Rich and Rare. By Lucius O'B. Blake. 2 vols. (Newby.)—This
" Tale of Anglo-Italian Life " is unequal in quality. Some of the cha- racters are drawn naturally and truthfully ; here and there we are met by caricature. Such is Mrs. Laurence, not impossible, perhaps, in her hideous boldness and selffilines ; but producing the effect of the impos- sible because the reader is never permitted to see her, as a great artist would have permitted him to see her, at a time when these qualities are not actively displayed. Agatina, the Italian heroine, on the other hand, is a graceful drawing, for which Mr. Blake deserves great credit. The story is not a pleasant one, and pleases the less because it might have been made, at all events, less disagreeable without much difficulty. The course of love must, we know, be obstructed ; but we should have pre- ferred something less terrible than the intrigue which marries the
heroine to a heartless villain of a husband, and the murder which gets rid of the incumbrance when the time has come for bringing things smoothly to an end.
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