The House in the Downs. By H. B. Marriott Watson.
(J. M. Dent and Sons. 6s.)—For the writing of a story of love and adventure in the Napoleonic days, when your Sussex coast was thronged with free-traders and Government spies and French buccaneers, it is usual to cultivate a dashing style with brilliant, restless sentences and a full complement of fearful oaths. Mr. Marriott Watson has set aside this conven- tion, and has preferred, for his gallant tale of intrigue, the delicate, whimsical English of his earlier work. The result is a curiously mingled entertainment. The plot of The House in the Downs is admirable, its mysteries so bewildering that we are hard put to it to trace them out, the hero's escapes from death varied and terrible ; yet an atmosphere of powder and frills pervades even the most desperate situations, and the villain seems to us an amiable fellow enough. The writer's style is, however, perfectly suited to the drawing of the pathetic, unloved figure of Felicity, who satisfies our expecta- tions by dying on the last page to save the hero's life. It must be allowed that Mr. Marriott Watson has written a first- rate story, even if he does appear a little ashamed of his own bloodthirstiness.
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