His Wife. By Mrs. C. J. Newby. 8 vols. (Samuel
Tinsley.)— This is as good a novel as any that we have seen before from Mrs. Newby's pen. The plot, if it contains nothing absolutely new, is constructed with considerable ingenuity. The incident of a man courting his own wife is a good foundation for a story ; the difficulty is to bring about the situation, without involving either hero or heroine in what is either grotesque, incredible, or discreditable. This difficulty Mrs. Newby overcomes. Dora ewes her life to Sir Henry Staunton, and when, overreached and deceived by his betrothed, and the false cousin, who will benefit by his disappointment (for he loses his estate unless he marries before his twenty-fifth birthday), he asks of her the sacrifice that is to save him from poverty, the demand may be conceded as among the probabilities of fiction. It is a figure of speech, indeed, to speak of the loss of an estate as beggary, especially as Sir Henry had the reversion of another in prospect.. But the selfishness of the demand is skilfully softened by the writer, while Dora's self-sacrifice is an easily imaginable act of gratitude, and her self-respect is saved by the condition on which she makes it. All this is very well done. At the same time, the minor characters are cleverly drawn, especially the rector, a figure not essential to the development of the story, but one by which it is certainly im- proved. Mrs. Newby makes her dialogue easy and spirited, and is quite capable of making her characters talk, on occasion, with good- sense, and even eloquence.
Previous page
