RECENT NOVELS.*

MRS. LYNN LINTON has more than once been on the war- path, but never have the martial paint and feathers been more conspicuous than in the three volumes of her latest novel. Not only Lady Kathleen Cafe and Miss Alys Pearsall Smith, who in the Nineteenth Century support "the revolt of the daughters," but every girl who from a Girton or Holloway study looks forward to a self-reliant life, must feel that the tomahawk is waved above her as she reads Mrs. Lynn Linton's mild-spoken, but obvioRsly militant, dedication. There can be little doubt as to the bearing of a book inscribed "to the sweet girls still left among us who have no part in the new revolt, but are content to be dutiful, innocent, and sheltered : " it is clearly going to be a book which will show scant mercy to the rebels, who have lost their sweetness, and poured con- tumely upon duty, innocence, and shelter. Nor in this * (1.) The One Too Many. By Mrs. Lynn Linton. 3 vole. London : Ghetto and Windus.—(2.) In Direst Peril. By D. Christie Murray. 3 vole London : Ohatto and Windne.—(3. A Heart's Revenge. By B. Loftus Tottenham. 3 vols. London : Hurst and Blackett.—(4 ) The Romance of Shore Mote. By Percy Hulburd. 3 vols. London : Richard Bentley and Bon.—(5.) Some Brery•Day Folks. Py Eden Pbilpotts. 3 vole. London : Osgood, MeIlvaine, and Co.— (8 ) The White Aigrette. By Vin Vincent. 3 vols. London: Hurst and Blackett. —(7 ) The Standishs of High Acre. By Gilbert Sheldon. 2 vols. London: Cassell and Co.—(S.) Dave's Sweetheart. By Miss Gaunt. London : Edward. Arnold.

respect can The One Too Many be regarded as disappointing. We gather from its pages that the girl who begins her revolt by going to a women's college, will continue it by con- stant recourse to music-hall slang, full-flavoured cigars, and alcoholic stimulants, and will go on either to marry a policeman, to become so offensively vulgar that per- sons of her own class instinctively avoid her, or to in- dulge in a shameless flirtation with a married man whose treatment of his wife would make him revolting to a

girl who retained a shred of the instincts of womanhood. This is a fine vigorous attack, but we cannot help asking,— simply, to quote Rosa Dartle, " for the sake of information,"—

where such girls as Effie Chegwin, Carrie Mason, Julia Bel- carro, and Laura Prestbury, are to be found. We have seen some specimens of their tribe ; but they have generally qualified themselves for diplomas in dancing, philandering. horse and dog lore, were such documents procurable, rather than for degrees in arts or science. It is always best to stick to the concrete, and we think the average high-school teacher may be taken as a fairly representative product of the new movement. If, however, we accept her as typical, the follow- ing description of her type has not even the rude truth of effective caricature

" She drank wine freely and almost more than was becoming in a girl. And of different kinds she preferred the stronger. Hence she liked Burgundy better than claret, and port better than either. She took sherry in preference to hock, and brandy- and-soda rather than sherry. She lived on stimulants, material and mental, and burnt herself out at all four corners. This was the net result of that boasted higher education which had ruined her nervous system, prematurely initiated her into the darker secrets of life, and by these two things together destroyed the very well-spring of her health and happiness."

Exaggeration of this kind would ruin the best case in the world ; and as Mrs. Lynn Linton's case can hardly be thus described, she should have been specially careful to avoid it. There are real dangers in every new move- ment just because it is new, and the Higher Education of Women has certainly not escaped them ; but the writer's imagination runs so persistently to brandy and cigars, that it misses what it might hit. The worst mistake in polemical tactics is, however, the introduction of the girl who provides the book with a title. Moira West is certainly sweet, innocent, dutiful, and sheltered ; and—apparently because she is all these—her life is one horrible catas- trophe. Had she been less sweet, less innocent with the

innocence of ignorance, less dutiful in the conventional sense of a much-abused word, had she clung less timidly

to a shelter which was really a degrading slavery, she would have been nobler as well as happier. Effie Cheg- win is not altogether winning,—indeed, she is in many ways objectionable; but in the main, she commands our respect, while our feeling for Moira is only not con- temptuous, because contempt is lost in pity. To marry even the worthiest of policemen may not be an ideal fate for a cultivated girl; but it is at any rate preferable to the fate of finding in suicide the only escape from unendurable torture inflicted by a Casanbon ten times more hateful than the cold- blooded prig of Middlemarch. There ought to be exultation in Girton, Newnham, and Holloway over the self-inflicted defeat of so doughty an assailant as Mrs. Lynn Linton.

