Under the Red Dragon. By James Grant. 3 vols. (Tinsley.)—We
are inclined to think that there is very little good in criticising Mr. Grant. Moat novel-readers are acquainted with so veteran a writer, and, if they happen to like his subject, will be content to put up with his faults for the sake of the dashing story which he knows how to tell. And it is idle to suppose that a gentleman who has written snore novels than the average critic has counted years will be disposed to take advice and alter his ways. Let it suffice, then, to briefly describe Under the Red Dragon. There is a hero, a gallant young officer of the 23rd Welsh Fusiliers, and hence the title. Him we find at a country house, where, as is usual in these cases, a complicated love affair is car- ried on, a very good young lady being in love with the hero, and he being, of course, in love with some one not so good. Then comes the villain on the stage, a very poor villain, let us remark, by the way, who makes the usual mischief. Finally the hero is jilted and goes off to the Crimea. Then Mr. Grant's proper business, so to speak, begins. The siege, the sorties, the scenes in the trenches, the Russian attack at Inkerman, the storm of the Malakoff, and the attempt on the Redan, these, with all the details of camp life, as camp life was in the Crimea, are described with a practised pen. Lest his readers, however, should weary of powder, Mr. Grant goes out of his way to involve his unfortunate hero in a third love affair, this time with a Russian lady of transcendent beauty. Meanwhile one of tho two first-mentioned has married a sexa- genarian peer, the villain is satisfactorily disposed of by a Cossack's lance, and all ends well, the hero being left mimes an arm and plus a wife.
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