Wild Wood. By Helen Dickens. 3 vols. (Newby.)—Miss Dickens has
written a novel very much after the manner of Mrs. Henry Wood. The chief personages in it are a family of the name of Dreyer, eight in number, four of them, as we are pretty often reminded, Benton-Drevers (Benton was their mother's name), fair and false, and four real Drovers, "dark, and true, and tender." The story is occupied with telling us how the "Drovers proper" were tormented by the misdeeds of the " Benton-Drevers." These misdeeds are indeed very shocking. The women, indeed, do nothing very bad. One of them neglects her husband and children, and the other flirts in a very out- rageous manner. But one male Benton-Drever commits forgery and the other tries to commit murder, and both are as utterly mean and worthless as the bad men of this sort of novel commonly are. Then we have a supernatural element, a strange visitor which goes by the undignified name of "King Hop," and seems to be a big bird which vanishes up the chimney. Its coming does not seem to be of much importance, though, of course, it portends death in the family. There is always death in the family in these novels without the intervention of King Hop and his like. For of course the doleful element is not want- ing. Miss Dickens wrings our hearts without due cause, somewhat after the "Little Nell" fashion, by putting to death a very sweet little girl. Nor does she make amends by bringing up from the dead a very unin- teresting young man. And lastly, to complete the resemblance which we have mentioned, there is a continual sermonizing throughout the volume. The author is continually lecturing the reader, telling him to be a good boy and say his prayers, excellent advice, but scarcely doing, in the way in which it comes, the good it is meant to do. Here is an exquisite touch describing the very bad hero of a very bad novel,—"a man who never by any chance went to church, and yet was painted in glowing colours." But though Miss Dickens' book is fairly open to ridicule, it is not without some cleverness and much good feeling. Some of the characters are drawn with a certain power, and make life- like figures. The book is quite readable, a moderate amount of "skipping" being allowed.
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