Viewed exclusively in the light of its title, Mr. Christie Murray's In Direst Peril is not by any means so blood- curdling as it ought to be, and irreverent and slangy youthful readers may be tempted to describe it as a " sell." The hero never wrestles at the edge of a precipice with a scoundrel who is double his weight ; he is never in a burning house with a hundred-weight of gunpowder in the cellar ; nor is he con- demned to torture and death by a tribunal of bloodthirsty savages. There is probably not a single boys' book of last Christmas which is not richer in the special element of interest indicated by the word "peril ; " and therefore a severe critic might accuse Mr. Christie Murray of appealing to lovers of excitement on false pretences. If, however, he be technically guilty, he is morally free ; for In Direst Peril is

a by no means bad or even unexciting story of its own melo- dramatic kind. It is a little loose in construction here and there, and the villains of the story are rather given to acting in a somewhat incredible and inexplicable manner; but the

narrative keeps our curiosity and interest well awake, and in a book of this kind that is really the main matter, to which

the refinements of art are more or less subsidiary. John Fyffe, the hero, is a modest, loyal, and courageous soldier, who falls in love at first sight with Violet Rossano) daughter of an Italian patriot, who has been languishing for twenty years in an Austrian dungeon. Fyffe deter- mines to rescue him, and the story of this achievement, which nearly fills the first volume, is, we think, the best part of the book. The two remaining volumes are devoted to the schemes of Rossano and his fellow patriots in London for freeing their country, and the machinations of the spies and traitors by whom they are threatened, among the latter being the son of an English Peer, who plays with considerable woodenness a part which seems to us as unnatural as it is discreditable. Still, he helps the story along, which is really all that is wanted, and a little melodrama, like a little nonsense, "now and then, is relished by the wisest men."

A Heart's Revenge is a novel of which one certainly cannot say that it would have been better if the author had taken more pains with it. Conscientious carefulness is indeed manifest on each page, and Miss Tottenham is to be com- mended for clear recognition of artistic responsibility. Some- thing more, however, than carefulness is needed for the achievement of complete success, and of such achieve- ment the book, good as it is, seems to us to fall somewhat short. By far the most important character is,. indeed, to say the least, a comparative failure. Edward Vernon, country gentleman and politician, is evidently in- tended to be one of those people in whom an inner nature that is admirable and even lovable is overlaid by a crust of pride, hardness, reserve, and cynicism, by which it is effectually hidden from all but the seeing few. Such characters un- doubtedly exist, though they are more common in fiction than in life; but in Edward Vernon the crust is so thick and so opaque that we see nothing else. He drives his wife, whom his coldness has tempted to folly, to the arms of a lover ; he turns his son out of doors to meet certain penury and possible starvation because the young man insists on choosing his own profession. He is, in short, about as ill-con- ditioned a person as he well could be ; yet we are assured by a multitude of hints that there is something in him entirely dif- ferent from all this. Two characters in the story, one a woman, the other a man, profess to see this something; but as what they see is from first to last invisible to the reader, their vision is a thing of no practical consequence. We might say truly that, apart from Vernon, A Heart's Revenge is by no means a bad novel ; only this would be equivalent to saying that Hamlet would be a good play if the Prince of Denmark were taken out of it. Vernon spoils the book, simply because he is intended to make it ; and the failure of a part is really the failure of the whole. This is a pity, for the mere writing in A Heart's Revenge is decidedly good.

Though we see from Mr. Percy Hulburd's title-page that The Romance of Shere Mote is not his first work, we confess that his name is new to us ; and we shall be glad to know more of him. His latest book is not in all respects satis- factory, but it manifests real ability, and it is a book of a rather unusual kind, for it is a structure of considerable in- tellectual interest, built upon a foundation of melodrama. This fact, perhaps, accounts for the principal weakness of the book, which may be defined as a want of congruity or homo- geneity. The mad Lusteds of Shere Mote, with the gruesome traditions of their family and dwelling-place, belong to the past and to the world of romance ; Mr. Strand, the contractor, and his immediate surroundings belong to the present and to the world of familiar prose ; and Mr. Hulburd is not very successful in amalgamating these discordant materials in such wise as to give to his story a unity of imaginative effect. It is a thing of shreds and patches, and a novel of which this can be said lacks something which it ought not to lack. Still, though the book as a whole is deficient in form and "composition," some of the situations are undoubtedly strong, even when they are wanting in that convincing quality which gives to imaginative work its full effectiveness. John Lusted is certainly a striking figure, and it is hardly worth while to ask whether he is a wholly credible figure; because it is exceedingly difficult to say what is or what is not credible with regard to a man who is neither quite mad nor quite sane. Perhaps the most important question concerning a novel is, whether it is in- teresting; and with regard to The Romance of Shere Mote, this question must be answered in the affirmative. dome things, too, are most admirably and epigrammatically put, as when,

for example, Ancilla quotes from Lord Akehurst " He had just said you would be a great man because you worked at your thoughts, instead of thinking of your works." Mr. Hulburd also works at his thoughts; and he has in him the making of a good workman.

