Richard Dare, By Mrs. Alfred Baldwin. 2 vols. (Smith and
Elder.)—This is a remarkably powerful story, one of the very best which we have seen for some time. Richard Dare, son of a drunken blacksmith, runs away from his home, and, after various fluctuations of fortune, rises to great eminence as a surgeon. The scene in which he performs a dangerous operation on his mother, whom he has recognised, but who has not recognised him, is a very fine effort. But perhaps it would have been better not to have introduced the poison incident. That such a man might have been tempted so to kill himself, when he found that the woman whom he loved had been playing him false, is possible; but the original use for which the poison had been intended, strikes us as being unnatural. There are two particularly fine sketches of subsidiary character,—Colonel Peveril is one, and the blacksmith is the other. The description of how the demon of drunkenness having been driven out, the man is possessed by spirits not less unclean, is excellent.
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