Deepglen. 3 vols. By Hugh Morven. (Chapman and Hall.)— Mr.
Marren is a remarkable instance of that self-deception which has afflicted the world with a crowd of poets and actors, painters and novelists, who have chosen professions for which their only qualification is self-confidence. To write even a fourth-rate novel, an author should have some power of construction and narrative, some sense of character, and, at all events, enough literary talent to use the English language intelligibly. Of all these requirements, Mr. Morven is painfully destitute ; and besides, he does not seem to have taken the trouble to acquire the purely technical proficiency which is never denied to patient endeavour. Want of humour and imagina- tion should prevent people from writing novels, though it does not seem to do so ; but a carelessness so great as to produce three volumes of elaborate confusion is simply unpardonable. To sacrifice sufficient space to make Deepglen intelligible would not be justified by the value of Mr. Morven's story. The first volume will certainly so
exasperate the most hardened of novel-readers, that it is doubtful whether any one not a reviewer will ever reach the end of the last volume. So worthless is this book, that it would be a waste of time. to particularise its faults. Many first efforts, crude though they often are, give indications, however faint, of capacity for better work, and in these cases a critic is only too glad to help the young author. In the present instance, we have looked in vain for any similar signs.
Previous page
