Great liareseld. (Edmonston and Douglas.)-1 novel by an un- known
writer, who will probably be heard of again, who apparently knows Germany almost as well as England, can describe well in sharp, incisive, simple sentences, and could, if he would take trouble and space, create characters. As it is, he exaggerates both characters and incidents rather by compression than want of invention till he has almost spoilt a book full of bright descriptions, sometimes so short as almost to be epigrammatic, like this :—" Lady O'Donnel's eyes and lips were full of passion, feeling, and tenderness, of which she was absolutely unconscious, and which had no co-relatives at all in her kindly but somewhat shallow little nature." The story is of an ordinary kind, principally made up of the adventures of a young lady who is forced at seventeen, after she has been engaged, to accept the protection of three aunts, who treat her like a child, tell her what frocks to wear, and when she is traduced believe her enemies. By far the best thing in the book is the sketch of the Hungarian Countess Zriny, who wants a new system of society, and meanwhile remarks, "A domestic woman is a woman who thinks of her dinner, which is very stupid ; of dinner every day and all day, which is being always the same ; and whose gowns never fit, which is being unbeantiful." There is, however, very little of her, or indeed of any one else, Great Harefield being rather a clever sketch of a possible novel, than a novel itself.
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