18 DECEMBER 1897, Page 23

Prue the Poetess. By H. Louisa Bedford. (Skeffington and Son.)—Prue

is a very human child, not by any means too clever or good to be real. The chief struggle of her life, as it is depicted here, is to overcome jealousy, and this struggle is well repre- sented. But why the tragedy of the ending ? Such things occur in life; but in art they are unmeaning except there are circum- stances which lead up to them. This kind of pathos is of the rudest kind. Any one can attain to it, as any one, according to a famous saying, can govern with a state of siege.