In the Tennessee Mountains. By C. E. Craddock. (Longmans, Green,
and Co.)—Some, if not all, of the stories which compose this volume have already appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. They will interest American more than British readers, especially as the dialogues are written in a barbarous vernacular, to understand which almost requires a dictionary. A single specimen, taken from the last tale in the collection (" The Hank that walks Chilhowee") will exemplify this :—"An' it air a toleeble for'ard season. Yer wheat looks likely ; an' yer gyarden truck air thrivin' powerful. Even that cob o spell we-nns had about the full o' the moon in May. Ain't done sot it back none, it 'pears like ter me," 8:c. The descriptions of wild mountain scenery seem to aim too much at intensity and impressiveness, and often fail of their effect in consequence. The stories are slight char- acter sketches of a very primitive type of hard-worked humanity, and tend to show that virtues such as generous self-sacrifice and devotion may exist and operate without the aid of definite reason, and more in women than in men. We hear the key-note, as it were, of the whole collection of sketches, when, in "The Romance of Sunset Rock," the author tells us that "the great human heart was here, untutored as it was and roughly accoutred."
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