We regret to record the death of Mr. Grant Allen,
the well- known novelist, which occurred at his residence on Hind- head on Wednesday. He was a man about whom there will be many opinions. In our judgment, he wished through life to be a man of science, but owing to an incurable defect of accuracy he never reached the level to which he aspired. He was driven, therefore, into literature, and ultimately into fiction, in which he had considerable, though mixed, success. The son of a Canadian clergyman, familiar with America, for a time Principal of a new College in Jamaica, and a visitor to many lands, he had a great fend of oat-of-the-way knowledge, both of places and men, which be used often most effectively, though he read into his personages more than is in them. He had considerable power in inventing striking situations—for example, there are at least a dozen in his two best books, "In the Tents of Shem " and "In All Shades "—and we greatly doubt whether any one who began one of his stories of adventure ever laid it down unfinished. His problem novels, on the other hand, are poor, being in fact long-drawn essays to prove that accepted morality has a very feeble basis, a kind of work to which he was un- equal. Some of his shorter stories are very striking, and one, "The Rev. John Greedy," has seriously influenced general opinion against the whole negro race.
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