MIDNIGHT WEBS.* WE do not understand the exact technical difference

between a " web " and a "yarn," but we believe the former to be woven and the latter to be spun, and if so, Mr. Fenn should have chosen the latter title. His stories are unmistakably spun out and are careless besides, and the sort of things with which sailors would beguile a watch or travellers a long winter evening. Let a writer be ever so good, he almost always fails in short tales ; indeed we get so many volumes of collected short tales which are rubbish for one in which they are careful and clever, that we may assume it as a rule that authors do not put forth their powers in writing short pieces, or even take pains to make what they do write accurate and finished. It was said of an author lately deceased, that his books of travels were the result of his vivid power of realising the scenes described in the graphic pages of Murray, and that all his journeys had been taken in the spirit only, while repos- ing in his study chair. Mr. Fenn's stories bear evidence of the

• Midnight Irebs, By George Manville Fenn. London: Tinsley Brothers.

same power of drawing upon and from the imagination, and though the power be considerable, it is apt to betray the limited knowledge of its possessor, even if he be skilful enough to avoid exposure by giving a wide berth to anything too definite and detailed.

Mr. Fenn is a disciple of Mayne Reid, and even soars into the regions of Fenimore Cooper, dealing with mutineers, pirates, and hair-breadth escapes; substituting friendly Maoris for the Red Indians, and the bush and mountain gorges of New Zealand for the forest and prairie of North America. But he follows Cooper at a most respectful distance, and while he is not guilty of the absurdities of Mayne Reid's incidents, his descriptions are entirely wanting in the vividness and life-like truthfulness which show that Mayne Reid knows his ground and the tribes amongst whom his stories are laid. Mr. Fenn in his New Zealand story, for instance, speaks vaguely of the "huge ferns" with " old frond-stumps," and of the "New Zealand foliage, with its fern and palm-like fronds ;" but these expressions certainly give us no idea that he knows what he is talking about, or has seen the tree-ferns of New Zealand in their native soil. Nor do we gain much more idea of the country by a single mention of "the black shade cast by a mass of lava which over- hung" the head of the climber who scrambles" up the face of the thickly wooded mountain," assisted by the" long pendulous vine," and tripped up by "creepers with snake-like branches ; " these, and a mention of the "emerald green" of the country, of the verdure bordering the sea, and the "glittering snow-tipped summits" of the mountains, are all that we hear of the characteristics of New Zealand scenery. The greater part of the descriptive portions would answer for any part of the world where there are woods mountains, and bright weather, and certainly no passage reveal, more than a book-knowledge of the places referred to. The first story is much the best, but the same criticism holds good. We went on with interest—thinking it a veritable incident from the Indian mutinies—till we came to book-sentiment and love-making, and a Mrs. Corporal Bantem, who is made on the pattern of Dickens's rough diamonds, and till we found that all the author's favourites came out of the scrapes and dangers safely, and all the questionable ladies and gentlemen came, on the contrary, to grief. In the two first stories, of mutiny in the camp and mutiny in the ship respectively, and in that of the pirate-convicts on the New Zealand shore, there is much fighting and skirmishing of a very confused sort, and with no trace of the skill and clearness with which masters of fiction, like Scott and Cooper, see us safe through such incidents, not only exciting us deeply as to the result, but making us understand every movement of the fray, and follow every ebb and flow of the tide of battle. Mr. Fenn's men of war waste ammunition recklessly, take excellent aim in the (lark, miss in the most astonishing way in the light, expose them- eelves wantonly, die in great numbers without any adequate pur- pose and when retreat is quite open to them ; are let alone when they ought to be and would certainly be killed ; make sallies and return, and the gates open and shut them safely in, when the enemy ought, in common reason, to enter with them ; a vessel is wrecked in "ten minutes" in a "bright little bay " ; persons desperately wounded are frightfully in the 'way at one moment, and at the next are as useful as their fellows ; one person escapes into the wood with perfect ease and sets off down the mountain, while the others, with just the same chances, cannot get away at all. Paths which have just been traversed are at once forgotten. The instinct of friendly natives is so weak that it pursues a settler with a settler's knowledge of the country in mistake for the stranger pirate. A bulk-head which safely confines the mutineers at one time is no impediment to them if their captors are rash enough to enter the cabin on ,the other side of it ; and generally anything that

will forward the story is laid hold of by the courageous author with a sublime disregard to consistency or probability. If we are mistaken in these strictures', it is because the hurry and confusion of the various sanguinary assaults and encounters enter also into their description ; because, in fact, the assaults are probably made up by a civilian with a taste for excitement, and not described by an adventurer who has himself taken part in similar scenes, or by a man with a military genius, a clear head, and skilful pen, who can conceive and delineate the rapid movements of a battle, and forsee probable, or at any rate possible, fluctuations and positions. Nevertheless they are praiseworthy attempts to describe stirring adventures, and would interest boys, who do not mind being a little confused, and readily forgive inconsistency, if the movement is rapid and exciting enough. The escape of the English from the hands of the sepoy mutineers would be their favourite passage, and they would readily believe in the bridge of guns and bayonets, with a tree as a centre-pier and mattresses for a roadway, over which the wounded women and children were carried by the able- bodied, in the dark, to the roof of some native huts under which the sepoy officers watched ; bat though our friends heard the buzz- ing of their voices underneath, the officers fortunately did not hear the feet of the retreating garrison. The first and second stories are supposed to be told by an old soldier and an old "salt "respec- tively, but the style is not quite consistently preserved ; when the author forgets himself, the soldier and sailor take the opportunity of speaking like authors. The spelling, too, is generally perfectly correct, but once in a way the narrator says " wuss " for" worse," or "stern for "stern' And there are other indications of hurry and carelessness, and plans of authorship very imperfectly carried out, much bad English, a sentence without a verb, and others of this kind :—

