actress, remarkable for beauty and for her personation of certain characters in comedy. Walpole thought her an 'impudent Irish-faced girl,' but he admitted that 'all the town was in love with her.' Mr Reade's second heroine was of a very different stamp. His Christie Johnstone, 1853, is a tale of fisher-life in Scotland, the scene being laid at Newhaven on the Forth. A young lord, Viscount Ipsden, is advised by his physician, as a cure for ennui and dyspepsia, to make acquaintance with people of low estate, and to learn their ways, their minds, and their troubles. He sails in his yacht to the Forth, accompanied by his valet. Newhaven Fisherwomen. 'Saunders! do you know what Dr Aberford means by the lower classes?' 'Perfectly, my lord.' 'Are there any about here?' 'I am sorry to say they are everywhere, my lord.' 'Get me some '-(cigarette). Out went Saunders, with his usual graceful empressement, but an internal shrug of his shoulders. He was absent an hour and a half; he then returned with a double expression on his face-pride at his success in diving to the very bottom of society, and contempt of what he had fished up thence. He approached his lord mysteriously, and said, sotto voce, but impressively: 'This is low enough, my lord.' Then glided back, and ushered in, with polite disdain, two lovelier women than he had ever opened a door to in the whole course of his per fumed existence. On their heads they wore caps of Dutch or Flemish origin, with a broad lace border, stiffened and arched, over the forehead, about three inches high, leaving the brow and cheeks unencumbered. They had cotton jackets, bright red and yellow, mixed in patterns, confined at the waist by the apron-strings, but bobtailed below the waist; short woollen petticoats, with broad vertical stripes, red and white most vivid in colour; white worsted stockings, and neat though high-quartered shoes. Under their jackets they wore a thick spotted cotton handkerchief, about one inch of which was visible round the lower part of the throat. Of their petticoats, the outer one was kilted, or gathered up towards the front; and the second, of the same colour, hung in the usual way. Of these young women, one had an olive complexion, with the red blood mantling under it, and black hair, and glorious black eyebrows. The other was fair, with a massive but shapely throat, as white as milk; glossy brown hair, the loose threads of which glittered like gold; and a blue eye, which, being contrasted with dark eyebrows and lashes, took the luminous effect peculiar to that rare beauty. Their short petticoats revealed a neat ankle and a leg with a noble swell; for nature, when she is in earnest, builds beauty on the ideas of ancient sculptors and poets, not of modern poetasters, who, with their airy-like sylphs, and their smoke-like verses, fight for want of flesh in woman and want of fact in poetry as parallel beauties. They are, my lads. Continuez! These women had a grand corporeal trait; they had never known a corset! so they were straight as javelins; they could lift their hands above their heads-actually! Their supple persons moved as nature intended; every gesture was ease, grace, and freedom. What with their own radiance, and the snowy cleanliness and brightness of their costume, they came like meteors into the apartment. Lord Ipsden, rising gently from his seat, with the same quiet politeness with which he would have received two princes of the blood, said, 'How do you do?' and smiled a welcome. Fine, hoow's yoursel?' answered the dark lass, whose name was Jean Carnie, and whose voice was not so sweet as her face. 'What'n lord are ye?' continued she. Are ye a juke? I wad like fine to hae a crack wi' a juke.' Saunders, who knew himself the cause of this question, replied, sotto voce, 'His lordship is a viscount.' 'I dinna ken't,' was Jean's remark; 'but it has a bonny soond.' 'What mair would ye hae?' said the fair beauty, whose name was the likeliest to know, she added: Nobeelity is just a Christie Johnstone. Then appealing to his lordship as soond itsel, I'm tauld.' The viscount finding himself expected to say something on a topic he had not attended much to, answered drily: 'We must ask the republicans; they are the people that give their minds to such subjects.' And yon man,' asked Jean Carnie, 'is he a lord, too?' 'I am his lordship's servant,' replied Saunders gravely, not without a secret misgiving whether fate had been just. 