revived in the height of a contested election. The secret blow has been dealt by the father of Valentine's lady-love and distant cousin-a gentleman who is heir presumptive, failing this unlucky foundling, to the honours and estates of the Esksides. Hence much trouble and excitement, and many openings for effective and suggestive writing, of which Mrs. Oliphant has not been slow to avail herself. Distracted between her family and her lover, Violet Pringle has bitter times of it. As for Valentine and his grand-parents, they experience surprise on surprise, and sustain shock on shock, although these sensations follow naturally enough on the extravagantly romantic origin of the novel. Valentine had stumbled by accident on his mother and missing brother, was instinctively attracted to them, and had patronised them magnificently in unconsciousness of the relationship. It is much of a mystery how Myra the gipsy woman should have preserved, through her wandering gipsy life, the lady-like refinement of manner and feeling that had captivated the Honourable Richard Ross. It is more intelligible that, with such a mother, Dick Brown,' who is really Richard Ross the younger, should have been 'brought up so respectable' as to be quite ready to turn into a gentleman. And the scenes arising out of discovery, recognition, and the coming together of the strangely assorted family under the influences of common interests and anxieties are admirably devised and depicted. Violet and Valentine are of course made happy in the end. Dick has a sublime opportunity of evincing his gratitude to his brother and benefactor; even the polished secretary of legation, after being woke up from his long lethargy of feeling, is sent back to his legation a better and happier man; and there is a promise of cheerful closing days for the old Lord Eskside and his warm-hearted Lady. But Valentine: and his Brother' do not shake us in our preference for our old acquaintance The Minister's 'Wife. The conception of the latter is more simply natural; the analysis of minds and feelings more searching and profound; the work is more perfect in its finish and in its general harmony of idea. Valentine: and his Brother,' on the other hand, is rather a tour de force; having seized on a striking and sensational plot, its author succeeds in absorbing us afterwards so as to make us forget to be incredulous and critical. It shows great literary talent on every page, and an extraordinary fertility of resource and invention; while nothing can be more enchanting than the description of that woodland scenery on the romantic banks of Esk, with which very few Scotchmen are unfamiliar. Mrs. Oliphant writes indefatigably, and, as it seems

to us, she is generally in the habit of driving at least a couple of works abreast. But so long as her fancy grows with what it feeds upon, and her execution improves with increased experience, we at least shall take no exception to her prolificness.

George Mac Donald's works have much in common with those of Mrs. Oliphant. The subjects are very similar, although Mr. Mac Donald takes his favourite heroes and heroines from a somewhat humbler grade. He goes to the cottage and the farmhouse, rather than to the laird's mansion or the manse. In both the religious element is largely predominant, but Mr. Mac Donald is more of the metaphysician and theologian, and searches into the inner nature of his creations with a more discriminating refinement of analysis. Everyone knows that the Scotch are an eminently religious people; but the impres sion is that theirs is too often the selfish and narrow-minded sectarianism that shuts its eyes to the sins they are inclined to, while it is intolerantly observant of Levitical laws and ceremonies. Mr. Mac Donald admits there is some truth in that view, but he sets himself to do them justice while he does not gloss over their faults. He ridicules hypocrisy and inconsistency, and the complacent self-conceit that catches at biblical forms of speech while it can give little reason for the faith that is in it. But he shows that a good deal of hypocrisy and bigotry is really a tribute to that moral and religious tone which is so favourable to solemn thought and genuine piety. He delights in depicting the working man, who in independent communing with his Creator and himself, has shaped out for himself a more catholic creed he scarcely dares to confess to, and has brought his intelligent benevolence into embarrassing conflict with his orthodoxy. He may be apt to over-refine and idealise in his David Elginbrod.' But it is impossible to doubt that, even in his 'David Elginbrod,' he must have followed nature very closely; that he must have had opportunities of familiarising himself with the quaint phraseology which is made the vehicle for most original forms of thought-phraseology that often borders apparently on irreverence in its familiar handling of sacred subjects. A determined enemy to Calvinistic exclusiveness, nothing rouses him to righteous indignation like the suggestion that the Supreme Ruler of this beautiful world can be anything else than the fountain of love and mercy. Esthetically speaking, it is fortunate for his readers that he is so earnest an advocate of muscular Christianity, that he believes firmly that man was made for the purpose of innocent enjoyment. For discussions and disquisitions that would otherwise seem dull are enlivened by

abundance of dry drollery-the gravest of mortals show frequent flashes of fun in the grey eyes under the shaggy eyebrows, and give utterance to excellent things they are more than half ashamed of-and then he has the hearty sympathy of a man who has been young himself, with the overflowing spirits and even the practical jokes of boyhood. Mr. Mac Donald, indeed, is constantly going back to his youthful days, and living his school and village life over again in the persons of his youthful heroes. So that his works are not only extremely realistic, but have a certain mannerism about them, with a slight smack of the schoolmaster. He is fond of taking the boy young, and passing over no detail of his development and education-the education, we mean, that comes of thought and self-examination rather than from parents and teachers. Throughout, his work is an analysis of living humanity, to which the interest of the plot is altogether subordinated. Mr. Mac Donald is a poet, and a good poet. His descriptions of Scotch scenery in light and darkness, snowstorm and sunshine, are often exquisite. Sometimes he breaks away from a strain of abstract speculation into fanciful eloquence as farfetched as anything in his Phantastes,' or he falls into a vein of sentimentalism that rather tempts one to smile than to weep. Yet he is even too honest and conscientious in representing Scotch life as he has seen and known it, and it says much for his peculiar powers that he makes his works so attractive as they are. It is true he writes for thoughtful readers. But even they may feel that he is sometimes unnecessarily didactic-that they are kept dwelling too long on matters that in themselves are by no means light or easy reading. In the boyhood and youth of a raw Scotch lad there must be much that is decidedly dull and prosaic, however striking may be the transformation scene, when the beauties of his moral nature are bursting out in full brilliancy; and a dreamy, boyish passion is but an indifferent substitute for hopeful and heart-felt love-making in the ordinary manner. sticks closely to what we presume is his native country-northeastern Scotland. To those who know it as well as we do, nothing can seem more minutely truthful than his descriptions, and there is scarcely a page that does not recall to us associations that are linked with pleasant memories. He sets off to the utmost the cold charms of somewhat forbidding landscapes, and does ample romantic justice to the homely but kindly people. But even to a native of these parts the dialect of the people sounds uncouth and almost coarse, and instead of imitating Scott in departing from something that resembles colloquial English

