NEW NOVELS. * THE great increase of prose fiction which we

formerly mentioned has been noted by others, and indeed the fact is too obvious to escape notice. It may be doubted, however, whether the increase is much greater in the pure novel, to the writing of which people take by impulse or as a bade. More pure novels are undoubtedly written, but not more than in proportion to other books. The present number of tales, &c. is swelled by two classes of compositions. The first class has for the most part some moral or so-celled religious object, being very properly if somewhat crudely written, and taking a place between the juvenile tale and the novel for grown-up people. This sort is mostly written by young ladies, or may we say "spinsters," and has vastly grown with the success of "Amy Herbert' and "The Heir of Redclyffe." The second class is more varied in its subjects and objects ; bringing into play a wider range of knowledge and social interests, though it may not produce a better work. The writers are persons with some hobby or object, social knowledge or learned pursuit; they wish to bring the results of their experience or " notions " before the world, and (sometimes mistakenly) select the form of fiction as being the most telling, the most fashionable, or the most easy. All the following "new novels" fall under this category.

It is no secret that Sir Arthur Hallam Elton is the author of Below the Surface; and the new contribution to literature of the new Member for Bath is very much what might have been expected from him. There is a great deal of cleverness in his story of English country life ",—a much greater knowledge of that country life and charaoter in its various aspects and conditions than is possessed by nine-tenths of the novelists who undertake to describe it; there are moreover both thought and observation on existing peculiarities or evils in the social economy of rural life. But Sir Arthur has not by nature the two great essentials of a novelist—the power of telling a story, and the dramatic genius to truly develop and exhibit the persons engaged in it. The political controversies in which he has occupied himself have tended to injure such powers, had he possessed them, by directing his attention to points and onesided effects. If the literary polemic can make a hit, he does not much care about fairness or accuracy, considered in a philosophical point of view ; in the satirical sketch it suffices if the satire is plain and true although exaggerated. Fiction requires consistency. The persons may unconsciously satirize themselves by displaying their weaknesses, but they must not do it grossly and palpably-. Into this error and similar errors Sir Arthur Elton is continually failing; and though it may add to the liveliness of the reading, it detracts from the merit or the character of the novel. This, for • Below the Surface : a Story of English Country Life. In three volumes. Published by Smith and Elder. The Sisters of Charity ; or from Bermondsey to Belgravia. By Mrs. Chalice. In two volumes. Published by Bentley. Siron the Sleeper : a Tale of all Time. By the Rev. H. C. Adams, late Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford ; Author of ' The First of June," 8rc. Published by Rh in gtons. The Unprotected; or Facts in Dressmaking Life. By a Dressmaker. Published by Low and Son.

example, is a fair hit at the folly of genealogy, which reckons disgrace just as fondly as honour ; but it is quite out of place in the mouth of Lady Mend Usherwood, who though a fashionable and worldly woman, is not devoid of feeling or of sense. In speaking of the hero, she says

-" The Nugent& of Fitznugent are nearly connected with him. The Clintons of Llanellesinere are his cousins. A Herbert Nugent was hanged drawn, and quartered by Henry VIII, for treason or heresy, I forget which: Lady Amelia itosamunda de Clare (lately monied to the eldest son of Sir Sall] n Frogmorton) has certainly Nugent blood in her veins ; and she, 'you ■noir; is descended in a direct line from Sir James Tyrrell, who murdered the Princes in the Tower."

. Here again the satire against professing philanthropy is fair enough, but too open and palpable to be vriuserablable.

"Sir Eliot, impatiently waving his hand, proceeded—' A public execution is a barbarous, offensive, and appalling disgrace to modern civilization. Talk of gladiators, the Inquisition bull-fights, and suchlike horrors, indeed !—I'll trouble you, Colonel Clair, for a bit of the breast.—By the bye, Colonel, have you ever seen a man hanged ? I have. Thought it a public duty. Paid ten guineas for a front seat in the garret-window of a pawnbroker's shop. A horrid sight ! We took our prog with us, of course : champagne, veal-pie, and cigars. And I do assure you, Lady Maud, I cannot describe the inhuman callousness of the crowd that filled the space beneath our windows. I saw two fellows drinking gin-and-water and smoking clay pipes a-top of a lamp-post right in front of the gallows. There was a pickpocket as busy as a bee in one direction, and in another I counted no less than three men with black eyes; whilst many of the mob were so drunk that only the excessive crush kept them upright on their legs.'" This account of a rustic vestry meeting's support of pews against a zealous clergyman's wish to remove them is not so inconsistent; but it is a satirical sketch" put into the mouth a the speaker, rather than coming out of it.