'Na!' replied she, not to be imposed upon. 'Ye are statelier and prooder than this ane.' 'I will explain,' said his master. Saunders knows his value; a servant like Saunders is rarer than an idle viscount.' Mr Reade is not very happy with his Scotch dialogue. His novel, however, is lively and interesting, and Christie, like Peg Woffington, is ably drawn. This type of energetic impassioned women is characteristic of all Mr Reade's novels. In 1856 appeared It is Never Too Late to Mend, the scene of which is partly laid in Australia, and which introduces us to life in the bush, and to a series of surprising adventures. This was followed by White Lies, 1857; The Course of True Love Never did Run Smooth, 1857; Jack of all Trades, 1858; Love me Little, Love me Long, 1859; and The Cloister and the Hearth, a Tale of the Middle Ages, 1861. The last is a powerful romancethe author's noblest work. It was followed by Hard Cash, 1863; and by Griffith Gaunt, or Jealousy, 1868-both remarkable fictions, though deformed by coarse, overdrawn scenes, and painful disclosures of immorality, crime, and suffering. The other novels of Mr Reade are Foul Play, 1868; Put Yourself in his Place, 1870; and A Terrible Temptation, 1871. Before his successful career as a novelist, Mr Reade had produced some dramatic pieces-Gold, 1850; and, in association with Mr Tom Taylor, a drama entitled Two Loves and a Life, 1854; The King's Rivals, 1854; Masks and Faces, 1854; on the last of these was founded the story of Peg Woffington. Mr Reade is an Oxfordshire man, a D.C.L. of the university, youngest son of a squire of the same name; born in 1814, graduated at Magdalen Hall, elected to one of the Vinerian Fellowships in 1842, and called to the bar in 1843. G. R. GLEIG-W. H. MAXWELL-JAMES GRANT. Various military narratives, in which imag inary scenes and characters are mixed up with real events and descriptions of continental scenery, have been written by the above gentlemen. The REV. GEORGE ROBERT GLEIG (son of Bishop Gleig of Brechin, and born in 1796) in the early part of his life served in the army, but afterwards entered the church, and is now Chaplain-General to the Forces. A portion of his military experi ence is given in his work, The Subaltern, 1825, which gives an accurate and lively account of some of the scenes in the Peninsular war. has since proved one of our most voluminous writers. Among his works are-The Chelsea Pensioners, 1829; The Country Curate, 1834; The Chronicles of Waltham, 1835; The Hussar, 1837 ; He Traditions of Chelsea College, 1838; The Only Daughter, 1839; The Veterans of Chelsea Hospital, 1841; The Light Dragoon, 1844; Story of the Battle of Waterloo; &c. Mr Gleig has also written Lives of British Military Commanders, a History of British India, a Familiar History of England, a Life of Sir Thomas Munro, Memoirs of Warren Hastings, a Military History of Great Britain, an account of Sale's Brigade in Afghanistan, Campaigns of the British Army in Washington, a Life of Lord Clive, three volumes of travels in Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary; two volumes of Essays contributed to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, several volumes of sermons and educational treatises, &c. Many of these works of Mr Gleig bear traces of haste and mere book-making; the Memoirs of Hastings, though poor, had the merit of producing one of Macaulay's best essays. The latest of Mr Gleig's works is a Life of Sir Walter Scott, 1871, reprinted from the Quarterly Review. WILLIAM HAMILTON MAXWELL (1795-1861) is said to have been the first who suggested the military novel, afterwards so popular with Charles Lever. Mr Maxwell travelled for some time with the British army in the Peninsula, but took orders in the church, and became rector of Ballagh in Connaught. He was a voluminous writer, author, among other works, of Stories of Waterloo, 1829; Wild Sports of the West, 1833; The Dark Lady of Doona, 1836; The Bivouac, or Stories of the Peninsular War, 1837; Life of the Duke of Wellington, 3 vols., 1839–41; Rambling Recollections of a Soldier of Fortune, 1842; Hector O'Halloran, 1844; History of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 (illustrated by Cruikshank), 1845; Adventures of Captain O'Sullivan, 1846; Hillside and Border Sketches, 1847; Bryan O'Lynn, 1848; &c. A number of military novels and memoirs of eminent_commanders have been written by MR JAMES GRANT (born in Edinburgh in 1822), who