Fate marks him down from the first as a victim, bis boyish imprudence, for which he never tries to evade responsi bility and payment, dogs him persistently, and when once he does find what he takes for happiness, it is snatched away from him in a manner so tragic that even insanity would have come as a merciful release to the poor follow. He is a good fellow at bottom, a decent liver at heart, an’honest God-fearing fellow, but circumstances are too much for him, he i« predestined to misery and despair—surely no more pa thetic creation is there in latter-day fiction than this poor stone-cutter. Mr Hardy has a trick of identifying himself with his characters, and too often makes them the mouth-pieces for -his own theories on life and art. In this way Jude is ou a par to some extent with Tess of the D’Urber villee, the Mayor of Casterbridge, and with Glynn Yeobrighb, all- familiar names to readers of this author. Disappointment and misery sour him a little and against the flabbiness, the snobbishness and the littleness of which there is so much in latter-day Anglicanism, Jude is pictured by his author as being in' a constant state of rebellion which at times finds most bitter exposition. Thus, after the tragic end of the three children, and Jude and Sue are together, both stricken down with woe unutterable, we find the following passage s When the house was silent and they could do nothing but await the Coroner's inquest, a subdued, low voice spread into the air of the room from behind the heavy walls at the back “What is it?” said Sue, her spasmodic breathing suspended. “ The organ of the village chapel. An© organist practising. I suppose. It is the anthem from the Psalm. » Truly God is loving unto Israel.’ ” She sobbed again. “ O, my babes \ They had done no harm. Why should they have been taken away, and not I!” There wau another stillness —broken only ■ at last by two persons in conversation i somewhere without. , “They are talking about us no doubt, moaned Sue. “We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels; and to m Jude listened. “ No—they are not talk ing of us,” ho said. “ They are two clergy men of. 