One Foot in the Grave. (Saunders and Otley.)—If this story
is, as we suppose it to be, a first effort, it shows considerable promise. The style, if sometimes incorrect even beyond the limits of colloquial licence, is easy and natural, and the principal characters are real and lifelike. If the crowd of unnecessary personages, who are numerous to a most perplexing degree, were dismissed, the effect of the whole would be vastly improved. There are two in particular, a hideous old woman and an intriguing young one, who do not help the story in the least, and whom it would be a great relief to get rid of. But the hero and heroine, the young squire, who resolves, against his own better thoughts, to marry for money, and ends by falling very honestly in love, and little Catharine, who behaves so prettily under all the troubles of her heiress-ship, are a really charming pair, with whom we are glad to have made acquaintance.
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