Mr. E. O. Pleydell-Bouverie has endowed the novel-writing fraternity with a new formula for the composition of titles.  After J. S.; or, Trivialities there is no reason why we should not have A. B.; or, Platitudes, M.N.; or, Sentimentalisms, Y.Z.; or, Inanities.  There are many books which these simple titles would characterise much more aptly than any high-flown phrases—­as aptly, in fact, as Mr. Bouverie’s title characterises the volume before us.  It sets forth the uninteresting fortunes of an insignificant person, one John Stiles, a briefless barrister.  The said John falls in love with a young lady, inherits a competence, omits to tell his love, and is killed by the bursting of a fowling-piece—­that is all.  The only point of interest presented by the book is the problem as to how it ever came to be written.  We can scarcely find the solution in Mr. Bouverie’s elaborately smart style which cannot be said to transmute his ‘trivialities’ into ’flies in amber.’

Mr. Swinburne once proposed that it should be a penal offence against literature for any writer to affix a proverb, a phrase or a quotation to a novel, by way of tag or title.  We wonder what he would say to the title of ‘Pen Oliver’s’ last book!  Probably he would empty on it the bitter vial of his scorn and satire.  All But is certainly an intolerable name to give to any literary production.  The story, however, is quite an interesting one.  At Laxenford Hall live Lord and Lady Arthur Winstanley.  Lady Arthur has two children by her first marriage, the elder of whom, Walter Hope-Kennedy by name, is heir to the broad acres.  Walter is a pleasant English boy, fonder of cricket than of culture, healthy, happy and susceptible.  He falls in love with Fanny Taylor, a pretty village girl; is thrown out of his dog-cart one night through the machinations of a jealous rival, breaks one of his ribs and gets a violent fever.  His stepfather tries to murder him by subcutaneous injections of morphia but is detected by the local doctor, and Walter recovers.  However, he does not marry Fanny after all, and the story ends ineffectually.  To say of a dress that ‘it was rather under than over adorned’ is not very pleasing English, and such a phrase as ’almost always, but by no means invariably,’ is quite detestable.  Still we must not expect the master of the scalpel to be the master of the stilus as well.  All But is a very charming tale, and the sketches of village life are quite admirable.  We recommend it to all who are tired of the productions of Mr. Hugh Conway’s dreadful disciples.

(1) ’Twixt Love and Duty:  A Novel.  By Tighe Hopkins. (Chatto and Windus.)

(2) Jenny Jennet:  A Tale Without a Murder.  By A. Gallenga. (Chapman and Hall.)

(3) A Life’s Mistake:  A Novel.  By Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron. (Ward and Downey.)

(4) J. S.; or, Trivialities:  A Novel.  By Edward Oliver Pleydell-Bouverie. (Griffith, Farren and Co.)