A Woman Scorned. By Owens Blackburne. 3 vols. Tinsley Brothers, London, 1876. The clever writer who under the name of Owens Blackburne, has recently appeared in the literary world, promises to take a leading position amongst the great band of female authors who have chosen it as their mission to supply the incessant craving of society for light, fantastic fiction. It is sad to think that a race so gifted should be so ephemeral. They are eagerly read, but as rapidly forgotten; and their books, when the season is over, are flung into the limbo of oblivion, from which there is no resurrection.

Writers like Disraeli and the late Lord Lytton will be studied as long as the English tongue exists for their deep thought, immense variety of character, profound knowledge of life and human nature, and magnificent perfection of form, style, and language; but it may be safely affirmed that but a very small percentage of the novels written by women will be heard of or remembered a year after publication. They glitter for a day and die. Yet, at least, the glory of the moment compensates for the speedy oblivion that covers them. They command great prices from publishers, become the idol of a clique, and have all that a woman's heart most desires-praise, homage, flattery, adoration.

But the evil day comes at last; women write only from within, and when the experience or the

memory of passions, triumphs, sorrows, and trials from which they drew their materials has been exhausted, they have nothing more to say the vein of rich ore is worked out, and lead begins to replace the silver. It is hard, however, to abdicate a throne, and so the women novelists still work on, though no new element comes to their minds, and they can only repeat themselves, or give us the old lay figures in new attitudes, until at last the fire burns low on the altar, and the worshippers begin to forsake the temple for other shrines.'

For subtle analysis of character, varied and striking modes and moods of thought, and the strong contrasts of conflicting passions that stir the human soul, we must look to the writings of men. Their genius is heightened and stimulated by a wider experience, and the full liberty of living unfettered by the narrow prejudices and the mean and torturing conventionalisms that keep women's souls in an iron bondage. The minds of men are fed from without, and while the imaginative faculty in woman, never very strong, is soon exhausted and worn out, the intellect in man grows day by day, progressing in power as new types of character unceasingly come before him, and the infinite varieties of experience gain definite forms through the strong and matured thought of advancing years. Thus, for instance, Disraeli's last novel, "Lothair," is unsurpassed even by

any of the productions of his own glorious youth, and stands unequalled in the literature of the day for power and purpose, for brilliancy of wit and splendid harmonies of language.

But a writer like Disraeli comes but seldom in a nation's literature; it is not fair to put the light, emotional, self-conscious, sensitive, limited soul of a woman in comparison with his. Their lesser intellects come in shoals, bright and sparkling as the multitudinous

waves, but also as evanescent, and their myriad volumes, soon read and soon forgotten, strew the shores of time like the layers of dead seaweed on the ocean beach. But it is precisely because they are so evanescent and so rapidly exhausted that the race needs perpetually to be renewed by new blood and fresh imaginations. Already the energies of many of the great sisterhood of the pen are on the wane; we know all their characters, we have fathomed all their plots and devices; we have become hardened and stiffnecked, and will no longer be melted by their passion or pathos. A new rush of waves is wanting over the arid sands of literature, and it is coming in the new generation of writers, who in the fresh vigour of youth seem resolved to 66 rush up the narrow path leading to fame," while their once powerful predecessors are dozing on their laurels.

Owens Blackburne is one of this young band of Titans who already threaten to subvert the thrones of the elder gods. She has many natural gifts calculated to ensure success, and we may expect still higher evidences of her ability as a novelist when life and experience develop wider horizons, and deepen and strengthen her intellectual nature. Like Miss Braddon, she is rich in incident, but her colouring never is coarse; like Miss Brough

ton, she can paint love with tropical fervour, but her heroines do not think it necessary to express the passion in slang diction, or to be for ever "nestling" their head upon the bosom of the lover. Then she is never weary or didactic, or discursive and diffusive; she knows how to concentrate her lights, and does not interrupt a love scene or disturb an intensely interesting situation by disquisitions-say on the return of the Jews, or the appearance of infusoria under the microscope.

The aim of a novel is to interest and amuse, to charm away care, and to make us forget for a while the dulness and weariness of real life in the bright colouring, the startling incidents, the beauty and the harmony of the world of imagination.

Owens Blackburne has the gift of interesting in an eminent degree, and she has also keen insight into character, though she does not tire the reader with commonplaces delivered in language of oracular obscurity, as if they were profound truths brought to the surface for the first time, and given to us covered with the hard, rough grit of primitive formations. On the contrary, her language is clear, vigorous, and simple, and the vivacity of her style carries on the reader without effort to the end. With the sense of innate power she is fearless, knowing that whatever is said naturally is said well, and is content not to trust too much to study, or the dabbling with scientific manuals, but to leave something to impulse when writing, to the instincts of the artist, and the inner light we call genius.

With Ouida she has no affinity; none of her stormy grandeur, or lava fires of devastating feeling. But then Ouida stands alone and apart from most female writers; alone by her passionate soul, her

glittering language, and the magic power by which she can elevate the meanest lifeor redeem the lowest, and transfigure it to glory by giving to it one divine grace. Nor will Ouida ever found a school, like Miss Braddon and Miss Broughton, who number disciples, followers, and imitators by the score, for culture such as Ouida possesses is as rare amongst women as the deep earnestness which lies at the base of her artist soul, and of the varied passion she pourtrays.

