A Man of Millions. By Samuel R. Keightley. (Cassell and
Co. 6s.)—Mr. Keightley lays himself out to please all kinds of readers. There is a heroine made up after the maxim that a woman's life begins with marriage, and another who exemplifies the older belief that it ends with it ; there is plenty of melodrama,—bags of diamonds, a fascinating Frenchman who has served his time in Cayenne, a Chinaman as bland and as villainous as the Flowery Kingdom ever produced, a forged concession from the Govern- ment of Paraguay—the finance of fiction must be up-to-date-- and a murder. Then, to please the young, there is the "League of Blood," the invention of Master Dicky Wells and his school- fellows, skilfully worked in, by the way, to bring about the dénouement; and a fight which can only have been meant to amuse. If the novel-reading public is not satisfied when all this is pro- vided, it must be less easily pleased than we should have thought. The writing is for the most part smart and lively. Percival Coulthurst is a distinctly good talker ; his comparison of life to an omnibus is almost as good as Mirza's vision of the bridge. But a little correction is wanted. "Unlike many young women, the curate did not fall within her category of heroes," reminds us of the famous "Instead of which, you go about the country stealing ducks."
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