not one of the best, novels published in 1876 is "Madcap Violet," by William Black, a reprint from Macmillan's Magazine. To say that the book is charming is unnecessary, for Black's novels are always charming; his descriptions of scenery are inimitable, but descriptions alone will not make a readable fiction. It is far better to have a novel altogether bald and bare than to have page after page devoted to mechanical descriptions of landscapes, dragged in for the sake of padding, or to exhibit the author's skill in word-painting. But Black's descriptions seem to us always part of the story he is telling; his men and women without their surroundings, or rather, their background of exquisite scenery, would be out of harmony with each other, and with the world they live in. We can actually smell the sea when Black "personally conducts" us, willing tourists as we are, to the Highlands, that wild region which he loves with all his heart; the mountain mists curl round our heads, and we feel all the enchantment of that wondrous solitude he paints so well.

Very rarely has there been anything in fiction more beautiful than those chapters in "Madcap Violet" which describe the yachting excur sion made by Mr. Drummond, his sister, niece, and Violet North. A whole life's history is lived through in those sunny days, and the foundation laid of as woful a tragedy as was ever acted upon any stage. We cannot commend Violet's duplicity in hiding herself away from all her friends. It was consistent with her wilful nature to conceive and carry out so wild a project, but inconsistent with her love of truth to persist in the deception. Still we must admit that had she been true to herself we could not have had the exquisitely beautiful, but intensely pathetic, closing scene of

the novel, and yet, as we shut the book, we cannot make up our minds whether the author ought not at once to be indicted for more than one murder, but James Drummond and Dove Anerley-see "In Silk Attire," by Black-have met, let us hope, in the Elysian Fields!

In " Phoebe Junior" and the "Curate in Charge," we have Mrs. Oliphant at her very best, and her best is very good indeed. The former is the last of the clever series of novels, called "The Chronicles of Carlingford," and it is full of the quaint humour that so delighted us in " Salem Chapel " and "The Perpetual Curate." The incidents upon which the story turns are slight, but not insignifi cant, and inexperienced authors. would do well to learn the wide difference that exists between incidents which are not of the murderous and sensational order, and yet not insignificant. The way in which Mrs. Oliphant brings the leading Dissenters and the Church people of Carlingford together in "Phoebe Junior," the link being Phoebe herself, is masterly, and the interest excited by their intercourse never flags. Clarence Copperhead, the big over-dressed selfish and thick-headed young man, who, in spite of his mental obtuseness, is perfectly well aware what an admirable wife the daughter of the Dissenting minister will make him, is a capital specimen of the gilded youth of the upper middle class, We can see him as he walks down the quiet street of Carlingford with a huge Ulster upon him down to his feet; and we feel, without being told, that he is quite ready to patronize every one whom he honours with his notice; but still he is too honestly in love with handsome, outspoken, sensible Phoebe who is, we are told, "proud of her lout "- to feel

aggrieved by the attentions of the butterman, Tozer, the grandfather of his lady love. Surely we owe Middlewick, the ex butterman of Our Boys, to his great forerunner, Tozer, of "Salem Chapel."

In the 66 Curate in Charge," Mrs. Oliphant strikes a deeper chord; the book is throughout like a strain of sweet music set in a pathetic minor key. No words of ours can do justice to this most touching and beautiful story, and never has Mrs. Oliphant been more successful in contrasting scenes and characters than in those chapters in the Curate in Charge," in which she brings the young Oxford Don, Mildmay, into contact with the broken-down Mr. St. John and his high-spirited daughter, Cicely.

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Again, we would recommend young authors to study with attention the novels of Mrs. Oliphant; they will be of far greater service to the inexperienced writer than the works of Thackeray and George Eliot, to whom partiality has assigned the office of teachers.

to possess and a fair amount of insight into character, but she has not done any literary work which a moderately clever woman, who has gone through the world with her eyes open, could not accomplish.

We have not space to mention in detail several other novels which ought to claim more than a passing notice. We shall just allude to two, namely, "The Atonement of Leam Dundas" and "Her Dearest Foe." To those who like a novel without a trace of softness even in the pathetic scenes, and who enjoy a harrowing tale of unconscious sin, as we may call it, on the part of a young girl who was little better than an untamed savage, we recommend "Leam Dundas;" it is very clever, but it is not pleasant reading. To those who like a bright chatty pleasant story, in which there is a slight flavour of Bohemianism, but no straining after effect, no strong situations, and in which the love affairs end happily, we recommend" Her Dearest Foe."