The story is a very pleasant and a very wholesome one. We trust that Miss Parr will again present to us pictures of Quaker interiors, with which she is so well acquainted. In them her strength lies.
On the Eve: A Tale by Ivan S. Tourguéneff. Translated from the Russian by C. E. Turner, English Lecturer in the University of St. Petersburg. Hodder and Stoughton.
Rather more than a couple of years ago (British Quarterly, Oct., 1869) we directed the attention of English readers to the novels of Tourguéneff, in an article in which a detailed account of 'On the Eve' was given. We need not, therefore, do more than refer our readers to what we then said about this very charming little story, which paints Russian life from the interior with the hand not only of skill, but of genius. Its social freedom surprises us, and its indications of easy social vices startle us. Ellen, the heroine, is a very beautiful creature. The translation reads smoothly and brightly. Mr. Turner seems to have done his work well. We are glad to possess this work of a great artist in an English dress.
Marquis and Merchant. By Mortimer Collins. Three vols. Hurst and Blackett.
Mr. Collins in this new novel has aimed to portray two of the great social classes that constitute England, and the two that are, perhaps, in more active rivalry, if not antagonism, than any other, and to show that the prejudice is not chiefly with the higher. The Marquis of Wraysbury, whose hereditary seat is at Ashbridge, is a favourable representative of what we are proud to designate our noble aristocracy. Wealthy, generous, liberal, frank, gentlemanly, he is the beau ideal of his class. His son, Lord Waynflete, the hero of the story, is the inheritor of his father's virtues, with a freedom from class conventionalities which is his own, and which permits him, as quite a thing of course, to marry a poor governess.
Mr. Mowbray, who buys an estate at Ashbridge and builds there a splendid mansion overpowering in magnitude, luxury, and appendages of garden, conservatory, &c., and which quite dwarfs the more modest belongings of Ashbridge Manor, is a Manchester millionaire; also a favourable representative of his class—keen, clever, generous, but with some drawbacks of class prejudice and obstinacy, which Mr. Collins paints with an evident gusto. He is the rival of the Marquis in spite of the latter; and the story is made up not unpleasantly of the history of their rivalries, with the issue thereof. Much of the subsidiary delineation is very good. The interiors at Ashbridge Manor, at Mowbray Mansion, at the Orphan Institute, at Mrs. Gutch's, and at delicious Wyvern Grange, are cleverly sketched, in these well-selected contrasts. The subordinate characters; that clever woman, Miss Pinnock, great in Johnsonese; the Bohemian lawyer, Terrell; the learned, gentlemanly recluse, Métivier, full of gipsy and all other lore; and a dozen others, are also admirably delineated. The novel is deficient as a work of art, but only a very clever and accomplished man could have written it. It is somewhat Bohemian in itself, and has an unpleasant vinous flavour—allusions, characterizations, or eulogies on wines occurring perpetually, as if the chief good of man were to have a good wine-cellar and to be a connoisseur of good vintages. The book is, moreover, an odd mélange of all conceivable things; one chapter is devoted to a criticism on Tennyson, another to a criticism on Dickens; verses apropos of everything and nothing abound. Mr. Collins has a marvellous Ingoldsby facility for running off rhymes, and when prose fails him or wearies him, he takes to verse. A diagram of a game of chess, an algebraic equation, and no end of classical quotations, are kneaded like currants into the dough of Mr. Collins's cookery. Not only has he been at a feast of languages, and stolen the scraps, he has evidently carved the dishes for himself. The story is, as we have said, not so well constructed as it might be. It is not always in good taste; it rumbles and rollicks along; but it is very clever and very amusing. It is less melodramatic than Mr. Collins usually is, and is, we think, the best book he has written.
The Green-Eyed Monster. By Kay Spen. Smith, Elder, and Co.
The title of this little book indicates its character. Hugh Barrington falls in love in a railway carriage with Adela Gwynne, a blue-eyed Welsh girl, and marries her. She is of a preposterously jealous disposition, and perversely interprets countless little incidents as justifying her jealousy. The story details the working out of these feelings and their disastrous issues, and the ability of the writer is shown in her psychological knowledge and skill. It is in this point of view very clever. Of course incidents occur with preternatural consentaneousness, and people act and feel in a very infatuated way, setting common sense at defiance, else how would novels get written? But Kay Spen has managed her materials well, and has written an interesting story with a very wholesome moral.
Jasmine Leigh. By C. C. Fraser-Tytler. Strahan and Co.
This is a very dainty little story. It is written in an autobiographical form, and narrates the history of a young girl blossoming into womanhood and love, who is abducted by a rough and sordid wooer, whom, nevertheless, she learns to pity, if not to love. It is written with a delicate touch, and is full of graceful and refined feeling. If, as we surmise, it is a first work, it is full of promise.