It has been hinted that Henry Greville is the nom de plume of a French lady who lived for some time in Russia. The sex of the writer may be readily judged from the book itself, which is decidedly feminine both in plot and in dialogue. Its sketches of Russian society are in a measure very neutral in color; and as to the two facts that peculation is very active in Russian official circles, and that extravagance is very common among the “crack” regiments at St. Petersburg, these are so very well known that the story, if written to exhibit such phases of society, is superfluous, as that information could better be obtained by reading some standard work of travels in Russia. As a novel it is trifling and flimsy, and the authoress cannot compare with Daudet either in dramatic force or beauty of diction. The plot is feeble, but the dialogue is often amusing and the situations on certain occasions not wanting in interest.
A Saint in Algeria. By Lady Herbert. (Reprinted from the Month.) London: Burns & Oates. 1878.
A Saint in Algeria is the record of one of those lives ever living in the bosom of the church of God—a link in the vast unbroken chain of saints binding through all the centuries the church suffering on earth with the church triumphant in heaven.
We recommend this little memoir of Margaret Bergésio (better known as Agarithe Berger) to those who look on the past ages only as the days of faith and of a charity that faileth not. In the life of this pure mountain blossom of Piedmont, transplanted to the thick atmosphere of Lyons and finally finding its perfection among the hills of Algeria, these mournful souls may, in the midst of the seeming decay they weep, find consolation in a new name added to a saintly list that in future years may make some Kenelm Digby sigh for the earnest and active faith of the church in the nineteenth century.
And the devoted Agarithe has found in Lady Herbert a loving biographer, who writes with a fervor and simplicity worthy of the high humility of the holy heroine.
Legends of Holy Mary. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1878.
As we read the preface to this little book we feel our weapons of criticism trembling in their sheath, since, should we use them, we find ourselves well-nigh denied any seat in that kingdom whereof Holy Mary is queen; while our critic’s spoils lie out of our reach safe in her hands amid whose lilies, as once wrote St. Bernard, our earthly offerings lose their stain and wear only the whiteness of the heavenly bloom.
The writer of the present volume has gathered from ancient gardens, in the devotional spirit of old-time minnesinger, a nosegay of legends breathing the pervading presence of her who is the “mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope,” the ever-merciful mother of the poor children of Eve.
Few can fail to gather some sweetness from such a nosegay—one that among its blossoms counts that fair one of Provence whose perfect perfume fills one of Adelaide Procter’s most perfect poems teaching the completeness of the mercy of God:
“Only Heaven