Beauchamp's Career. By George Meredith. 8 vols. (Chapman and Hall.)—Nevil
Beauchamp was a young gentleman of family, who re- volted from the politics of his order to become a Man of the People. But his career has much more to do with the three women whom, after various fashions, he loves, than with the people. He stands on advaneed principles for the borough of Bevieham, but he is not so ardent a patriot but that he leaves his canvass at a word from his first love, by that time married. The character of this lady, and the hero's relations with ber, are not easily to be understood. That he offers to take her away from her husband is plain, but why he offers, why she refuses, and what the author thinks of the two, is all obscure. Obscure, too, is the love- affair with Cecilia ; and even that with Jenny Denham, save that in this there are the unmistakable facts of a marriage and a son, is not quite plain. Obscurity, indeed, as we have noticed before in Mr. Meredith's work; is the great fault of this novel. His meaning and purpose—and we feel sure that such he always has—can doubtless be arrived at, but it costs more pains than one is commonly willing to bestow. Beauchamp's Career appeared, it will be remembered, by instalments in the Fort- nightly Review, and it would not be too much to say that some of them asked for as much study as the ordinary articles, philosophical or poli- tical This is not easily given, when we get three volumes together. The writing throughout the book is excellent, sometimes brilliant. Isolated sketches of incident and character are of first-rate quality. And the close of the story is truly dramatic. We remember nothing finer in its way than the scene where aristocrat and democrat for once agree in the thought, "This is what we have in exchange for Bean- .champ I"
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