' rums in Trafalgar's Bay, and other Stories. By Walter
Besant and James Rice. (Chatto and Windus.)—These stories have all, we believe, appeared in some serial or "Christmas Number," and are therefore pro- bably familiar to most of our readers. They are worth reprinting, how- ever, and form a capital idlers' volnme. Welike the story that gives the title to the book best of all, and next to it the second story, "Shep- herds All and Maidens Fair." The third story, " Such a Good Man," is rather laboured in its satire, and has no kind of strong attraction, either in narrative or plot. But both the other tales mentioned are capital, and capitally told. The plot of "'Tomas in Trafalgar's Bay " is fanciful,. and the young Dorsetshire maiden, Pleasance Noel, who is at once• heroine and narrator, is rather a vengeful, not to say deceitful, piece of womankind ; but the romance ends beautifully and in a manner entirely satisfactory to the reader, who looks only to be pleasantly amused. In "Shepherds All and Maidens Fair" we have a story partly of Canadian, partly of London life, whose opening chapter might be made good use of by an emigration agent. The robust health, the practical sense, and easy comfortableness of the dwellers in " clear-sky land," gathered together at their Agri- cultural Exhibition, the very enumeration of the products displayed at that exhibition, are things that make the heart of weary citizens yearn. With great skill the contrast between that life and the life of the Londoner is brought home to the mind, in the episode of young John Pomeroy's visit to London in search of his father. And old John Pomeroy himself, though presented to us when found by his son only in outline, is a character worthy of Dickens at his best,—a hard man, living in the belief that all raankind.is hollow- hearted and treacherous, because of a wrong which he thinks his wife did to him in his youth, yet with an unsuspected and anconfessed softness in him which ultimately brings him back to the far-off Canadian homestead, and to the heart that had been empty for his. sake all those years. Old John Pomeroy, in short, is a man whose individuality we cannot soon forget, and we cordially recommend others to make his acquaintance in this pleasant book.
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