CURRENT LITERATURE.
With the February number for the present year, the ever-green Chananrs's Journal commences a new and promising volume. Mr. Grant Allen begins what seems likely- to be one of the most ambitions of his stories, although we confess that the literary Bohemia, which figures in his first chapter, is not worth spending ten minutes in. Mr. Manville Fenn contributes a novelette in his well-known vein, "The Golden Incubus," which is readable enough, although for a chapter or two it drags remarkably for its author. The special
reputation of Chambers's Journal still depends, however, upon its out-of-the-way articles, the like of which are not to be found in any other magazine. Of such there is a greater number than usual in the February part; and we may note as being especially worth reading, "Rumours of a Government Office," "Slight Circum- stances," and "Odd Actors." In more than one of these papers, a Lamb-like humour plays prettily on statistics.
We are disappointed with Belgravia for February. Its conductors seem to have resolved to supply the public with little but stories, and some of these are fearfully, exasperatingly, and not spontaneously funny,—like " The Great Cryptogram of Mr. Orlando Tappleby "and "Miss Massareene's Ghost." A fishing misadventure at Dawlish, humorously told, is worth all the rest of the magazine.
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