Joshua Newings; or, The Love Bacillus. By G. F. Bradby.
(Smith, Elder, and Co. 6s.)—Mr. Bradby has written a most amusing farce, which we can cordially recommend for holiday reading. It has the true quality of farce in that, while all the characters are irresponsible, there is a consistent logic in their absurdity. Joshua Newings, a middle-aged bachelor who loves his ease, is attracted by an Irish widow at a German spa, and flees to avoid matrimony, which he feels will curtail his bachelor comfort. To him, hidden in London, there arrives a German cousin, who has discovered the bacillus of love, and Joshua sub- mits to inoculation to cure his wandering sentiment. But he takes the disease in a violent form, and gives his friends, the narrator and a certain retired Admiral, an appalling time while the malady lasts. We will not reveal Mr. Bradby's ingenious plot; suffice it to say that in the end Joshua is captured by the widow, and his unfortunate medical attendant, who has been inoculated by mistake, is cast in damages for breach of promise. The story goes from start to finish with the swing of genuine comedy, and, granted the groundwork of farce, the sequence of events is natural and convincing. Admiral Ross, in particular, is a character whom we are glad to have met ; and we shall be delighted, if the author permits us, to renew our acquaintance in some future volume.
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