Such a
sentence as 'to imitate the rough logician who marched before the
Pyrrhonians while denying his own movement' entirely misses the point of
Balzac's 'imiter le rude logicien qui marchait devant les pyrrhoniens,
qui niaient le mouvement.'

We fear Mr. Routledge's edition will not do. It is well printed and
nicely bound; but his translators do not understand French. It is a
great pity, for La Comedie Humaine is one of the masterpieces of the age.

Balzac's Novels in English. The Duchesse de Langeais and Other Stories;
Cesar Birotteau. (Routledge and Sons.)

TWO NEW NOVELS

(Pall Mall Gazette, September 16, 1880.)

Most modern novels are more remarkable for their crime than for their
culture, and Mr. G. Manville Fenn's last venture is no exception to the
general rule. The Master of the Ceremonies is turbid, terrifying and
thrilling. It contains, besides many 'moving accidents by flood and
field,' an elopement, an abduction, a bigamous marriage, an attempted
assassination, a duel, a suicide, and a murder. The murder, we must
acknowledge, is a masterpiece. It would do credit to Gaboriau, and
should make Miss Braddon jealous. The Newgate Calendar itself contains
nothing more fascinating, and what higher praise than this can be given
to a sensational novel? Not that Lady Teigne, the hapless victim, is
killed in any very new or subtle manner. She is merely strangled in bed,
like Desdemona; but the circumstances of the murder are so peculiar that
Claire Denville, in common with the reader, suspects her own father of
being guilty, while the father is convinced that the real criminal is his
eldest son. Stuart Denville himself, the Master of the Ceremonies, is
most powerfully drawn. He is a penniless, padded dandy who, by a careful
study of the 'grand style' in deportment, has succeeded in making himself
the Brummel of the promenade and the autocrat of the Assembly Rooms. A
light comedian by profession, he is suddenly compelled to play the
principal part in a tragedy. His shallow, trivial nature is forced into
the loftiest heroism, the noblest self-sacrifice. He becomes a hero
against his will. The butterfly goes to martyrdom, the fop has to become
fine. Round this character centres, or rather should centre, the
psychological interest of the book, but unfortunately Mr. Fenn has
insisted on crowding his story with unnecessary incident. He might have
made of his novel 'A Soul's Tragedy,' but he has produced merely a
melodrama in three volumes. The Master of the Ceremonies is a melancholy
example of the fatal influence of Drury Lane on literature. Still, it
should be read, for though Mr. Fenn has offered up his genius as a
holocaust to Mr. Harris, he is never dull, and his style is on the whole
very good. We wish, however, that he would not try to give articulate
form to inarticulate exclamations. Such a passage as this is quite
dreadful and fails, besides, in producing the effect it aims at:

'He--he--he, hi--hi--hi, hec--hec--hec, ha--ha--ha! ho--ho! Bless
my--hey--ha! hey--ha! hugh--hugh--hugh! Oh dear me! Oh--why don't
you--heck--heck--heck--heck--heck! shut
the--ho--ho--ho--ho--hugh--hugh--window before I--ho--ho--ho--ho!'

This horrible jargon is supposed to convey the impression of a lady
coughing.