Janice Gordon's Wife. 8 vols. (Hurst and Bleakett.)—The story is
an ordinary one enough, with the incidents too obviously arranged to suit a moral ; but it is told with a force and a liveliness which altogether redeem the book from the charge of being dull. James Gordon, almost more than mortal in beauty and intellect, resolves that he will stand superior to the vulgar weakness of love. Nothing BO noble, he thinks, as to subdue his nature. One sees at once what a downfall is preparing for his pride, when the sudden death of "the Rector of Eversfield " leaves a daughter with nothing more than would provide her "with clothes and pocket-money,"—abont as much probably as a labourer's family contrives to live on—and makes it necessary for the hero, who lives in a circle of worshipping sisters, to offer her a home. Of course he falls frantically in love, is fiercely jealous of a certain " Charlie," a friend of hor ehildhood, to whom popular rumour assigns her ; and finally, finding that she also loves him, proposes to her. But he is not going altogether to abandon his sublime ideal. Nature will not be ignored,—some concession must be made to it ; he will give a year to hie folly, then he will be himself again. And so, the year ended, still being as much in love as ever, he neglects his wife with stern resolution. What is the punishment and what is the end we shall leave the reader to discover for himself. We should apologize to the authoress for thus revealing her plot, were we not sure that, as we said before, the charm of her book lies not in the story, but in the telling of it. This is done very well ; the dialogue is remarkably easy and natural, the characters well sketched, though with a drawing somewhat conventional, doubtless to be improved, if, as we suppose, this is a first effort, into something more real by future practice. Among these characters the best is "Miss Cissy," whom we may take leave to call" an agreeable rattle," and with whom "Charlie," the disappointed lover is, in our judgment, most handsomely consoled. She is a most amusing person, witness, for instance, the imaginary journal whieh she constructs for the heroine, when she is about to start off on her wedding tour with the demi-god husband. "I will try to keep a journal," she says, "of all that we do and send it to you every week." "Oh! I dare say, yes. Well, I know what the journal will be. ' Deo. 16th. James said he thought the Pyrenees very pretty. Since then I have looked at them with increased delight. Dee. 17th. James again surveyed the Pyrenees, and said that they were very well, but he believed, if he had only time, he could out them into a better shape. Since then they offend my eye ; I am not sure that I should call them in good taste.'"
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