31 AUGUST 1889, Page 24

Beyond Cloudland. By S. M. Crawley-Boevy. 2 vols. (Gardner.) —This,

an ordinary and commonplace love-story, is varied by chapters in which a love-sick young woman is carried about the planetary system and initiated into the geology and meteorology of the heavenly bodies. In addition to these prosaic details, she is allowed to see in advance the probable progress of her story. We cannot call this aught but a mistake. The novel itself is readable enough, and it only fills two volumes, but it is much diluted by these aimless celestial wanderings. Let us have one thing or the other,—an aerial voyage or a novel ; but not a tepid mixture between a scientific discourse and the history of a shabby

• flirtation.