“Cass. Beaccio,” by F. Marion Crawford. Macmillan’s , Colonial Library. (Wei* lington: S. and W. Mackay.)

Mr Marion Crawford i? only a year or so on the wrong sido of forty, and yet “ Casa Braccio” is his twenty-fifth novel. It says much for Mr Crawford’s talent—we had almost written genius—as a writer of fiction, that this, his latest story, betrays no falling off in his art, indeed we give it a high place, ranking it alongside “Sarra chiesca ” and “ Greiffensteiu ” —in our humble opinion Mr Crawford’s best stories. On his now favourite ground of Italy Mr Crawford is unapproachable amongst living novelists, and “ Casa Braccio ” shows wonderfully keen insight into and wide acquaintance with Italian character. It is a story of love and revenge, commencing with the elope ment of a nun of high birth from her con vent with an English gentleman, who afterwards succeeds to a peerage. The lady dies, and the story largely deals with the matrimonial and other experiences of her daughter Gloria. In ;fhe end, after many years, the sacrilege- committed by the Englishman is avenged in his murder by a peasant who had wrongfully supposed that he has seduced and carried away his daughter. The assassination takes place under peculiarly tragic circumstances, and indeed the txagic note is predominant throughout the final chapters- Incident ally we get some well-drawn pictures of Roman society, both English and native, and tho story marches on from first to last with fewer of those philosophical and other digressions which Mr Crawford is some times' apt to introduce in bis novels. “Casa Braccio” is‘a story which will not only fully maintain but which ought to

add not a little to its already high reputation as a novelist. —" C.W in the N.Z. ITai£.
