Running the Gauntlet. By Edmund Yates. (Tinsley.)—A most read- able
and amusing novel, but as a work of art not an improvement upon- Broken to Harness. The hero is too much of the Guy Livingstone type. for the sympathy of ordinary human beings, and there is no one like Kate Mellon. Mrs. Hammond strikes us as unreal, and as belonging, moreover, to a line of heroines of whom the world is not a little tired— the bad intrigantes who force themselves into great positions. The last chapters, describing Mrs. Hammond's grand coup and its results, the fear in which she lives, and the reasons for the fear, belong rather to the transpontine drama than to literary art. Mr. Yates has, however, evi- dently given way wilfully to the appetite for sensation, and Running Me Gauntlet is full of lively sketches, piquant dialogues, and acid but not acrid bits of gossip. If he would only consent to use his powers without a thought as to whether the book would sell or not, give us a real social novel, with a plot such as ordinary life has, and characters not quite se full of "character," with a good heroine who thought forgery rather an objection in a lover, and a bad heroine not given entirely to adultery and diamonds, he would, we suspect, be amazed at the relish with which palled taste returned to healthy but well cooked food. We rate Mr.. Yates's power too high to enjoy thoroughly Running Me Gauntlet.
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