For Ever and Never. By J. Palgrave Simpson. 2 vols.
(Chapman and Hall.)—Baronets in real life are not, we fancy, worse than other men ; but in fiction they are sadly apt to be wicked. Very wicked certainly is Sir Cyril Norton. Peers, too, have an average amount of intelligence, but the novelist is fond of making them fools. Beyond doubt, Mr. Simpson's Lord Fernley is a fool. In fact, his baronet and his lord remind us somewhat of a well-known pair,—Sir Mulberry Hawk and Lord Frederick Verisopht. We only wish that the resemblance went a little further. For Ever and Never seems to us not only wanting in wisdom, but somewhat unwholesome. Briefly put, the plot is this. The heroine loves a young man, who leaves her to marry an heiress. Years pass ; she is reduced to poverty, and takes a situation as governess in her old lover's household, he having changed his name at his marriage. His mother-in-law makes mischief, the wicked baronet works on the jealousy of the wife, elopes with her, and is shot by the husband. The heroine, who turns out to be the daughter of a duke, marries a doctor whom she has twice rejected. For our own part, we do not care to hear such stories, even if they were better told than is For Ever and Never.
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