three-volume novel we have just noticed.

There are about Le Fanu's narratives touches
of nature which reconcile us to their always
remarkable and often supernatural incidents.
His characters are well conceived and distinctly
drawn, and strong soliloquy and easy dialogue
spring unaffectedly from their lips. He is a close
observer of Nature, and reproduces her wilder
effects of storm and gloom with singular
vividness; while he is equally at home in his
descriptions of still life, some of which remind
us of the faithfully minute detail of old Dutch
pictures.

Mr. Wilkie Collins, amongst our living
novelists, best compares with Le Fanu. Both of
these writers are remarkable for the ingenious
mystery with which they develop their plots, and
for the absorbing, if often over-sensational, nature
of their incidents; but whilst Mr. Collins excites
and fascinates our attention by an intense power
of realism which carries us with unreasoning
haste from cover to cover of his works, Le
Fanu is an idealist, full of high imagination,
and an artist who devotes deep attention to the
most delicate detail in his portraiture of men
and women, and his descriptions of the outdoor
and indoor worlds--a writer, therefore,
through whose pages it would be often an