" Meanwhile it needed no interpreter to toll of the intimacy between Edward Murray and Kate Lee. A love the growth of years,—the love that had induced him to quit the Navy ; for he had felt unable to settle when old Lee had left his native town, driven by misfortunes to settle in one of the colonies, New Zealand being his choice, where now, after some years' hard fight with difficulties, he was living a wealthy patriarchal life in this pleasant valley."

The best story is of an entirely different kind, and though it is the least interesting and much the shortest, and the title is senti- mental—" Violets in the Snow "—it is more complete and careful, and contains the only character in the book with an identity of its own. It is that of old Dicky Bradds, a crippled, superannuated porter, who cannot bear to think that he is past his work :—

" Yon can't take that there ohist o' drawers down,' said the head porter, a man moat careful in the way in which he looked after the cor- ners and polish of pieces of furniture, saving them from scratch and chip. So careful in fact was Brown that ho had never had time to look after the polish and corners of her Majesty's English, which he chipped and scratched most terribly. So you can't take that there chid o' drawers down,' said Brown, it's too much for you ;' and he meant it kindly, though his words were rough.—' You wouldn't ha' talked to me like that ten year ago, Joe Brown ' quavered Dick, turning angrily upon the porter, for he was hurt and annoyed at being spoken to before the other men.—'I didn't mean to hurt the poor old chap,' said Brown at home to his wife that night, 'for I like old Dick, who's as honest and true-hearted an old chap as ever stepped. All the years we have been together I never knew Dick do a man an ill turn ; while the way he turns out o' Sundays to take that there grant:bile of his to a place o' wasahup ought to be a patten for some on us. In course I wouldn't ha' spoke to him that way ten years ago : for why ? 'cos he could ha' carried the chist o' drawers easily ; but 'stead o' actin' sensible, he was that proud, bless you, that ho wriggled hisself under 'em like a young cuckoo with a hegg, hyetes hisself up slowly by taking hold of the bannisters, and then begins to stagger downstairs. "Now then : lot 'underd and two, waiting for lot 'underd and two ; "they calls out below. Combe- comin'—comin'," pants out Dick; and I see as it was too much for the poor old chap, who felt touched at being thought past his work, though the governors only expected him to take down the light things. So see- ing how matters stood, I steps forrard to help him, when if he didn't seem to abut up all at once like ; and that there chist o' handsome French-polished mahogany drawers, 'underd and two in the catalogue, went downstairs a deal too fast for its constitution. Poor old Diok! he never groaned nor made no fuss when we got him down to the cab to take him to tho 'orsepittle, although his poor old leg was broke, through his coming down a whole flight artor that there chist o' handsome French-polished mahogany drawers ; but his lips was shaking, and his face drored as he gets hold of my button and pulls me to him, and says, says he, "This be a sad upset for my Jenny, but don't let 'em frighten

her, Joe Brown, don't, please. You're a married man and got feeling,

though I spoke nasty to you just now. Please go and tell her gently, yourself. 0 Joe ! I shan't be able to help in many more sales." Poor

old chap; how the tears did run down his cheeks as be whispered me

again, "Don't say it's much, Joe ; tell her it's a bit of a scratch, and she isn't to fidget about me. Toll her gently, Joe ; good-bye, Joe ; I

shall be over again to-morrow or next day, Joe ; and, Joe," he calls ont

in his weak piping way, as the keb begins to move," Joe," he says, "jag take my apern and give tho lookin'-glass in the big wardrobe • bit of a

rah before it comes down ; and don't forget about Jenny." Poor old Dickey : got his 'art in his work, he had; and somehow as he went off, and I knew as we shouldn't never see him again at work, if we ever see him at all, my nose wanted blowing to that degree that nothing couldn't be like it ; and it's my belief, Sarah, if I hadn't been roused up by a call for the next lot, that I should have turned soft ; for you see, says I to myself, I says, suppose as that had been me.'"

The fifth and last story is a ridiculous exaggeration of a father who will marry his daughter to an old man, and of said old man, who, in order to give the poor girl, whom he dearly loves, a pleasant sur- prise, leaves her to pine in sorrow, to attempt suicide, and finally very nearly to die, till a convenient wedding-day for the real lover ; the old lover chuckling benevolently and contentedly to himself the meanwhile on the approaching denouement, in no way disturbed, apparently, by the great misery and the probable risk which his peculiar plans for her welfare are creating. This is an extravagant parody of Dickens's most extravagant passages of benevolent earthly providences.