Mrs. Martin's Man. By St. John G. Brake. (Maunsel and
Co. 6a)—This novel is apparently Mr. Ervine's first excursion into fiction, and the book, as a whole, goes to prove how excellent a school for the novelist is the drama. The author's experience of play-writing has taught him many things ; he knows how to make his points, and make them quickly, how to give more emphasis to the opinions of his characters than to his own private views : moreover, he is thoroughly well versed in the art of stage-management. All this technical knowledge helps to make a novel of singular distinction, although its actual subject-matter is in no way exceptional; and Mrs. Martin's man, who falls in love with her sister, deserts his wife for many years, and returns, broken and disreputable, to disturb the equilibrium of the home, is a not unfamiliar figure. The truth is, of course, that we are conquered by the beauty of the Irish tongue, by its indefinable charm, which baffles criticism ; above all, by that wonderful restraint which is peculiar to Irish literature. For here is a book which dares to be outspoken to an alarming extent, which could not even be recommended to a very wide or nndiscerning circle of readers; yet there is in it from beginning to end not one word which is not of absolute, unquestioned purity.
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