The Romance of Judge Ketchum. By Horace Annesley Vachell. (R.
Bentley and Son.)—This story is a great advance in some im- portant respects on that from the same pen which we noticed some time ago. That a Judge in a Western town should turn out to be an English Peer is, of course, somewhat strange, but then this is a " romance," and the criticism is irrelevant. For a tale of the kind which it professes to be Judge Ketchum is distinctly good. There is nothing dull or tiresome in it ; on the contrary, it moves briskly from beginning to end, and the characters are drawn with a vigorous hand, nor have they, whatever we may think of the plot, any of the unreality of romance about them. Mr. Vachell must, however, be a little more careful about details. We cannot talk in English of "a caloric hero," and in French the accent on ketise is circumflex, not acute.
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