Wood Anemone. By Mrs. Randolph. 8 vols. (Hurst and Blackett.)
—Any reader who likes to hear about the sayings and doings of titled personages will find full satisfaction of his likings in this volume, but we cannot encourage him to look for much else. The main interest of the story lies in the love-affairs of the heroine, Zed Stanton, whose pet name is Wood Anemone. How she engages herself to an amiable but embarrassed young nobleman, what obstacles interpose themselves to the hindrance of their affection, how, while her fate is yet uncertain, she has the gloomy satisfaction of refusing a duke, may be read at length, it is not too much to say at very great length, in these volumes. The reader's attention is sustained by the introduction of a Russian princess, who flirts in • very pronounced manner; and of a Mr. Harcourt Yolland, confidential clerk to Zoe's father, a villain somewhat resembling Mr. Carker in " Dombey and Son." We cannot discern any- thing like individual character in the fashionable persons with whom Mrs. Randolph crowds her stage. Their conversation has the merit of being possible, but it is certainly not entertaining; and there is no such remarkable interest in the plot as to compensate for the poverty of execution which the book in other respects displays. We can say in its praise that it is sound and wholesome in tone, and seeks to enlist the reader's sympathies on the right side.
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