again, with the humor left out. Densdeth is an impossible rascal; Churm, a
scarcely more possible Rhadamanthine saint. Cecil Dreeme herself never
fully recovers from the ambiguity forced upon her by her masculine attire;
and Emma Denman could never have been both what we are told she was, and
what she is described as being. As for Robert Byng, the supposed narrator
of the tale, his name seems to have been given him in order wantonly to
increase the confusion caused by the contradictory traits with which he is
accredited. The whole atmosphere of the story is unreal, fantastic,
obscure. An attempt is made to endow our poor, raw New York with something
of the stormy and ominous mystery of the immemorial cities of Europe. The
best feature of the book (morbidness aside) is the construction of the
plot, which shows ingenuity and an artistic perception of the value of
mystery and moral compensation. It recalls, in some respects, the design
of Hawthorne's "Blithedale Romance,"--that is, had the latter never been
written, the former would probably have been written differently. In spite
of its faults, it is an interesting book, and, to the critical eye, there
are in almost every chapter signs that indicate the possession of no
ordinary gifts on the author's part. But it may be doubted whether the
special circumstances under which it was published had not something to do
with its wide popularity. I imagine "John Brent" to have been really much
more popular, in the better sense; it was read and liked by a higher class
of readers. It is young ladies and school-girls who swell the numbers of
an "edition," and hence the difficulty in arguing from this as to the
literary merit of the book itself.

"Edwin Brothertoft," though somewhat disjointed in construction, and jerky
in style, is yet a picturesque and striking story; and the gallop of the
hero across country and through the night to rescue from the burning house
the woman who had been false to him, is vigorously described, and gives us
some foretaste of the thrill of suspense and excitement we feel in reading