"'Well and how did you get on ? '

" ' Oh ! I concisely explained how offensive and unsightly those huge deal boxes without lids must be in the eyes of every man of enlightened judgment, enlarged religious sympathies, and correct architectural taste.' I thought this rather neat ; but it made no impression beyond eliciting a laugh from your brother churchwarden, who, notwithstanding his imbecile condition, was brought into the vestry for form's sake. Then I urged upon the tatepayers the impropriety of thrusting Christ's poor into the worst places in the church, where they bitterly felt the cold and could scarce hear their clergyman's voice. Still no impression ! whilst, to my profound disgust, I fancied I heard some one snoring close behind me ! Then I explained how the pews took up a great deal too much space, how they screened the illbehaved from observation, how they obstructed sound and promoted damp ; in short, I thought my arguments happily conceived and forcibly put ; but saw only a host of blank immoveable faces all round me, as stolid as Madame Tussaud's wax-work figures, whilst nothing was heard but the occasional insane laugh of the churchwarden, and the steady snoring of the farmer behind me. At last I touched upon the sin of making distinctions between rich and poor, and advocated complete equality in the house of prayer. Immediately the whole place was alive. There was positively almost a row. Everybody found a voice. I had fairly excited them at last. Farmer Gorse shouted out, that there Ought= ought, he said with a thump on the table— there ought to be a difference between rich and poor in church : that I wished to turn the world upside down : that my opinions ware 'clean contrairy to human nature.' Farmer Walruah turned livid with indignation, and swore he never hadn't stood, and he never wouldn't stand Radicalism, Chartism, sixpenny points, or any such-like sociable tricks ! As for Mr. Salter, the thin, smooth-tongued grocer, he leant across the table and be

n to prove the Script i

ual propriety of pews, by the text in St. Matthew's (sospel; directing us to go nto our closets when we pray, and shut the door,' winding up by the quotation The poor shall newer cease out of the land.' On which Farmer Gorse cried, Hear, hear,' till he was nearly choked ! As if that had anything to do with it! Another farmer scratched his head and said, If the pews went, he knew his missus would make him go to meeting'; an intimation which was greeted with quite a cheer."

These are bite : there are actions or incidents of a broader and more general cast,—as a mad-house, somewhat exaggerated in a matter that hardly bears exaggeration ; the squabbles of a clergyman of Tractarian leanings with his parishioners ; and a riot, with a gathering of yeomanry, very truthfully done indeed. Some of these things, though bearing a relation to the story and seeming to carry it on, are yet evidently a vehicle for describing other country life" than that belonging to the tale, and written as it were for themselves as much as for the narrative. In fact, there is too much description of a clogging kind. Sir Arthur Elton describes a house, or a scene or even what his persons do when they rise up to walk, or do anything else, as if something important depended upon such minute details.

The story is perhaps intended as a medium only ; but it might easily have been made a more appropriate medium, by being something of a truer reflex of the life described. A squire reduced by the extravagance of his ancestors to become a gentleman farmer, may marry the daughter of a fashionable lady, especially when that lady's husband has embarked in a ruinous railway speculation. It is also possible enough that such a marriage should not be happy; and that a reasonable, hard-headed man, like the hero Squire Nugent, should suspect his wife when a series of circumstances seem to tell against her. These things, however, are not a representation of average English country life ; and when a " voidable " marriage, a deserted wife dying in a madhouse, and a lost son found, are all mixed up with the story, they become very like an exception to any kind of life, and only met with in circulating libraries.

The ideas of the Sister of Charity are mainly derived from " reports" and similar publications. The characters are of two kinds. One class is drawn from fancy or the common joint-stock stores of romance ; the other taken, as far as externals go, from public celebrities. Among the first kind, we have a licentious youth transformed into an all-powerful, all-influencing man, with the regular black eyes, whiskers, and moustache, that distinguish the fascinating villain of romance. In close connexion with Major

Percival, (really Sir Richard Lester,) and pretty frequently fleecing him' is a villain of a lower stamp, a former and present tool of Sir Richard; and between them they get some papers stolen from an iron chest after the usual mode. There is also a genius, Eustace Neville, without patronage and steeped in the direst poverty ; an excellent and clever young man' Charles Lyle, a good clergyman's son, who can only procure an humble publie appointment, and dies of over-work and a bad neighbourhood ; together with his sister Amy, who lives to become the first wife of the hero, Eustace. There are various other persons, victims of

" competition " or pf "landlords," or of bad social arrangements : but these belong rather to the last modern school of philanthropic fiction than general romance.

