Thereby Hangs a Tale. By George Manville. Fenn. 3 vols.
(Tinsley Brothers.)—The best point in this story is the dialogue, which is lively and spirited, and except where the author lapses into the fault of cari- caturing, and mistakes farce for comedy, fairly natural. The pompous City knight is altogether too absurd, but his kind wife and his daughters, are much more creditable attempts at the drawing of character. The plot we cannot praise. We might pass as possible, though certainly not probable, the incident "whereby the tale hangs" of two children changed at nurse. But the way in which this incident is first admitted to be fact, and then disposed of as falsehood, is a little too grotesque, especially when it is remembered that the pos- session of a fine estate depends upon it. First, one old woman declares that it happened, and the hero gives up his estate to his gamekeeper ; then another old woman comes forward, and declares that it did not happen, and the accommodating gamekeeper gives way with equal readiness. This is to give to old women of an imaginative tarn a tre- mendous power, which it is as well, perhaps, they should not possess outside the borders of &thin.
Previous page
