27 SEPTEMBER 1890, Page 23

A ROMAZYtee of the Antipodes. By Mrs. R Dun Douglass.

(G. P. Putnam's Sons.)—Mrs. Douglass voyages in the Florence,' a steamship from Plymouth to Australia. On her way, she observes various persons, and especially certain lovers. The "romance" con- cerns a pair of these, Sutherland Pelham-Gower and Amelie Hard- castle. Their love is interrupted by the interference of the Duke of Hammerton, who is described as short, fat, red-faced, and snub- nosed. (We do not do justice to the elegance of Mrs. Douglass's style by these curt epithets. In the original they are repre- sented by "very much under the medium height," "has a large amount of superfluous adipose tissue," "his florid complexion assumes at times a deeper hue," and "his Grace's aristocratic

appendage has declined to elongate to any perceptible degree.") He is also stupid, insolent, prejudiced, and an arrant coward. Miss Hardcastle throws Mr. Pelham-Gower over for him, and then, again, in turn throws over the Duke. Is not all this rather rough on English Dukes ? There are so few of them that it amounts almost to a personal libel.