8 APRIL 1893, Page 25

The April number of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine is rather weighted

with Mr. George Alfred Townsend's ambitious but heavy and long-drawn-out romance of " Columbus in Love." Although the historical draperies in it are irreproachable, and although it contains some powerful passages, it is really much ado about nothing. Beatrix, Columbus's wife, is rather a quivering mass of self-consciousness than a heroine. Much more enjoyable is Miss Annie Flint's "Abraham's Mother," which is quite modern and realistic. The marriage with which it opens is not very easily conceivable, it is true, but the unmasking of the poor tippler and his devices is irresistibly comic. Mr. Edgar Saltus writes a roundabout and eulogistic paper on Sappho, but there is far more of Swinburne than of Sappho in it.