7 MAY 1887, Page 23

The Young Marquise. By " Maths." (Swan Sonnensehein and Co.)—A

somewhat powerful and very painful story of French life, in which the mariage de convenance has a prominent part. Such marriages are not unknown among us, but the conditions of life are different. This diminishes the didactic value of the book ; purpose of pleasing, surely one of the great objects of fiction, it can scarcely be said even to aim at. It is a book which is too obviously well intentioned, apart from its literary merit, to deserve censure, and yet not one of a kind which we care to recommend.