20 MAY 1865, Page 21

Bertie Bray. By the Author of Sir Victor's Choice. Two

vols. (John Maxwell and Co.)—.A. rather slight story, in which the author's inevitable captain of cavalry, very beautiful and very contemptible, but strangely dear to the author, gets drowned after jilting the heroine, which is an agreeable change from the immense worldly prosperity which the author ordinarily allots him. As usual, however, the characters, with the single exception of the heroine, Bertie Bray, are all intensely mean, but they are such mere sketches as hardly to call for criticism.