served for a short time in the 62d Regiment. Among these are-The Romance of War, 1846, to which a sequel was added the following year; Adventures of an Aide-de-camp, 1848; Walter Fenton, or the Scottish Cavalier, 1850; Bothwell, 1851; Jane Seton, 1853; Philip Rollo, 1854; The Yellow Frigate, 1855; The Phantom Regiment, 1856; and every succeeding year a military novel, the latest being Under the Red Dragon, 1872. Besides these, Mr Grant has written Memoirs of Kirkaldy of Grange, 1849; Memorials of Edinburgh Castle, 1850; Memoirs of Sir John Hep burn, 1851. Familiar with military affairs and with Scottish history, some of Mr Grant's novels present animated pictures of the times, though often rambling and ill constructed. GEORGE MACDONALD. bury, and became the minister of a Congregational church at Arundel in Sussex. He remained three years in Arundel, and then removed to Manchester. He was compelled, however, to give up preaching on account of the state of his health, which has always been delicate and precarious. A short residence in Algiers restored Mr MacDonald to comparative vigour, and returning to London, he took to literature as a profession. In 1856, his first work, Within and Without, a poem, appeared. This was followed by Phantastes, a Faerie Romance, as wild as Hogg's Kilmeny, but also, like it, full of poetic beauty and power. A long series of novels and imaginative works succeeded. David Elginbrod, 1862; The Portent, a Story of Second Sight, 1864; Adela Cathcart, 1864; Alec Forbes of Howglen, 1865; Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood; Robert Falconer; Seaboard Parish; Wow o' Riven, or the Idiot's Home; At the Back of the North Wind; The Princess and the Goblin; Wilfrid Cumbermede; Malcolm; St Michael and the Dragon, 1875 ; &c. Besides his numerous novels, Mr MacDonald has published a volume of poems and some theological works, as, Unspoken Sermons, 1869; The Miracles of Our Lord, 1870. In depicting certain phases of religious belief and development, and in exposing the harsher features of Calvinism, Mr MacDonald is original and striking, and scenes of that nature in his novels are profound as well as touching and suggestive. The following extract is from Robert Falconer: Death of the Drinking, Fiddling Soutar (Shoemaker). Silence endured for a short minute; then he called his wife. 'Come here, Bell. Gie me a kiss, my bonny lass. I hae been an ill man to you.' 'Na, na, Sandy. Ye hae aye been gude to mebetter nor I deserved. Ye hae been naebody's enemy but yer ain.' 'Haud yer tongue. Ye're speykin' waur blethers nor the minister, honest man! And, eh! ye war a bonny lass when I merried ye. I hae blaudit (spoiled) ye a'thegither. But gin I war up, see gin I wadna gie ye a new goon, an' that wad be something to make ye like yersel' again. I'm affrontet wi' mysel' 'at I had been sic a brute o' a man to ye. But ye maun forgie me noo, for I do believe i' my hert 'at the Lord's forgien me. Gie me anither kiss, lass. God be praised, and mony thanks to you. Ye micht hae run awa' frae me lang or noo, an' a'body wad hae said ye did richt.— Robert, play a spring.' The Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn. 'Hoots! hoots!' cried Sandy angrily. 'What are you aboot? Nae mair o' that. I hae dune wi' that. What's i' the heid o' ye, man?' 'What'll I play then, Sandy?' asked Robert meekly. 'Play the The Lan' o' the Leal, or My Nannie's Awa', or something o' that kin'. I'll be leal to ye noo, Bell. An' we winna pree o' the whusky nae mair, lass.' 'I canna bide the smell o't,' cried Bell sobbing. Robert struck in with The Land othe Leal. When he had played it over two or three times, he laid the fiddle in its place, and departed-able just to see, by the light of the neglected candle, that Bell sat on the rhinoceros-hide of which was yet delicate enough to let bedside stroking the rosiny hand of her husband, the the love through to his heart. After this the soutar never called his fiddle his auld wife. One of the most original novelists of the day, especially in describing humble Scottish life and feeling, whose genius 'loves to dwell on the border-land between poetry and prose, between this world and romance,' is MR GEORGE MACDONALD. Born at Huntly, county of Aberdeen, December 10, 1824, Mr MacDonald went to college at Aberdeen in his sixteenth year, and pursued his studies with a view to devoting his life to science, particularly chemistry. He after- Dooble Sanny [Double Sandy], the drinking, ranting, wards attended the Theological College at High- | swearing soutar, was inside the wicket-gate.... Hence Robert walked home with his head sunk on his breast. forth Robert had more to do in reading the New Testament than in playing the fiddle to the soutar, though they never parted without an air or two. Sandy continued hopeful and generally cheerful, with alternations which the reading generally fixed on the right side for the night. Robert never attempted any comments, but left him to take from the Word what nourishment he could. There was no return of strength, and the constitution was gradually yielding. 