Yet Owens Blackburne is not without the power to turn the key that unlocks the deeper mysteries of life. Her first novel, "The Modern Parrhasius," which excited great attention in literary circles, is founded on that strange mystery of our nature, half physical half psychical, which no science has been able to solve, though none can deny its existence-the magnetic power which is exercised by some natures over others; a power that cannot be resisted, and is often fatal in its effects. The touch, the voice, the very presence of the magnetizer in the room radiates an electricity that paralyses the victim; volition is suspended, the intellect ceases to act, all efforts at resistance are vain, the magnetic influence gathers force at every moment, and the subjugation is complete. It is not love; reason and sense often try to war against the fatality, yet nothing can break the bondage. It is inflexible as the laws of attraction and repulsion that govern the universe. This strange and mystic force by which one human being sinks under the domination of another, helpless and passive, is exemplified with much power in "The Modern Parrhasius," showing that the author had deeply studied the effects on the female mind of this fatal sorcery.

The bero, a doctor and spiritualist, a man of weird fancies and powerful

volition, has dreamed all his life of the possibility of meeting another soul that he could subjugate entirely to his influence; strain away the life, as it were, and add it to his own by strong volition so that he would live with the strength of two lives, two natures, but moved by only one will. Chance places him one day at a dinner-party beside a beautiful girl. She has hitherto had the usual commonplace life of a woman, still seeking her conquests with the hope of a successful marriage in the end; but when the deep eyes of the magnetizer rest on hers, she feels that her destiny is fixed, and he also, by his subtle clairvoyance, knows that he has at last met the human soul that he is to draw and absorb into his own. The progress of this magnetic passion becomes tragic in the highest degree-a result which is strictly true to nature and fact, for these influences which our forefathers called sorcery and witchcraft, are always fatal. There is something demoniacal in the power which can take the volition, the intellect, the soul from a living human being, and then act on it as if it were but a piece of cunning mechanism, an instrument to be touched to mirth or sadness, to passion or apathy, at the caprice of the master. Sin and crime have come of such influences, and the weird tragedies of many fated lives.

In

Owens Blackburne's next novel "A Woman Scorned," is laid amidst Irish scenes, by the beautiful banks of the Boyne. It is a story of love and hate, of passion and crime, worked out with considerable dramatic power. deed, the author's genius is essentially dramatic, and if she turns her intellect to writing for the stage, there can be no doubt of her success. This very novel could be easily dramatized, for the situations are all scenic and striking. Every chapter is a bold, well-defined

picture, and the subordinate Irish characters, with their blended humour and pathos, are wonderfully true to life; especially the old Irish nurse, as important a member of the family household in Ireland as in ancient Greecethe trusted confidante, the adviser, the organiser, and arranger of the family life, and even by this one admirable picture we can see how truly and sympathetically the author has studied the soft and tender lights of the composite and singular Irish nature.

There are two heroines, the elder sister, proud, imperious, a social queen by right of her beauty and her stately grace; the younger, a step-sister, daughter of a governess, their father's second wife, who is looked upon as a mere weed in her path by the haughty beauty who rules the household of the O'Driscolls. The contrast is dramatic between the two sisters; the one who thinks the world should be at her feet, and the other a simple wildflower, struggling upwards to the light through the heavy and depressing atmosphere of humiliation that surrounds her. But her elastic Irish nature cannot be crushed. Her "petulant, quick replies " repels the scorn of her sister, and she springs up from beneath the trampling foot with a persistent courage that enlists all our sympathies on her side in the war of temperaments and destinies.

There is but one hero, and both sisters are in love with him-hence comes the drama of three lives, carried on with unfailing interest through a series of highly sensational scenes. The elder sister manifests her love through crime; the younger through suffering; but which sister conquers in the end we leave the reader to discover.

There is some humour (a quality

rare amongst female writers) and a quick perception of the ludicrous in the author's nature; the description of the rich, good-natured, but homely squire who falls in love with the younger sister, and pines from unrequited passion, is full of amusing but not sharp or disagreeable caricature. We like the old gentleman amazingly, and cannot but feel sorry that he was so badly treated by the little wildflower The interest of the plot is well sustained throughout, and there is a dash in the style, a vivacity of treatment, and rapid movement of the story which excites and carries on the reader easily to the end.

As novels have become a necessary stimulant to the age, wearied with over-lecturing and dogmatic teaching, we cordially recommend the sparkling cup offered by Owens Blackburne as a pleasant and exhilarating tonic. The mission of the novelist is simply to amuse, not to instruct, and there can be no brighter, better, or more interesting narrator of tales of passion, and incident, of life as it is, or of life in its exceptional phases, than the gifted author of "The Modern Parrhasius," and "A

Woman Scorned.'

Journal of Commodore Goodenough, R.N., C.B., C.M.G., Edited, with a memoir, by his widow. London: Henry S. King and Co., 1876. -Twelve months ago the subject of this memoir met a sad and tragic death when senior officer on the Australian station. In command of the Pearl he visited the island of Santa Cruz in the South Pacific, the inhabitants of which were reported unfriendly. Anxious to establish amicable relations with them, he incautiously landed without adopting sufficient precaution, and was treacherously attacked.