marriage
• (1.) The Wizard's Knot. By William Barry. London : T. Pisher Unwin.
rs.]—(2.) Casting of Nets. By Richard Bagot. London : Edward Arnold. 6s.]—(3.) 'Twist Devil and Deep Sea. By Mrs. C. N. Williamson. London: . A. Pearson. [8s.]-1.) The Survivor. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. London: Ward, Lock, and Co. f6 s.1—(5.) Ballast. By Myra Swan. London : Long- Inane and Co. [6s.]—( .) -This Body of Death. By Adeline Sergeant. London: Hurst and Blackett. [Ba]—(7.) The Fdau's Head. By Carlton Dame. London: Ward, Lock, and Co. [31. 6d.]—(8.) The Ship's .ddeentwrs. By W. Clark RusselL London : A. Constable and Co. [64.] shall be brought up as Roman Catholics. This arrangement works well enough so far as they themselves are concerned, but it is very far from satisfying the heroine's relatives or her father confessor. The latter are not so much concerned with Lord Redman's spiritual welfare as resentful of his wife's acquiescence in his indifferentism, and enter on a campaign of harassing interference which costs Lady Redman the life of her child, and brings her within an ace of losing her own as well The result of these machinations is to overshoot their mark so completely that Lady Redman, revolting against the meddlesomeness and obscurantism of the Roman Church, turns Protestant; while as a set-off the vicar's wife, dazzled by the social attractions held out to converts, enters the Roman Catholic Communion. While it must be admitted that the picture given by Mr. Bagot of the methods of some priests is extremely unpleasant and disquieting, it must not be imagined that his novel is a wholesale indictment of Roman Catholicism. It is simply an exposure by a member of that Communion of the insincerity, the indiscretion, and the interference which, according to him, in certain cases bring discredit upon that creed. The courage of the author is undisputed, and the ability and force with which he has denounced the un- warranted intrusion of the priest in domestic affairs cannot be overlooked. Our sympathies are entirely with him in this matter, but we cannot but feel that he has overdone his denouement. The heroine, as we have seen, becomes a Protestant, the hero is tending that way, and the conversion of the clergyman's wife to Roman Catholicism is effected in such a manner as to render the convert contemptible and to excite sympathy with her husband. This, we fear, is not the best way to do what we are sure Mr. Bagot desires to do,--i.e., to encourage the better tendencies inside the Church of which he is a member. To us and other Protestant readers he is, of course, only forcing an open door. What is of far greater importance is to influence Liberal Catholic opinion, and this can only be done by avoiding what his co-religionists will regard as exaggeration and injustice.
In 'Tioixt Devil and Deep Sea Mrs. Williamson's latest heroine, Miss Sheila Cope, tells the terrible tale of her adventures in the first person, and with an imperturba- bility which is altogether admirable. One day an heiress, the next a pauper ; rescued from suicide by a benevo- lent and handsome Labour M.P. ; kidnapped by a wicked and amorous Baronet; rescued by a perilous plunge from a window just in time to save the M.P. from being assassinated, and to communicate the tidings that he is after all the real Baronet—Miss Sheila Cope shows a calmness and sell-possession in face of the magnificent absurdities of her recital which disarm criticism and extort admiration. We wish, however, that Mrs. Williamson had let us know what the Labour party said when Mr. Bourke turned out to be a bloated aristocrat.
Mr. Oppenheim, whose recent essays in sensational fiction have shown a falling off from his Mysterious Mr. Sabin, has given us an ingenious and exciting romance in The Survivor. Douglas Guest, the hero, the orphan nephew of a dour Cum- berland farmer, escapes from the iron tutelage of his uncle in circumstances which lay him open to the gravest suspicion. Thus he destroys the evidences of his identity from a per- fectly defensible motive without knowing that immediately after his stormy parting from the old man the latter has been murdered by some one else. He is thus confronted on his arrival in London with the twofold necessity of earning a livelihood, and at the same time escaping detection. In the fulfilment of both these aims he is befriended by a rich and fascinating Countess, with whom he falls in love. Matters are further complicated by the fact that he is betrothed to one of his uncle's daughters, that he proposes to and is accepted by the other, and that, thirdly, the Countess has a husband still living. But Mr. Oppenheim is equal to every emergency, and in the end Douglas Guest, after storming the citadel of fame as novelist and dramatist, leaves the court without a stain on his character, and with the Countess for his wife.
It is, we suppose, inevitable that modern novelists, in their quest for strong meat, should be obliged to take, in the literary sense, to strong drink as well. Thus Miss Myra Swan gives us a lurid picture of hereditary dipsomania in her new novel, Balks& Fortunately, the indispensable quality indicated by the tl ...e forms a part of the mental equipment of the sufferer's
step-sister. Although the story fulfils the necessary condi- tion of nursery fiction and "ends well," the hopeless lapses of a habitual female drunkard do not furnish very cheerful reading. For the rest, the novel is written with a good deal ef cleverness, not unmarred, however, by occasional flights of preciosity.
No rational reader could expect to be exhilarated by a book called This Body of Death, and Miss Sergeant's new story is almost more gloomy than the novel noticed above. Again drunkenness plays a part in the narrative, but this time the patient cures his tendency only to perish the victim of a seeming accident, but in reality a murder, at the end of the last chapter. There is a slight flavour of Nihilism and dyna- mite at the beginning of the book, subjects which may seem strange to allude to as tending to lighten a story. But any suggestion of romantic crime or unhappiness assists in re- lieving the oppressive gloom of a tragedy of every-day life.
In The Emu's Head Mr. Carlton Dawe gives us an adven- turous Australian melodrama, as indeed the sub-title of the book, "A Chronicle of Dead Man's Flat," most clearly indi- cates. The Emu's Head' is a public-house kept by a retired bushranger, who resorts to altogether unpardonable experiments in order to get hold of a buried treasure. The sole key to the hidden hoard, it should be added, is possessed by the virtuous hero. These are promising materials, and Mr. Carlton Dawe works them out in a brave adventurous Adelphian strain. That is to say, at the end of the story virtue is rewarded, vice and indiscretion are punished, and the reader is left with a most satisfactory feeling that all is for the best in the best possible of worlds.
Mr. Clark Russell is always engaging when he deals with blue water and white sails. In The Ship's Adventure he is as daringly romantic as usual in the strange experiences he allots to his hero and heroine, and the reader has as pleasant a feeling of salt-laden breezes and wide ocean spaces as can be enjoyed by any one without actual propinquity to the sea.
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