'Was Jacob a good man?' he asked as soon as the reading, each of the scholars in turn taking a verse, was over. An apparently universal expression of assent followed; halting in its wake, however, came the voice of a boy near the bottom of the class: Wasna he some double, sir?' 'You are right Sheltie,' said the master; he was double. I must, I find, put the question in another shape was Jacob a bad man?' Again came such a burst of 'yeses' that it might have been taken for a general hiss. But limping in the rear came again the half dissentient voice of Sheltie : 'Pairtly, sir.' You think then, Sheltie, that a man may be both bad and good?' 'I dinna ken, sir; I think he may be whiles ane and whiles the other, and whiles maybe it wad be ill to say which. Our colly's whiles in twa minds whether he 'll do what he's telled or no.' "That's the battle of Armageddon, Sheltie, my man. It's aye raging, as gun roared or bayonet clashed. Ye maun up and do your best in 't, my man. Gien ye die fechting like a man, ye'll flee up with a quiet face and wide open een; and there's a great One that will say to ye, 'Weel done, laddie!' But gien ye gie in to the enemy, he'll turn ye into a creeping thing that eats dirt and there 'll no be a hole in a' the crystal wa' of the New Jerusalem near enough to let ye creep through.' The rumour got abroad that he was a 'changed character '-how, is not far to seek, for Mr Macleary fancied himself the honoured instrument of his conversion, whereas paralysis and the New Testament were the chief agents, and even the violin had more share in it than the minister. For the spirit of God lies all about the spirit of man like a mighty sea, ready to rush in at the smallest chink in the walls that shut him out from his own-walls which even the tone of a violin afloat on the wind of that spirit is sometimes enough to rend from battlement to base, as the blast of the rams' horns rent the walls of Jericho. And now, to the day of his death, the shoemaker had need of nothing. Food, wine, and delicacies were sent him by many who, while they considered him outside of the kingdom, would have troubled themselves in no way about him. What with | visits of condolence and flattery, inquiries into his experience, and long prayers by his bedside, they now did their best to send him back among the swine. The soutar's 'That's just it, my boy. And because he would not humour, however, aided by his violin, was a strong anti-get up and fight manfully, God had to take him in hand. dote against these evil influences. Ye've heard tell of generals, when their troops were rinnin' awa', having to cut this man down, shoot that ane, and lick another, till he turned them a' right face about, and drave them on to the foe like a spate (flood). And the trouble God took wi' Jacob was not lost upon him at last.' 'An' what came o' Esau, sir?' asked a pale-faced maiden with blue eyes. 'He wasna an ill kind o' a chield, was he, sir?' 'I doobt I'm gaein' to dee, Robert,' he said at length one evening, as the lad sat by his bedside. 'Weel, that winna do ye nae ill,' answered Robert; adding, with just a touch of bitterness: 'ye needna care aboot that.' 'I do not care aboot the deein' o't. But I jist want to live lang eneuch to lat the Lord ken 'at I'm in doonricht earnest aboot it. I hae nae chance o' drinkin' as lang as I'm lyin' here.' 