The Middle-Aged Lover : a Story. By Percy Fitzgerald. (Bentley.)
—This story, which originally appeared in All the Year Round, under the title of "Notes or Gold," is the least amusing and the most flimsy of Mr. Percy Fitzgerald's productions. Everyone is tired of that constantly recurring trio in his compositions. the accomplished young lady, with the meek fool for a mother, and the fluent old humbug for a father,— and in this instance, the accomplished young lady is so profoundly uninteresting that no one can care how groat a fool her mother is, or how great a swindler her father, only one does wish the latter were not such a bore as well. Mr. Percy Fitzgerald has used Braham as a stock topic long enough ; it would also be as well he should
leave off misquoting Moore, and realise that any jargon which is tiresome in real life is tiresome in a book,—a rule which is of par- ticular application to musical jargon. Of course there are pleasant little bits in the story; Mr. Percy Fitzgerald is never altogether unreadable, but he has gone much nearer to being so on this than on any former occasion.
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