s her beauty gone and her
secret discovered. There is quite enough sensation here to interest even
the jaded City man, who is said to have grown quite critical of late on
the subject of what is really a thrilling plot. But Miss Curtis is not
satisfied. The lady's-maid has an extremely handsome brother, who is a
wonderful musician, and has a divine tenor voice. With him the stately
Lady Judith falls wildly in love, and this part of the story is treated
with a great deal of subtlety and clever analysis. However, Lady Judith
does not marry her rustic Orpheus, so the social convenances are
undisturbed. The romance of the Rector of the Parish, who falls in love
with a charming school-teacher, is a good deal overshadowed by Lady
Judith's story, but it is pleasantly told. A more important episode is
the marriage between the daughter of the Tory squire and the Radical
candidate for the borough. They separate on their wedding-day, and are
not reconciled till the third volume. No one could say that Miss
Curtis's book is dull. In fact, her style is very bright and amusing. It
is impossible, perhaps, not to be a little bewildered by the amount of
characters, and by the crowded incidents; but, on the whole, the scheme
of the construction is clear, and certainly the decoration is admirable.

(1) Wordsworthiana: A Selection from Papers read to the Wordsworth
Society. Edited by William Knight. (Macmillan and Co.)

(2) Mary Myles. By E. M. Edmonds. (Remington and Co.)

(3) Art in the Modern State. By Lady Dilke. (Chapman and Hall.)

(4) Cressy. By Bret Harte. (Macmillan and Co.)

(5) Poems. By Richard Day. (New York: Cassell and Co.)

(6) A Game of Chance. By Ella Curtis. (Hurst and Blackett.)

MR. FROUDE'S BLUE-BOOK

(Pall Mall Gazette, April 13, 1889.)

Blue-books are generally dull reading, but Blue-books on Ireland have
always been interesting. They form the record of one of the great
tragedies of modern Europe. In them England has written down her
indictment against herself and has given to the world the history of her
shame. If in the last century she tried to govern Ireland with an
insolence that was intensified by race hatred and religious prejudice,
she has sought to rule her in this century with a stupidity that is
aggravated by good intentions. The last of these Blue-books, Mr.
Froude's heavy novel, has appeared, however, somewhat too late. The
society that he describes has long si