Aldersleigh: a Tale. By Christopher James Reithm tiller. (Bell and
Daldy.)—Mr. Reithmfiller is the author of Teuton, a poem which deserves to be mentioned with respect, but we can hardly say as much for Alders- leigh. He writes good English, expresses sensible opinions of a slightly Conservative character, and never admits a sentiment or a word to which the most fastidious could object. But he shows no skill in the drawing of character, and his plot consists of ludicrously transparent
artifices, the sort of incidents which one would find in a travestie of a novel. A young Virginian comes to England to visit the house which his ancestors loft two centuries before. Of course its possessor is found to be of the same family, childless, in fact the last of his line. The old man takes a fancy to the stranger, and having had some disagreeable relatives forced upon him, determines to make a will in his favour.
Equally of course he dies without making it. The disagreeable relatives take possession. It becomes necessary to find another relative, who tarns up in the person of a working man on whom the hero has bestowed some great kindness. The grateful working man offers to sell the estate for a thousand pounds to the hero ; the hero's honour forbids him to accept the offer, but a way is found out of the difficulty by a device of which, lest we should be accused of spoiling all the interest of the tale, we will only say that it is far more improbable than anything that has gone before. Of course there is a love story, which is neither better nor worse than the rest of the tale.
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