A False Heart. By J. E. Muddock. 3 vols. (Tinsley.)—Has
Mr. Muddock ever seen, we wonder, any one of the numberless parodies of the melodramatic novel which humoarists, great and small, have given us? Surely he must have seen something very like the following in Punch or elsewhere. A wicked baronet who has obtained wrongful possession of a brother's title and estates thus soliloquises, "I'm all Impatient to see the proof of Walter's forgery. If his guilt is placed beyond doubt, it removes him from my path,-7-and I shall know no peace till that removal takes place. For should he by any means.—but no, that couldn't be, for my plans are too well laid, and Ephraim Grab dare not speak out. Still, Walter is better out of the way, though I am afraid his conviction will fall heavily upon Mabel, and may perhaps break her heart. Bah! what have I to do with hearts ? I am playing a desperate game,—to lose is death. At any rate, I must win, even though twenty hearts have to be crashed." By the way, is it not in- judicious to give such a name as Grab " to a lawyer whom you mean to make repentant ? It is impossible to believe in the sincerity of any amendment in a "Grab." The book, indeed, throughout is absurd to a point so nearly verging on the ludicrous, that, had we not had some experi- ence of what nonsense people can write in perfect good faith, we should have thought that it was a joke. Who could suppose that this, for instance, was serious,—" Her ladyship was good-looking and slightly inclining to enibonpoint ; but in her character was haughty, proud, and mer- cenary " ? We admire the fat, but we never fancied that there was any necessary opposition between their enviable physique and pride, haughtiness, and meanness.
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