Several public celebrities are introduced into the book, though not contributing to its action ; nor indeed is there much action to contribute to. The late Sir William Molesworth appears with questionable taste ; one person is intended for Thaokeray ; others are less distinctly marked. There is, for instance, a millionaire purchaser of art without taste, who may be Redpath, or who may be Hudson ; and a gay gambling novelist, who writes delightful stories with a moral purpose. Public events are seized hold of,— as, for instance' the Crimean war. Miss Nightingale, under the name of Miss Lester, is the first heroine in The Sister of CAarity. During the early part of the story, she spends the fortune left by her uncle, the father of Sir Riohard, in deeds of philanthropy more resembling Miss Burdett Coutts than Miss Nightingale. When Sir Richard turns up, she resigns the property, which in consequence of her uncle's charge she could not ni honour have kept ; so that her cousin might have spared himself all trouble

about the iron chest. She then goes to the Crimea, and the up shot of the whole is that Beatrice Lester becomes the second wife of Eustace Neville ; but, not to sacrifice " Belgravia " and convention too much to " Bermondsey," he succeeds to two properties. and a title.

The book is written with the best intentions, and exhibits some thought on the actual evils of society, and a fair power of writing ; but all is crude, like the general conception. Mrs. Challice has no practical knowledge of the evils she writes about ; she has not turned her attention to the evils because she is experimentally impressed by them, but because other people are speaking and printing about them.

The Reverend H. C. Adams has narrowly missed writing a good philosophical romance in Sivan the Sleeper, on the principle of the poet,

"How small of all that human hearts endure That part which kings or laws can cause or cure !"

He has stepped short, apparently from the divine predominating over, the philosopher and, novelist: The "tale of all time" opens. in the days of Nimrod and the tower of Babel, when there was. rather society than government, and the violent spoiled the peaceful if opportunity offered. Sivan, a patriarch of three centuries. old, is in deep trouble because his favourite granddaughter, the child of his youngest son, has just been carried off by highland thieves; from whom, however, she might have been ransomed had not followers of Nimrod spoiled the spoilers. During Sivan's distress, an Egyptian arrives at the encampment to Claim hospitality. Struck with the cause of the distress, Melo& inquires. why there is no appeal to justice against such wrong ; enters into an account of Egyptian polity ; and Sivan retires to rest. The Angel of Death visits his tent ; and the aged patriarch, "reverently bowing his head, awaits the expected summons."

"'Sivan, the son of Elam the son of Shorn,' said the Angel, the days of thy pilgrimage are numbered. I know that thou hest long looked for my coming, and that it causeth thee no dread. Just and right has been thy way before God. Art thou willing and ready to depart ? '

" ' 0 Angel,' replied Sivan, thou gayest true. I have long looked, nay longed for thy approach; nor do I fear to go with thee to that land whither my fathers have gone before. An hour since, hadst thou asked me the question, I had freely answered yea ; but the words of the wayfarer with whom I have but now parted, have kindled in me a desire of life that I cannot extinguish. Could it be permitted, I would fain see man rise in the scale of creation from his present abyss of misery and sin to that place,. scarce lower than that which thou and thy brotherhood possess; for which he was at the first designed, and to which there is the sure word of promise that he shall one day attain.'

"A smile passed over the Angel's face, whether of pity or approval could not be determined. Siren,' said he, 'thy Father already knoweth thy newborn wish. Thy blameless life on earth has risen up before Him in witness for thee : nor does He condemn that faith in the ultimate perfection of his work on which that wish is founded. If thou dost still desire to be exempted from the common lot of man, and revisit the earth again and again to behold the growth for which thou lookest, of wisdom, purity, and virtue, among the sons of Adam, thy desire shall be fulfilled. Yet_ pause : remember that this is not the lot that the providence of the Allwuie bath assigned thee ; and, though He may permit, He does not command it.' "Sivan covered his face with his mantled and sat long in thought. At length he raised his head. I have chosen, 0 Angel,' he said : if -God allows it, I will claim this boon at his hands. Only, let nothing be granted, I pray, that may offend his love or alienate me from his favour.' "" (go be it then,' was the reply: stretch thyself on thy cou.ch, tuid take this branch into thine hand. It was gathered from the 'free of Life, on which thy first parents gazed of old with reverent awe and wonder, as it grew in the fairest of the bowers of Paradise. Whensoever the germ on which thy hopes have fastened shall have grown to maturity, thou shalt awaken and behold its fruits. As often as thou desirest in like manner again to slumber and again to awaken to a new existence, lay thyself down as now' and place the branch on thy bosom. But, whensoever thou wouldst sleep that sleep which hath no waking on earth, break it in twain, and it will summon me to thy side.' "

A thousand years roll over, and Sivan returns to earth, to pass into the body of a drowned Egyptian. The simple patriarchal mind is struck by the wonders of art, of government, of polity

and relithon, around him. When on the death of the Queenmother 1e high court of justice sits in judgment on the departed, and delays her burial on the evidence of Swan's father-in-law as to an act of oppression, wonder grows into boundless admiration. The hidden hatred of the King the sacrilege of Sivan in killing a crocodile that had carried off his little son, and the compulsory flight of the family, inducing the death of his wife and father-inlaw, convince him that tyranny and superstition are still operative, and derive advantage even from that law whose justice should control them. The reflections of Sivan are true, but are only madded truth : his ease was exceptional.

