Social Sinners. By Hawley Smart. S vols. (Chapman and Hall.)
—There is better work in this novel than wo have seen in Captain Smart's recent efforts. Tho idea of the disastrous effect of a con- tingent inheritance is just in itself, and is not inadequately worked out. We are not only thankful that the infliction, which at one crisis of the story seems to threaten us, of another " Claimant's " case, is averted, but may acknowledge that the chapters which describe the "two Captains Riversloy " are well done. The alliance which is after- wards made between the true heir and the impostor strikes us as passing beyond the limits • of licence accorded to a novelist's inven- tion. We cannot affect to like the tone of Captain Smart's writing, or to fool much interest in the doings of the society to which he introduces us, doings which never seem to include one stroke of honest work for God or man ; but if we are to have the chronicles of a set of more or less vicious idiom, Social Sinners is not an unfavourable specimen of the kind of literature wo must put up with.------Prince Fortune and Prince Fatal. By Mrs. Carrington. 3 vols. (Sampson we feel unwilling to say what we are really bound to say about them, —that they do not make a good novel. The main conception of the story, the success of a " Prince Fortune," who has no real depth of character or greatness about him, but with whom, neverthe- less, everything goes well, is a good one. When we add to this the power of drawing men and women with no small amount of vigour and naturalness, a gift for describing scenery, and an abundance of reflections on life, expressed in eloquent words, we should have, it might be thought, the materials of a good novel ; so, doubtless, we have, but wo miss the result. Books far inferior will please much more.
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