The Rock Ahead. By Edmund Yates. 3 vols. (Tinsley Brothers.)
—This is decidedly the weakest of Mr. Yates's novels, and while aiming at being highly sensational it fails in sustained power in that direction.
The author has taken, as one of the main incidents of his story, the Rugeley murder, and confers on his villain, for whom he has adopted that frightful crime, the further distinction of an attempted fratricide, and, in the end, an accomplished self-destruction. But this villain is net true to himself, for once baffled in an attempted crime, he takes no further steps to perfect it, but contents himself with an immense amount of vapouring and bluster. As to the hero, it has doubtless come within the experience of every one that an English country gentleman can, without a sigh or a struggle, alienate his ancestral estate in order to Eve abroad illegally married to his deceased brother's wife, and, in the author's own words, "be lost in the crowd." With his heroine, who stands forth a well drawn and thoroughly unconventional character, and with the minor personages of his story Mr. Yates is much more sucess- ful. We do not doubt that that respectable corporation the Ancients of Clement's Inn will feel highly flattered at his description of their abode ; and we wonder where he obtained his knowledge of the guiding princi- ples of College authorities. Mr. Yates's style is easy and flowing, and if he would avoid a certain slanginess, a fondness for using foreign words when our own mother tongue would supply his wants equally well, and a paraded admiration for Bohemianism in general, his writings would be much more agreeable and acceptable to the reading public.
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