Of Mr. Eden Philpotts it may be said that he is a good workman not in the making, but already made. Some Every- Day Folks is, in its unpretentious way, a veritable master- piece, displaying an intimacy of observation, and an ability to turn to artistic ends " the harvest of a quiet eye," which is little, if at all, short of genius. In the absence of space for the detailed comment and illustrative quotation that would alone do adequate justice to Mr. Philpotts' admirable work, we may briefly describe the book as a contemporary Cranford. The thread of continuous narrative which runs through the work, and gives it unity of form as well as of feeling and handling, is somewhat stronger than the similar thread in Mrs. Gaskell's delightful performance—that is, the new book is more of a story than was its predecessor—but in both the main charm lies in the delicately lifelike and humorous delinea- tion of life in one of those semi-urban, semi-rural communities, where there is room for even comparatively commonplace character to display its latent individuality. The two feminine busybodies,—the autocratic Mrs. Meadows who rules from the vicarage, and the energetic spinster Miss Minnifie,— would in themselves suffice to give quality to an otherwise ordinary book; but here they are only a couple of figures in a group every member of which has his or her special charm of portraiture. The obvious satirical touch is a good deal more frequent in Some Every-Day Folks than in Cranford, but its mordancy is tempered by the most genial humour; and there are at least a dozen isolated scenes which a humourist of acknowledged rank need not be ashamed to father. Few novels of the season have more of the character of pare enjoyableness.

We cannot think that The White Aigrette is a good title, for it neither explains itself nor excites curiosity concerning its explanation. It may be well, therefore, to say at once that it refers to the badge of a crack cavalry regiment, and that the book is a novel of society and soldiering, very much after the manner of the clever writer who calls herself " John Strange Winter." The story is conventional enough, but it is told with a vivacity which makes it very readable. Captain Fortescne and Captain Brown of the Aigrettes are both in love with Daisy Gardiner, the pretty daughter and heiress of the great financier. As Fortescne has wasted his substance in a somewhat disreputable past, and as Brown has not only a large fortune but an irreproachable character, it is needless to say that Daisy prefers the former, and we know that there are rocks ahead. The course of true love would, however, bave ran tolerably smoothly, had not Mr. Gardiner become bankrupt and been arrested on a charge of fraud while Fortescne is away with his regiment in Egypt. This gives Captain Brown a welcome opportunity for acting as guardian angel to the family in general, and to the beloved Daisy in particular, of which he takes the fullest advantage, acting throughout as the selfless Bayard or Major Dobbin of the story, which finally comes to a satisfactory ending for every one but him. Brown is certainly a much too close reproduction of Thackeray's lovable hero, but we can do with another Dobbin, though we could not have stood a second Amelia Sedley ; and happily, the brave high-spirited Daisy is quite another sort of girl. The kind of novel represented by The White Aigrette is ordinary enough, but the book is a very creditable example of it.

There is nothing ordinary in The Standishs (which surely ought to be Standishes) of High Acre,—a book that is to the average novel what an exceptionally frightful nightmare is to -a commonplace dream. Now and then there is in its pages a suggestion of the more eerie parts of The House of the Seven 'Gables; more frequently we are reminded of Wuthering Heights; but in the matter of horrors Mr. Sheldon has a sufficiently fertile invention of his own, and has no need to be beholden to any predecessor. The principal persons in the story are the last survivors of a West-country family, who for many generations have begun by being bad and ended by being mad, the details of the badness and the madness being creepy enough to satisfy the most ardent lover of what is ghastly and blood-curdling. One of the family in his last days imagines himself to be the devil, going

about seeking whom he may devour, and wanders naked through the woods on all fours; another cats the throat of the wife to whom he is devotedly attached, and then flings him- self from the roof of the house. These peculiarities tend to repeat themselves in alternate generations; the grandson of Nanfan Standish also believes himself to be the enemy of mankind ; and the hero of the book, in his struggle against the temptation of his wife-murdering grandsire, flies from his house and is smothered in a morass. The story has a certain lurid effectiveness ; but it can be enjoyed only by connoisseurs of the horrible. Happily, there are only two volumes of it. They will, however, be more than enough for nervous readers.

It is interesting to watch the literature which is coming over to us from Australia, a portion of which is full of promise, but we may safely say that of all the novels that have been laid before readers in this country, Dave's Sweetheart, in a literary point of view, and as a finished production, takes a higher place than any that has yet appeared. We understand that the author has never quitted her native country, and she possesses an exceptional power of reproducing the local colouring. But it is clear at the same time that the human element is her main object, and that the touches of descrip- tion are introduced briefly, merely to heighten the effect of some powerful scene. There is considerable art in the treat- ment of the story, and from the opening scene in the tin store at Deadmau's Flat, to the closing page, we have no hesitation in predicting that not a word will be skipped even by the most blasti of novel-readers. The characters possess the vivid- ness naturally due to those isolated situations where every man and woman is of the highest importance to the people around them, and where the effect of their words and actions are quite out of proportion to the weight they would bear in more civilised and organised communities. The history of the life of the heroine, Jenny, in the police camp, her callous indiffer- ence to the sufferings she inflicts, and her absorption in her heartless lover, are touched with singular delicacy; while the character of her stepmother, a woman of great brilliance and force, is almost pathetic from her helplessness to cure the evils against which she is struggling. It would not be fair to dis- close the story by commenting on the powerful scene of Dave's flight at the end, so we close our remarks with the hope that before long we may have another story from the same pen.