'Never ye fash yer heid aboot that. Ye can lippen (trust) that to him, for it's his ain business. He'll see 'at ye're a' richt. Dinna ye think at' he'll lat ye off.' The Lord forbid,' responded the soutar earnestly. It maun be a' pitten richt. It wad be dreidfu' to be latten off. I wadna hae him content wi' cobbler's wark. I hae 't,' he resumed, after a few minutes' pause: 'the Lord's easy pleased, but ill to satisfee. I'm sair pleased wi' your playin', Robert, but it's naething like the richt thing yet. It does me gude to hear ye, though, for a' that.' The very next night he found him evidently sinking fast. Robert took the violin, and was about to play, but the soutar stretched out his left hand, and took it from him, laid it across his chest and his arm over it, for a few moments, as if he were bidding it farewell, then held it out to Robert, saying: 'Hae, Robert, she's yours. Death's a sair divorce. Maybe they'll hae an orra fiddle whaur I'm gaein', though. Think o' a Rothieden soutar playing afore his Grace!' Robert saw that his mind was wandering, and mingled the paltry honours of earth with the grand simplicities of heaven. He began to play the Land o' the Leal. For a little while Sandy seemed to follow and comprehend the tones, but by slow degrees the light departed from his face. At length his jaw fell, and with a sigh the body parted from Dooble Sanny, and he went to God. His wife closed mouth and eyes without a word, laid the two arms straight by his sides, then seating herself on the edge of the bed, said: 'Dinna bide, Robert. It's a ower noo. He's gane hame. Gin I war only wi' him, wharever he is!" She burst into tears, but dried her eyes a moment after. Bible Class in the Fisher Village.-From Malcolm.' He now called up the Bible class, and Malcolm sat beside and listened. That morning they had read one of the chapters in the history of Jacob. 'I reckon, sir,' said Sheltie, 'Jacob hadna foughten out his battle.' 'No, Mappy,' answered the master; 'he was a fine chield as you say, but he needed mair time and gentler treatment to make onything o' him. Ye see he had a guid heart, but was a duller kind o' creature a'thegither, and cared for naething he couldna see or handle. He never thought muckle about God at a'. Jacob was another sort-a poet kind o' a man, but a sneck-drawing creature for a' that. It was easier, however, to get the slyness out o' Jacob than the dullness out o' Esau. Punishment telled upon Jacob like upon a thin-skinned horse, whereas Esau was mair like the minister's powny, that can hardly be made to understand that ye want him to gang on." The Old Churchyard.-From Malcolm? The next day, the day of the Resurrection, rose glorious from its sepulchre of sea-fog and drizzle. It had poured all night long, but at sunrise the clouds had broken and scattered, and the air was the purer for the cleansing rain, while the earth shone with that peculiar lustre which follows the weeping which has endured its appointed night. The larks were at it again, singing as if their hearts would break for joy as they hovered in brooding exultation over the song of the future; for their nests beneath hoarded a wealth of larks for summers to come. Especially about the old church-half buried in the ancient trees of Lossie House, the birds that day were jubilant; their throats seemed too narrow to let out the joyful air that filled all their hollow bones and quills; they sang as if they must sing or choke with too much gladness. Beyond the short spire and its shining cock, rose the balls and stars and arrowy vanes of the house, glittering in gold and sunshine. The inward hush of the Resurrection, broken only by the prophetic birds, the poets of the groaning and travailing creation, held time and space as in a trance; and the centre from which radiated both the hush and the carolling expectation seemed to Alexander Graham to be the churchyard in which he was now walking in the cool of the morning. It was more carefully kept than most Scottish churchyards, and yet was not too trim; Nature had a word in the affair-was allowed her part of mourning in long grass and moss and the crumbling away of stone. The wholesomeness of decay, which both in nature and humanity is but the miry road back to life, was not unrecognised here; there was nothing of the hideous attempt to hide death in the garments of life. The master walked about gently, now stopping to read some well-known inscription, and ponder for a moment over the words; and now wandering across the stoneless mounds, content to be forgotten by all but those who loved the departed. At length he seated himself on a slab by the side of the mound that rose but yesterday; it was sculptured with symbols of decay-needless, surely, where the originals lay about the mouth of every newly-opened grave, as surely ill befitting the precincts of a church whose indwelling gospel is of life victorious over