TALES — Andria. By Percy White. (W. Heinemann.)—We have not been
able to see the necessity of all the dramatispersonse which appear in this story. It almost seems as if Mr. White had altered his mind as to what was to be done with his heroine. Her fortunes were not really affected, as far as we can see, by her having made an unsuccessful effort after art under the teaching of Mr. Peter Burt. The really important event for her is the appearance of Louis Otway. That it is dangerous to marry a philosopher, and worse than dangerous if that philosopher is a pessimist, is the moral of the story, and written in very large characters. Louis Otway is a very striking study. —Dr. Darch's Wife. By Florence Warden. (F. V. White and Co.)—This is a new form of a story old as the world, a man forsaking the true for the false, the love of a good woman for a fair-faced adven. turess, who has somehow become possessed of the innocent look which really belongs to some quite different soul. It is, as we have said, an old tale, but it is told with no little force.—The Ban of the Gubbe. By Cedric Dane Waldo. (W. Blackwood and Sons.)—No one can accuse Mr. Waldo of serving up again an old dish. A web-footed gentleman, who devotes himself to discovering the history and whereabouts of his fishy relations, and would have done much better if he had left them alone, is not a familiar personage. We do not know that we like him any the better for that. In fact, we are inclined to say odimus inereduli. The Ban of the Gubbe is too grotesque to be interesting.—Where Thames W Wide. By Charles James. (Chapman and Hall.)—This is a tale of smuggling, full of man- nerisms which remind us of Dickens, but not of Dickens at his best. Why should the smuggler call himself "a agricultooral " ? Why should the dirt which a man stamps off his boots be described as "small geologic deposits " ? The tale is not particularly good, but the style is beyond bearing.—There is better workmanship and no lack of incident in Tracked by a Tattoo, by Fergus Hume (F. Warne and Co.), a detective story. This modern form of the Newgate Calendar literature is, perhaps, better than the old. At least it is more like literature. But it is quite easy to have enough, and not impossible to have too much, of these descrip- tions of the seamy, the very seamy, side of human nature.— Mistress Spitfire. By J. S. Fletcher. (J. M. Dent and Co.)—This is a much more wholesome article. There is no novelty about it. We are all familiar with the complication of lovers who take different sides in politics. Here the swain is a Puritan and the damsel a Royalist. She is a very lively young person, and well deserves her name. Altogether Mr. Fletcher makes good use of his matter,—proprie communia dicit.
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