Hever Court. By R. Arthur Arnold. 2 vols. (Bradbury and
Evans.)— This is a fairly written book, the work of a man who can wield his pen, and who has achieved some success in other fields than that of fiction. But as a novel we cannot say much for Hever Court. The best scene in it is the one taken from the life of a limited company, where the pro- moter suggests a winding-up, and the few who have money in the con- cern denounce him as a swindler. But with this exception there is nothing at all original in the story, and there is much that is improbable. People who surrender estates without a scrutiny of their opponerit's claim, and march into the toils of financial agents, are generally those who have no respectable solicitor to advise them. Nor are claims on estates got up so easily as Mr. Arnold seems to think, or rather, as the peculiar luck which governs his plot has contrived in the instance given us. Shallow villains like his must need the help of fortune, but such fortune is only the creation of novelists.
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