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as slightly and as seldom as he conscientiously can, he has a mania for making everyone go out of their way to discourse in the very broadest Scotch. Robert Falconer and Alec Forbes have both mastered English early, and as a matter of art they should be encouraged to speak it, by way of contrast with the people about them, who all express themselves in the primitive Doric. But they seldom miss an opportunity of going back to the old vernacular. Even a highborn lady in Robert Falconer,' who has long been resident in England, catches the infection, and does not content herself with those stray Scotticisms which used to give a pleasant piquancy to the talk of contemporaries of her birth and station. But when all has been said of them in the way of detracting criticism, Mr. Mac Donald's works must take very high rank for the most elevating qualities of fiction. They paint the noblest forms of religious and intellectual life with the fidelity of deep experience. They set up an exalted standard of excellence, and brace their readers for the battles of life by dwelling invariably on the heroic virtues of resolution, patience, self-reliance, and selfsacrifice. They encourage one under inevitable failures and disappointments, by showing that the bitters of existence may be the best of stimulants, and become positively pleasant in the after-taste.

'David Elginbrod' is unmistakably the work of a remarkable man, but it exaggerates both the faults and the beauties of the author. The fanciful element is extremely strong, even when he does not seek the excitement of his plot in the mystical and supernatural. Hugh Sutherland, the hero, is human enough; David, the stalwart old peasant-patriarch, with his almost celestial tenderness for the weaknesses of his frail fellowcreatures, his original notions of the great mysteries of the religious government of the world, and his shrewd critical insight into the hidden meaning of such mystic poets as Coleridge, is barely conceivable; but Margaret, his angel-daughter, seems to us altogether the dream of a Fra Angelico's half-inspired fancy. Heaven, as it made her, taught her her first lessons, and under the hands of her fond father she grows in grace and moral beauty. With all her natural gifts, it strikes us as extravagant that a Scotch peasant girl, who has just quitted the paternal cottage, should develop so suddenly into the refined lady in every sense of the word. The young Scotch maid not only wins Hugh Sutherland's heart and reverence, which perhaps was natural enough, but she establishes a spiritual ascendancy over the various inmates of the English household she has been received into. She not only clothes beautiful

thoughts in a rare dignity of language, but, in characteristic contrast to Mr. Mac Donald's usual practice, she forgets her Aberdeenshire patois for the purest English. We admire her, in short, as we admire the sweet creation of some fairy tale, rather than as a being of like passions with ourselves, although she is made archly womanly in the bit of wooing that winds. the volumes and settles her for life :

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"What is the matter, dear-Hugh?" she said, rising and laying her hand on his shoulder.

666

Hoot, lassie," broke in her mother; man, a gentleman, before my very een?"

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are ye

makin' love till a

"He did it first, mother," answered Margaret with a smile.'

6

As for the supernatural machinery-ghosts' walks, haunted chambers, mesmeric and spiritual influences, the quack Funkelstein, &c.-Mr. Mac Donald has discarded everything of the kind in his later books, and very wisely. It is indifferent art, as Scott proved in his Monastery,' unless you plunge at once over head and ears into allegory like La Motte Fouqué, to bring supernatural sensationalism to bear on the doings of the every-day world; and his shadowy revelations and visitations from the spirit-world seem strangely out of keeping with the conscientious realism of Mr. Mac Donald's reproductions of every-day life.

'David Elginbrod' is evidently the work of an original mind, we may say of an original genius. But Alec Forbes of 'Howglen,' while avoiding most of its blemishes, is a far more finished story. The harmonies of conception are preserved throughout; the drawing of character is never exaggerated. After reading the book, an intelligent foreigner, who knew nothing whatever of Scotland, might carry away as clear an idea of the country and the people as he could have gathered from a short sojourn among the middle classes in a rural parish and a provincial tour. Alec himself goes through much the same course of training as Hugh Sutherland or Robert Faiconer. Though somewhat better born and bred than his schoolfellows, he is sent with them to the parish school, there to prepare for the neighbouring university, where he hopes to pay his way by gaining a bursary (scholarship). Mutatis mutandis, his is the story of many a Scotch lad; although Alec not being made prematurely thoughtful by seeing his family stinting itself to forward him in the world, is as careless as an ordinary schoolboy ought to be, and vents his spirits in frolic and mischief. Thanks, less to his better position than to those nascent qualities that stamp the leaders of men, he is acknowledged as chief among his rough and rugged companions,-a trying