Cloth of Frieze. By Lady Wood. 3 vols. (Chapman and
Hall.)-. Lady Wood's novel is, at all events, harmless and unobjectionable. We may go further, and say that it is readable ; nay, more, that it contains one character which really interests us. Percy, the taciturn sailor, with his strong affections and unswerving loyalty, is well drawn, only it seems a pity that Lady Wood has thought it necessary to put some gold lace on her "cloth of frieze," by inventing at the end of her tale a re- lationship which certainly does not strike any one as probable, and so gilding her hero's humble garb with we know not how many thousands a year. Why cannot the novelists be content to let their heroes and heroines be happy without their great riches? Percy is a post-captain and a C.B., with plenty of prize-money, and he and the heroine are quite well enough off without the mysterious relative who writes, "DEA.R Sia,—When, many months ago, you spent an evening with meat Aberhill, you were unconscious that your companion was your great-uncle." We do not in the least believe that he was his great-uncle ; besides, Lady Wood might have avoided making this "enormous demand upon our faith,"—and we will tell her how. Ella, the heroine, was entitled to dower from her husband's estate, unless dower was especially barred. But it was not barred, for there was no settlement. So she might have gone with a handsome portion to her second husband, instead of making necessary this " great-nephew " fiction.
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