The Hawkshawes. A novel. 2 vols. By M. A. Bird.
(John Max- well and Co.)—t . novel written apparently in imitation of Mrs. Rad- cliffe is not often met with in these days, and if such a work appears the author seldom ventures to lay the scenes in England, and to choose the period of the Crimean war. Poisons which leave no trace in the bodies of the victims—murders—ghosts which turn out to be no ghosts —banshees which are real banshees—gipsy wives of great squires who ran away from their husbands with an only son and bring him np without any education whatever out of revenge—that son found by the father "among the hills," and recognized at once for his heir in con- sequence of a strawberry mark on his right arm—these incidents, and others yet more wonderful, together with secret passages innumerable, hardly harmonize with the nineteenth century. Otherwise this is not greater rubbish than many other novels in which the events are of a more common-place kind.
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