death! What are these stones,' he said to himself, but monuments to oblivion.' They are not memorials of the dead, but memorials of the forgetfulness of the living. How vain it is to send a poor forsaken name, like the title-page of a lost book, down the careless stream of time! Let me serve my generation, and may God remember me !' Mr MacDonald is a master of thought and sentiment, with fine fancy and descriptive power, but with little or no constructive tact. His ideas are apt to run away with him, and to cause one part of his story to move in a wholly different atmosphere from that of the other. The quaint, realism of the first volume of David Elginbrod but indifferently reconciles itself with the spiritualistic effusiveness of the latter. The Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood errs in the same way, and also Malcolm; yet what fine things are in those works! Mr MacDonald's peculiar reaction against Calvinism is seen in most of his novels, particularly in Robert Falconer, which is perhaps the ablest of his tales. His Scotch is the dialect of the east of Scotland, Moray and Aberdeen-not the classic Scotch of Burns and Scott. His latest novel, St George and St Michael, is English, and is a story of the time of the Commonwealth, the plot turning on the progress of the war. Lord Herbert, the inventor, is well drawn, and the novel has occasional touches of humour. MacDonald has been very successful in fairy stories, after the model of the German Marchen, and his Phantastes is in its way quite inimitable. As in all his tales Mr MacDonald shews poetic feeling, we might expect to find him versifying, and accordingly he has written two or three volumes of poetry marked by penetration, sympathy, and subtle beauty of expression. In such lines as the following we see a fine lyrical power : Come to us; above the storm Mother, darling, do not weep- By and by, you'll go to sleep, Mr We're so happy all the day Waiting for another; All the flowers and sunshine stay Most of Mr MacDonald's novels contain snatches of verse. In a longer poem, Hidden Life, in blank verse, is the following Wordsworthian passage: Love-dreams of a Peasant Youth. He found the earth was beautiful. The sky God, and not woman, is the heart of all. Already in these hours his quickened soul A common being with him; every kind And when the winter came, when thick the snow Armed the sad fields from gnawing of the frost, When the low sun but skirted his far realms, And sank in early night, he drew his chair Read book on book; and wandered other climes, Mr MacDonald has occasionally lectured on the poets-Shakspeare, Milton, Wordsworth, &c. -to large intellectual audiences, in London and of the fair and classic county of Warwick) has the provinces. EDMUND YATES. EDMUND HODGSON YATES, a miscellaneous writer and journalist (born in 1831), is author of several novels, including Kissing the Rod, and Land at Last, 1866; Wrecked in Port, 1869; | Dr Wainwright's Patient and Nobody's Fortune, 1871; The Castaway, 1872; Two by Tricks, 1874; &c. Mr Yates was a contributor to Dickens's periodical All the Year Round, in which appeared his novel of Black Sheep and other works of fiction. As a dramatic writer and critic he is also well known. Indeed, for the drama, Mr Yates may be said to have a hereditary predilection, as his father was a popular and accomplished actor and theatrical manager. appeared, dating from 1857, which are remarkable for fresh original power and faithful delineation of English country-life. The first of these, entitled Scenes of Clerical Life, appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, and attracted much attention. It was followed in 1859 by Adam Bede, of which five editions were sold within as many months. The story of this novel is of the real school, as humble in most of its characters and as faithful in its portraiture as Jane Eyre. The opening sentences disclose the worldly condition of the hero, and form a fine piece of English painting. The scene is the workshop of a carpenter in a village, and the date of the story 1799: Description of Adam Bede. The afternoon sun was warm on the five workmen there, busy upon doors and window-frames and wainscoting. A scent of pine-wood from a tent-like pile of planks outside the open door mingled itself with the scent of the elder-bushes, which were spreading their slanting sunbeams shone through the transparent shavings that flew before the steady plane, and lit