Married Beneath Him. By the Author of Lost Sir Massingberd.
(Macmillan.)—Clear and pleasant writing, many characters all indi- vidual, a good plot,—these things make up of course a good average novel. That this one is not above the average seems duo as much to carelessness as to want of power. The descriptions, at first very good, falls off towards the middle of the third volume till the great scene, an accusation of murder baffled by manufactured evidence of insanity, reads like a caricature. John Meyrick, the half-bred brutal squire, is, though well conceived, painted in with too broad a brush, the heroine is a pious lay figure, and the character of the hero, Frederick Galton, clearly visible in the first volume, becomes dim in the second, and dis- appears altogether in the third. A little more pains and this writer would probably produce a good story, but in this instance we must class his work as a regular library novel.
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