"His heart was full of bitterness. This divine gift of law and order, on which his fancy had rested so proudly, which was to raise man from the slough of his passions, and develop all that was noble in his nature,—what a cheat, what a delusion it was! Not only had he sustained deeper wrongs, whilst dwelling in a land subjected to its control, than ever he had experienced during the whole three centuries of his previous existence, but it was even through its agency that his chief sufferings had been inflicted. Elsewhere he might have been oppressed and compelled to fly; but only in a land where law existed could he have been doomed to death, without hope or appeal, for such a deed as that which had brought him into his present peril; and only in a land where a system of organized government had been established could he have been hunted out with such marvellous dexterity and success, after a flight of so many hundred miles from the presence of his enemy. Phares was indeed right. Human law was nothing save an instrument of oppression when balanced against human wickedness clothed with authority and armed with power."

Sivan sleeps once more ; and awakes five hundred years later, in Greece during the time of Socrates. At first he is delighted with Athens ; its elegant arts, its social and political freedom, its intellectual pursuits, contrast favourably with the heavy and monotonous life of Egypt. As he becomes better acquainted with the community, he is struck with the evils of slavery, the political injustice and tyranny of the people; and when the death of his master and friend Socrates crowns the public crime, he departs, and soon after sleeps again.

He next appears as a Jewish priest, when the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus is approaching, with Christianity under persecution by the fanatical. Jews. To Christianity Sivan is converted, though nothing follows from it save the introduction of various Christians ; and after witnessing the final destruction of the city and temple, the Bleeper sleeps in the Holy of Holies ; to wake up as a young Italian in Florence, during the age of Savonarola and the persecution of the Waldenses.

The Egyptian period is by far the best; not only because the effect of the contrast between the simple patriarchal tents and the art and civilization of Egypt is well brought out, but because the exposition is limited to the apparent object, the influence of government on the wellbeing of individuals. AtAthens this principle 'is not so well developed. Socrates, as was lint natural, becomes the chief figure in the narrative ; the evils of slavery, the cruelty of popular tyranny being only talked of, and that rather incidentally. With the introduction of primitive Christianity at Jerusalem, and the struggles for its reformation in Italy, the original idea is lost sight of, and that of religion improving the characters of government and mankind is not developed. At both these epochs the book falls rather too much into the common manner of religious novels of which the world has had a good many. Sivan the Sleeper, however, has greater closeness, thought, and power, than the majority of such books.

The object of The Unprotected, or Facts in Dressmaking Life, is to bring vividly before the reader the physical and moral evils which the carelessness of the public and the avarice of employers produce among the class of dressmakers. The book professes to be wzitten by a young woman who has passed "through the ordeal of which she gives so graphic a description, an editor having only revised it for publication. We doubt this statement. There are passages of hortative or reflection that smack a good deal more of the serious tract, or the pulpit or platform, than of the milliner's workroom. There is also a literary art about the management of the materials, and especially of some of the dialogues, which argues literary training. The subject is not new. The newspaper press, by aid, of the blue-books, pretty well used up the question when it was first mooted some years ago. Meetings, societies, individual philanthropists, turned the topic to account, and as a matter of course fictionists did not leave it alone. Still there is freshness in the facts, with much truth in the characters; probably because some of the matter has really been furnished by practical experience. The materials, too, are cleverly though loosely put together ; nor, barring the evidently interlarded pulpit portions and some of the argumentative parts, is there much of sentimental exaggeration. The evils, though plainly, seem in the main truly presented.

The principal story is an exception to this reality; it is merely a. framework to exhibit the workings of the system, and short stories of different victims. Mr. Thomson, a surgeon, having married against his father's wishes' is overwhelmed in the course of time by all the misfortunes that attend humanity,—ill health, a roguish partner, and finally death. His father, however, makes the widow an allowance of 1001. a year, and apprentices the eldest daughter to a fashionable milliner. This position serves to bring before the reader many alleged instances of general discomfort, and, particular misery, at the expense of a connected narrative. The book, however, is cleverly done: some of the stories have a truthful interest, and some of the hits are fair enough.