up the fine grain of the oak panelling which stood propped rough gray shepherd-dog had made himself a pleasant against the wall. On a heap of those soft shavings a bed, and was lying with his nose between his fore-paws, occasionally wrinkling his brows to cast a glance at the tallest of the five workmen, who was carving a shield in the centre of a wooden mantel-piece. It was to this workman that the strong barytone belonged which was heard above the sound of plane and hammer, singing : 'Awake, my soul, and with the sun Thy daily stage of duty run; Shake off dull sloth' MISS BRADDON-LOUISE DE LA RAMÉ. MARY ELIZABETH BRADDON has produced about thirty novels, all of them shewing remarkable artistic skill in weaving the plot and arrang-summer snow close to the open window opposite; the ing the incidents, so as to enchain the reader's attention. This is the distinguishing feature of the authoress, rather than delineation of character. Some of her tales have a strong fascinating interest, and abound in dramatic scenes and powerful description. Her novels are full of surprises-literally packed with incidents of the most striking character-winding out interminably, and threatening to collapse in conflicting lines of interest, but just at the right moment they reunite themselves again with ingenious consistency. Lady Audley's Secret and Aurora Floyd may be considered as representative works, skilful in plot, but dealing with repellant phases of life and character. The following are among the best known of Miss Braddon's works: Lady Audley's Secret (which had an amazing popularity, six editions being disposed of in as many weeks), Henry Dunbar, Only a Clod, Dead-Sea Fruit, John Marchmont's Legacy, The Lady's Mile, Captain of the Vulture, Birds of Prey, Aurora Floyd, The Doctor's Wife, Eleanor's Victory, Sir Jasper's Tenant, Trail of the Serpent, Charlotte's Inheritance, Rupert Godwin, Ralph the Bailiff, The Lovels of Arden, To the Bitter End, &c. Miss Braddon has also produced some dramatic pieces and a volume of Poems (1861), and she conducts a monthly magazine entitled Belgravia. The prolific authoress is a native of London, daughter of Mr Henry Braddon, a solicitor, and born in 1837. A lady assuming the name of 'Ouida' (said to be LOUISE DE LA RAMÉ, of French extraction) is author of a number of novels, characterised by gentle and poetic feeling and sentiment. Among these are: Folle-Farine; Idalia, a Romance; Chandos, a Novel; Under Two Flags; Cecil Castlemaine's Gage; Tricotrin, the Story of a Waif and Stray; Pascarèl, only a Story; Held in Bondage, or Granville de Vigne; A Dog of Flanders, and other Stories; Puck, his Vicissitudes, Adventures, &c.; Strathmore, or Wrought by his Own Hand, &c.; Two Little Wooden Shoes. GEORGE ELIOT. Under the name of 'George Eliot,' as author, a series of novels by a lady (said to be a native Here some measurement was to be taken which re- 'Let all thy converse be sincere, Thy conscience as the noonday clear.' Such a voice could only come from a broad chest, and the broad chest belonged to a large-boned muscular head so well poised, that when he drew himself up to man, nearly six feet high, with a back so flat and a take a more distant survey of his work, he had the air of a soldier standing at ease. The sleeve rolled up above the elbow shewed an arm that was likely to win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long supple hand, with its bony finger-tips, looked ready for works of skill. In his tall stalwartness, Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified his name; but the jet-black hair, made the more noticeable by its contrast with the light paper-cap, and the keen glance of the dark eyes that shone from under strongly-marked, prominent, and mobile eyebrows, indicated a mixture of Celtic blood. The real heroine of the tale is Dinah Morris, the Methodist preacher; but Adam Bede's love is fixed on a rustic coquette and beauty, thus finely described as standing in the dairy of the Hall Farm: Hetty Sorrel. It is of little use for me to tell you that Hetty's cheek was like a rose-petal, that dimples played about her pouting lips, that her large dark eyes had a soft roguishness under their long lashes, and that her curly hair, though all pushed back under her round cap while she was at work, stole back in dark delicate rings on her forehead and about her white shell-like ears; it is of little use for me to say how lovely was the contour of |