The Court Adjourns. By W. F. Alexander. (Digby, Long, and
Co.)—There is much cleverness, we might almost say brilliancy, in the writing of this tale. And there is a certain power in the drawing of one at least of the characters, Dr. Blunt. The tale itself does not strike us as being particularly good We cannot feel that in real life the doctor, being such as he is described, would have acted as the novelist makes him act. The satirical descriptions of Crayford society are distinctly caricatures. People, even in a small country town, are not really so mean as the Cray- ford people are, and whatever meannesses they have they do not avow that they have them so frankly as they avow it here.— The Heart of a Mystery. By T. W. Speight. (Jerrold and Sons.) —Here is another tragical tale, but told in a very different way from that noticed above. The style is what we may call business- like ; now and then, perhaps, it grows a little tedious, but on the whole it serves its purpose well enough. The reader will never have his attention distracted from the substance of the tale by its form. On the other hand, the form is good enough not to put the matter at a disadvantage.
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