Young Life; its Chances and Changes. By the author of
"Hidden Links." Two volumes. (Skeet.)—This is a very fairly readable novel, as novels go. It is not one of those works which, when once taken up, cannot be laid down unfinished, nor does it irresistibly excite a senti- • ment of admiration for its author's powers; but it may safely be relied upon to while away an idle hour in a tolerably satisfactory manner. The plot is, perhaps, the weakest part of the book, many of its incidents being of too melodramatic a nature to be quite natural. It is scarcely possible to resist a passing feeling of distrust of a novel which opens with a young nobleman stealing from his mansion at the West End on a stormy night, and, muffled in a huge cloak, proceeding to a house in a less aristocratic part of the town, and being then and there married, by special licence, to a clergyman's daughter. The story is, on the whole, pretty well told, barring an occasional tendency to fine writing, against which our author will do well to be especially on his guard for the future. Quite the best things in the book are a few sketches of the lower orders in the northern counties, which bear unmistakable marks of considerable closeness of observation, and some humour. On the whole, the author of "Young Life " may very fairly be congratulated on the result of his labours.
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