The Press.
London, England, 1856-10-04 00:00:00

NEW NOVELS.

THE appetite of novel-readers is insatiable, and to
meet the ever recurring demand several fictions have
lately appeared. As, however, we do not observe
among them any of much mark or originality, a brief
notice of those on our table will suffice.

The authoress of "Charles Auchester" and "My
First Season" has failed to correct or restrain that
tendency to extravagance which was visible in her
first, but by far her ablest, book. It has run wild
in The Double Coronet.* Flashes of cleverness are
not sufficient to redeem its rhetorical absurdities.
To describe the story would be to expose it to ridi-
cule. The authoress is wasting her gifts. She will
find speedily, if she has not done so already, that no
amount of mental energy will atone for the absence
of mental discipline. However wide the limits we
may allow to romance, the extravagance of this story
exceeds them. It inclines to rant, a tault always
fatal to the fiction pretending to portray society of
the day.
The tale by Dr. Owgan,+ a name new to us, shows
thought and talent but wants tact. It is a narrative,
and the narrator is the hero of his own story—a most
sensitive, high-spirited gentleman, who throughout
his varied adventures contrives to bear on his
shoulders an accumulated load of woe. In the course
of his career he becomes the head of a school,
and at an evening party he is asked to dance.
His reply is a key to the tone in which the book is
written :

"Me 1 Mrs. Wilson? of course not. Why should
dance? To wreathe an iron chain with flowers would be
t io bitter a mockery."
The merits of the story are its movement, its viva-
cious sketches of character, and its masculine style ;
but we get somewhat tired of the misanthropy of the
hero, and of his iron chain "—misanthropy the less
excusable as the story ends happily, the author re-
ceiving f. handsome Government appointment, and a
beautiful intellectual girl, sick for his love, recovering
when he visits her to assure her that her devotion is
not unreturned. The author promises us three
volumes more on the same theme should he receive
encouragement. In that case let him by all means
relieve his hero from his "iron chain," and make
him talk and act more like a rational being. Three
more volumes of raving egotism would be intolerable.
Old Memories: is a domestic story, written in a
somewhat old-fashioned manner, but touched with
pathos, and not lacking the constructive skill neces-
saryto weave a readable tale. It is free from pre-
tension, and we think is of " the harmless and
blameless" sentimental kind which seems to find
favour with the circulating libraries of provincial
wns.

Tender and True,; by the author of "Clara Mor-
rison," is a tale of superior class, and,though at first
intending to include it among these notices, we shall
reserve it for separate criticism.

• The Double Coronet. Hy the Author of Charles Auches-
ter." Two Vols. London: Newby.
+ Out in the World. By Dr. Owgan. Three Vols. London:
Hurst and Bleekett
1 Old Memories. By June Melville. Three Vols. London
Newby.
Tender and True. By the Author of " Clara Morrison."
Two Vols. London: Smith and Elder.

THE PRESS.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.—Ocr. 2.
EOOKS.

Poems of Pail Years. Sir Arthur H. Elton, Bart,

Smith and Elder
Father Daey. Parlour Library. Hodgson
Margaret Graham. Do. Ditto
The War. W. H. Russell. Routledge
Health and Beauty. Darton and Co
The Dramatic Works of William SliakespPare.
Bell and Daldy
Tender and True. Smith and Elder
Works of the Rev. Thomas D.D. Blackwoods