CURRENT LITERATURE.
Near the Lagunas ; or, Scenes in the States of La Plata. By the Author of "Ponce de Leon." 2 vols. (Chapman and Hall.) The stage is somewhat crowded with characters, and we must confess to having found a certain difficulty in keeping them distinct. Had their number been retrenched—and this might have been done, we think, without injury to the story—the reader would have had an easier task. It seems ungracious, however, to speak of reading what is really a vigorous and well-written novel as if it would be a trouble. Near the Lag unas gives a lively picture of life in South America, especially ix the Anglo-Spanish section of society. Every now and then the com- plications of Argentine politics enter into the plot, but as we are happily not expected to understand them, or to sympathise with one side or the other (a thing which, of course, may be done without un- derstanding), they do not annoy, but only add a certain variety to the narrative. This contains abundance of incident, and though not without the element of violence and crime, is not repulsive. The author has furnished the book with a vocabulary ; but it is too much to expect the reader, in the ordinary frame of mind in which he approaches a novel, to turn to the end of the second volume for explanations. It would have been better to have put these as foot-note s.—The Lady of Treferne. By Harriet S. Hill. 3 vols. (Samuel Tinsley.) A young man dies of consumption, and leaves his property to his betrothed, who thus becomes "Lady of Treferne." An unprincipled cousin, who has expected the inheritance, with his daughter, a girl of fine disposition, who has suffered from the evil circumstances of her bring- big-up, appear upon the scene ; as does also a certain Denis. who has for his guardians the unprincipled cousin and a high- principled Captain Stafford. The family of the rector of the parish, together with a young lady who is cast on shore from a shipwreck, supply the other drams tie persona. We cannot say that we have found any of these people interesting, nor are their fortunes entwined together by any very skilful plot. We must express our disbelief in the notion that a young lady who had been about the world with an adventurer of a father could have signed another person's name to a cheque, and "never once remem- bered that it was a crime punishable by law." Nor do we understand how Denis, when a minor, could have had such control over his pro- perty. We can say little more for the book than that there is no. harm in it. Forgery, as far as we remember, is the only crime that figures in it.—Beneath the Ware. By Dora Russell. 3 vols. (Maxwell.) When we are introduced on page the eighth of the first volume to a young lady who "made you think, when you looked at her face, of all the fair and frail ones, famous in history and song, who. have tempted men to destruction and shame," we have an idea of what is coming. The beautiful Mabel makes fools, more or less manifest, of all the men with whom she has to do. Happily, we are spared any record of serious misdoing. She vanishes from our sight into the cloud of doubtful life in Paris. The other heroine, Hilda Marston, is all that could be wished in point of character, but a trifle colourless. Doubtless, however, she made the hero very happy, when the angelic clergyman, who delays their union awhile, is removed to the heaven for which he is so obviously destined. Miss Russell has not been so successful in this story as she has in former books. What, by the way, is the meaning of "she kissed her coldly, but not un- kindly?" A cold kiss we can understand, but an unkind kiss,---how is that done ?—The Mysterious Rubies, and other Stories. By Alice A. Neate. (Remington.) Short stories of no particular character. Is not "a gold comb, glittering with diamonds," rather out of taste as a head-dress for a young, unmarried woman ?
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