Two Wedding - Rings. By G. Somers Bellamy. (Charing-Cross Publishing Company.)—Mr. Bellamy
may take it as a compliment, when we say that we do not believe him when he assures us that he has done his best in the novel before us. There is evidence enough of painstaking and of a pleasant fancy for us to think he might do considerably better. We shall not describe the plot, which, truth to tell, is far-fetched, and in parts grotesque, because by so doing we should appropriate all there is worth having in the story. Nobody will read Two Wedding-Rings for its descriptions of persons and things, or for its philosophy. In future, we recommend Mr. Bellamy to dwell less fondly on the physical charms of his heroines. Something may well be left to the imagination in such matters in fiction, as in life itself. A school-girl of seventeen is not so rare an object, that a writer need go into raptures over one, as if she were an original " creation." In fact, a certain mawkishness is the most unpleasant characteristic of the story; we say this advisedly, but still allowing that it has sufficient merit to encourage the author to try again, in spite of hiMself.
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