Children of Chance. By Herbert Lloyd.' (William Andrews and Co.,
Hull.)—The fundamental idea of this story is not a novel one, but it is very well worked out. An able man, "con- centred all on self" however, deserts, in the interests of ambition, the wife who has given herself to him out of pure love, and is even so brutally cynical as to inform her that their union is not a legal marriage at all. The poor wife dies ; and Cecil Grantley is transformed into Cecil Studholme, and becomes one of the first of critics and authors. But of course his sins find him out, and also—we might also say, in the persons of—his children. He even drives his son to the verge of suicide by a savage criticism that is prompted by literary jealousy. How all ends—not well indeed, but yet much better for the wretched man that figures in the story than was to have been expected—the reader must, of course, discover for himself. The author should endeavour to prune the luxuriance of his style. He indulges in too many phrases—such as "the rock glistens with flashes of diamond-like brightness and soft colourings that resemble in their rich glows thejewels of Arabian fables, turning the purple heather yet a brighter and richer shade," &c.—of the kind whose ambitious ineffectuality justified the application of the adjective " gorgeous " to the late Mr. George Gilliam
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