The Marstons. 3 vols. By Hamilton Aide. (Chapman and gill.)—This
novel is reprinted from Fraser's Magazine. It barely comas up, we think, to the level of the tales which we have been accustomed to see there. $30 though we cannot say either that it is or even that it has come near to being really good, we can yet describe it as a pleasantly written book, which any one with even a moderately strong appetite for fiction will easily get through. Hamilton Aide seldom offends against good taste, and is seldom dull. Not =frequently he is clever, and sometimes humorous. The old man who is kept from learning his loss of fortune by his daughter's watch- ful love makes a pathetic picture, which is drawn in other respects more carefully and consistently than anything else in the book. But why do we always hear him talking of the "fog " and " the darkness of the days "? Such a delusion is possible, perhaps, in a blind man whose mind was not otherwise affected ; but it is a thing which a judicious novelist would be very careful in introducing, and which he certainly would not go on repeating, as our author does, till the most tolerant reader is compelled to rebel against it. Madame Stalin°, false and fair (the author has a manifest prejudice against fair women), with abundance of sentiment and ready tears, but without heart or conscience, is a lady whom we have often met before, and we may say, pleases us as much or as little as before. Aunt Cie, the old maid, is decidedly amusing, and is not more of a caricature than is necessary. Her reminiscences of the loves of her youth are sometimes very happy. Here is one :—"I remember an apothecary at Cheltenham,—it was in the year 1811,—the man attended me for a quinsy. I saw in a moment how the wind lay ; but of course I couldn't speak, for my throat was closed, and tell him how vain his hopes were ! Still, I couldn't bear to see the poor wretch so self-deluded ! and when I got better I wrote to him. I believe it half crazed him, for he replied that he did not know what 1 meant I "
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