lza's Story. By Grace Ramsay. 3 vols. (Hurst and Blackett.)—
This is a story of the last Polish struggle for independence, though the authoress does not take her readers into the actual field of battle. This is probably wise, but the story wants incident ; in the first volume it scarcely moves at all ; there, in fact, we do not get beyond the intro- ductions, which are necessary, certainly, but which might be got over, one would think, in a shorter space. And when it does begin to move, there is very little liveliness about it. It is impossible to help foreseeing the fate of the hero all along; that he will get, so to speak, into the frying- pan, and out of the frying-pan into the fire. In fact, he does absolutely nothing except be thrown into prison, and be passed from prison into Siberia. And yet the book is not without some considerable interest. There are several characters in it distinctly and vividly drawn ; there are pictures of life and manners which have a very real and truthful look about them. The writer seems to be at home among the scenes which she describes. Probably she knows much more about the Greek Papas than we do ; yet she must surely be a little too hard on them ; they cannot all be such intolerable drunken villains as she represents them. In fact, it is too obviously her purpose to depress them for the sake of exalting the Roman Catholic priests.
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