New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-08-03
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
SOME RFCFNT NOVELS.

BTRETTON. A Novel By Henry kIHG = II,;, " "
RavenshOe" etc, etc. Leypoi"l " iiO''' 49,,
THE DFAD GUEST A MYSTERIOUS STORY BY HEN
rich ZsCHoKKE. Translated from me GeI y r Oy
George o. MacWhorter, H. a. ID. Appleton q 20
THE UAHFR.MFIsTER A TALE OF THE BARAGIAN
mann schmid Leypoldt Holt
WATERLOO A SEQUEL TO THE CoNsCRIFr ErcAnanH
Chatrain. Charles ScilOner ~ 20 ,,
THE sACRISTANS HOUSEHOLD. a SrORf, Oh ~ y
DrTHOLD BY the author OF " NADER sr 4 w.
etc etc With illustrations. Harper bIO'hoi''
IEONORA CAsALONI; or, THE MABRlAGEEc en-
ete, etc Philadelphia: T. b. Peterson q Dio'"'i''
os .I.oso seven novels only one is an American
story by an American author. II IS the sin"neSV u
en- sven little book in plain leather-colored paper
covers lint elegant withal, in white paper, DIOau-
sroced lines and honest black type 1t Is apleaSuIe
10 sav that It is q clever story. MI DAVIS We Do-
lieve has written little except few magazine papers,
hnt tbo hand that wrote the Stranded Ship need
not withhold itself from fiction. The scenels lana III
familiar places-BostOn, and the gold Mines ana
Nev-Jersey sand-stTetches. The persons III Whoin
we take an interest familiar persons-college
bows. a grave professor, bOatmen, ana q rose oi d
Ncw-England giIl, Of an order almost as coinilUn
thank Heaven, as the blossoms 1t is akin TO- Inc
elements of action are familiar, too; cruelty, mean
ness revenge remorse recklessness, despair, purity
divine self-sacrfce and courage. But out OF these
comes a noble and tender story. Good Things
seem worth more after reading It, ana Dau
things seem more cheat. 1t is sKlliIuI'
too It keeps its secret as life does trained mover
reader catches the scent of the mystery OF ms tale as
the hound detects the game. 1t is no mystery 10
him. The cunningest nvOlutiOn Is as the nose on MS
face for plainness. But confess that we did not
recognize the pennant of the stranded Ship TIL the
fitting moment arrived And now, if Mr.. Davis
what with the law and the magazines, contnves
onnortnuity for a second story of more pages ana
more ambition, he has given us the right to expect
something very good, and to condemn without
mercy anything bad.
-"Stretton" is story of college youth too of quiet
country life, of India, of cOurse-fOr what English
Muscular novel is complete without India-and OF
final felicity the unnecessary fellows being remcm-
bered at the proper moment by pale Death, and the
more interesting ones coming out unscathed OF dan
ger to rosy content and easy competence But these
students roar through the book like whlTlWlnu'
That they are born with their fists doubled up they
take as sign that they to 60 through life III the
same pugnacious attitude They are manly to the
last degree They are expressly called so, and they
think themselves so, and the reader is OVERCOME
with a sense that they are Then IN con-
templatiye mood, he analyses their manly
sum, and he finds it to consist Of muscle,
unhnching courage. a logged determination to have
ones own way the fighting instinct of Fire Zouave,
and politeness to pretty woman. This Is the
young Englishpan of worth and BIRTH the Eng
lishman who lives in a Castle and shoots over many
entailed acres, and has seat in Parliament Tie
women, we know. Aunt Eleanore is strong-minded,
and able-bodied of better strain than the men be-
cause capable of sublime unselfshness, but coarse
for all that. The others are not worth much. The
book is Charles Reade-ish, in certain tendency to
epiRram to ierbness to the theatrical, in situation
and expression And it is not the better for It, 10
be Charles Reade is to be the most audaciOus, bril-
liant amusing, exciting of scTibes-but to be Ike
Charles Reade-there be people, and people The
Kingseys do not write dull books, nor silly books
There Is variety, action, struggle, rude common
sense brightness which is almost brilhancy, from
initial letter to final period. They have real love
of nature too the love of the naturalist rather than
of the poet perhaps, with responsiveness of mood
which belongs to the poetic temperament But
there is an underlying cOarseness too. 1t came out
In the Eyre business 1t comes out in a certain I'M
consciousness of the finer of life. 1t comes out
IN the heroes inevitably and in the heroines not in
frequently. And one loses patience that men who
see so much in life and character fail TO much
more For all that, SIettOn is very interesting
novel and Hstess people at the seaside and the
Springs will lose their lstlessness for morning
or two, if they invite themselves to its forcible
pages
Just why, nowadays, such library Of German
novels translated into English and Of English novels
whose scene islad in Germany, should be offered us
it is not easy to tell 1t is not many years since Car
lyle introduced Goethe to English readers, and now
we are likely to know the social life of Germany in
palace aud hut in city and hamlet as Familiarity as
we know that Of England. Perhaps the PTussian
war or the marriage of the Princess Victoria
minded her subjects that tbele was an almost I'M
known nationality over the narrow sea. Perhaps
the appalling fecundity of Mrs Muhlbach disclosed
new mines TO the exhausted novelist However it
be- for the last year or two of making German story
books there has been no end and much more study
ing of them will be WEAKNESS Of the flesh. II
is pleasant change however. We have long drawn
the lees Of English life, and hardly more than
the scum has yet risen in the decantng Of
our own rich, unTipe wine. We read
French novels and French plays, and know some
thing Of French society. But we don't read much
German, though in Cincinnati and Milwaukee we
speak horrible patOis, which we are pleased to mis-
pronounce in the of that strong tongue Board
ingschool girls do not catch pretty phrases in their
little nets Of memory like the butterflies of French
conversation which they impale, and they shudder
away from the rugged alphabet, and the ruggeder
grammar So, on the whole, most Of US know rather
less ofthe Germany of today than the ndefatigable
gentleman who, having labored through Ollendorff.
landed at Bremen, convinced that he spoke German
like "demd native" and was astOnished that no.
body asked him in carefully divided syllables
"Haye you seen the bell of the brown COW Of the
sister of my grandfather l"-to which he was pre-
pared TO reply, in equally symmetrical German, 81
have not seen the bell of the brown COW of the sister
Of your grandfather but have the silver pen
ccase of the daughter of the notary of your fatheT
but who finding that neither brown COWS pencil
cases the staple of conversation and unable to
conjecture in what unknown tongue, of what un-
I'LL 4TI-.