The Master of Wingbourne. A novel. 2 vols. (Newby.)—There is
a good deal of commendable home-painting of a slightly eccentric character in these two volumes. We are introduced to a house in North Wales, which is evidently under a clond. It is inhabited by a young lady with an apathetic father and a good-natured but headstrong boor of a cousin, to whom she is engaged for family reasons. Another cousin in the neighbourhood, of superior intellect but inferior morale, is also in love with the lady, and in the prosecution of his designs upon her brings about what evil is necessary. Ho gets rid of his boorish rival by means which we must not divulge, and then finds himself confronted by a more formidable competitor, who has dropped in on an accidental visit. Hitherto the story has ran naturally enough through quiet home scenes, the per- sonages above mentioned are fairlylife-like, and their relations not unskil- fully managed. But now the author's invention rather fails him, and, to give the evil agency the due temporary triumph before the happy con- summation, he has no other resource than to make the heroine's father a bigamist, and to drop the first wife into a gravel pit in the neighbour- hood, whence, of course, the wicked cousin fishes her out. When, how- ever, we have got over the absurdity of this incident, we do not find the mental struggles of the different characters in their changed relations badly described ; and the final issue is developed with sufficient pro- priety. We do not intend to betray what it is ; we merely announce that it is satisfactory, and that the pictures of still life contained in these two volumes may be contemplated by the tenderest and the best conducted young lady withgut any injury to her feelings or her morality. And there are a good many novels nowadays of which as much cannot be said.
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