An Every-Day Heroine. By Albert D. Vandam. 3 vols. (Bentley.)
—This story is founded, wo learn from the title-page, on " Anne Rose, a Domestic Story, from the Dutch of J. J. Cremes." We did not find it at all easy to read this novel, though something seemed still to lure us on, with a promise of something better that was never quite fulfilled. The plot is obscure, and scarcely, it would scorn, worth the trouble of un- ravelling; the incidents are few and common-place; the progress of the action slow. Yet there is, we feel, something in the book. The foreign scenery gives it et certain freshness and novelty. More than this, the personages whom it introduces seem to live, more especially those that are more simply drawn. Tho wicked uncle, for instance, is a mys- terious and troublesomo villain, who wearies us, but Dominie Havekirk, the parish minister, is much superior, manifestly a very life-liko picture indeed. What a happy touch, for instance, it is when he goes into the fair, in company with the Baron, the great man of the place, " dignified, erect, proud to be seen in such aristocratic company, but suave withal, feeling himself an insulated figure in such a scone, the middleman between it and God."
Previous page
