thus sandwiched, and how he (or she) got into so unpleasant a
predicament. The curious reader with a taste for enigmas may be advised
to find out for himself--if he can. Even if he be unsuccessful, his
trouble will be repaid by the pleasant writing and clever character
drawing of Mr. Hopkins's tale. The plot is less praiseworthy. The whole
Madeira episode seems to lead up to this dilemma, and after all it comes
to nothing. We brace up our nerves for a tragedy and are treated instead
to the mildest of marivaudage--which is disappointing. In conclusion,
one word of advice to Mr. Hopkins: let him refrain from apostrophising
his characters after this fashion: 'Oh, Gilbert Reade, what are you about
that you dally with this golden chance?' and so forth. This is one of
the worst mannerisms of a bygone generation of story tellers.

Mr. Gallenga has written, as he says, 'a tale without a murder,' but
having put a pistol-ball through his hero's chest and left him alive and
hearty notwithstanding, he cannot be said to have produced a tale without
a miracle. His heroine, too, if we may judge by his descriptions of her,
is 'all a wonder and a wild desire.' At the age of seventeen she 'was
one of the Great Maker's masterpieces . . . a living likeness of the
Dresden Madonna.' One rather shudders to think of what she may become at
forty, but this is an impertinent prying into futurity. She hails from
'Maryland, my Maryland!' and has 'received a careful, if not a superior,
education.' Need we add that she marries the heir to an earldom who, as
aforesaid, has had himself perforated by a pistol-bullet on her behalf?
Mr. Gallenga's division of this book into acts and scenes is not
justified by anything specially dramatic either in its structure or its
method. The dialogue, in truth, is somewhat stilted. Nevertheless, its
first-hand sketches of Roman society are not without interest, and one or
two characters seem to be drawn from nature.