The Boy Colonists ; or Eight Years of Colonial Life
in Otago, New Zealand. (Simpkin and Marshall.)—This is evidently a picture drawn from life. It does not pretend to artistic character, or to literary excellence, except so far as being written in plain, grammatical English may go. This is quite as well. Even genuine experiences are apt to lose something of their verisimilitude when they are manipulated according to the practice customary in fiction. One may read here, in fact, what two lads, not differing very much from their fellows, nor destined to any extraordinary adventure, may expect to see and do in the colony ; this reservation only being made, the story terminates eleven years ago, and that eleven years are not unlikely to make a very considerable change in the circumstances and prospects of a young country.
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