nestly confess that I have found it a little
overwhelming; but that, after all, is a question of individual taste. I
suppose there is one comparison that is inevitable. I had meant to say
never a word about CHARLES DICKENS in this notice, but, like the head of
another CHARLES, it would come; and when the chief house in the story
began to rumble and finally collapsed in a cloud of dust--well, could
anyone help being reminded of how the same incident was handled by the
master of such terrors? In brief, this latest De Morgan left me with a
profound and increased respect for the author; some little envy for the
reader whose time and taste enable him to enjoy it as it should be
enjoyed; and, for proof-readers and reviewers, a very pure sympathy.

* * * * *

The _Duchess of Wrexe_ (SECKER) is, I think, the longest as it is
certainly the most substantial novel that Mr. HUGH WALPOLE has yet given
us. It is the work of one who has already made himself a force in modern
fiction, and after this book will have more than ever to be reckoned
with. Whether the reckoning will be to all tastes is another matter; I
incline to think not. Four hundred closely printed pages, in which
hardly anything happens to the bodies of the characters, but a great
deal to their spirits--this perhaps is toughish meat for the ordinary
devourer of fiction. But for the others this study of the passing of an
epoch, the time of the Old Society, as symbolised by the figure of the
_Duchess_, will be a delight. You might suppose from this (if you were
unfamiliar with your author) that we had here a social comedy. Nothing
in fact could be further from Mr. WALPOLE'S design. For him, as for his
characters, there is almost too haunting a sense of the tragedy of
trivial things. No one in the book is happy. The _Duchess_ herself,
stern, aloof, terrible, broken but never bent by the oncoming of the New
Order; the various members of the family whom she terrified; _Rachel_,
the granddaughter, between whom and the old woman there exists the bond
of one of those hatreds in which Mr. WALPOLE so exults; the secretary,
_Lizzie Rand_--all of them are tremendously and miserably alive. I think
the matter is that they have too much sensibility, of the modern kind.
They see too many meanings. A primrose by a river's brim, or more
probably in a flower-seller's basket, is not for them a simple primrose,
but a portent of soul-shaking significance. To ma