The characters, however, are still more common-place. De Rohan and Isabel are like all James’ lovers, mere nothings—Father Welland and Corse de Leon are the beneficent spirits, and Meyrand and Masseran are the evil geniuses, of the novel. The other characters are lifeless, common, and uncharacteristic. They make no impression, and you almost forget their names. There is no originality in any of them, and save a passage of fine writing here and there, nothing to be praised in the book. Corse de Leon, the principal character, talks philosophy like Bulwer’s heroes, and is altogether a plagiarism from that bombastic, unnatural, cut-throat school,—besides, he possesses a universality of knowledge, combined with a commensurable power, which, although they get the hero very conveniently out of scrapes, belie all nature. In short, this is but a readable novel, and a mere repetition of the author’s former works. * * * * * _“Insubordination; An American Story of Real Life.” By the Author of the “Subordinate.” One Volume. Baltimore; Knight & Colman._ The author of the “Subordinate” is Mr. T. S. Arthur, of Baltimore, formerly one of the editors of the “Visiter and Athenæum,” and now, we believe, connected with “The Budget,” a new monthly journal of that city—with the literature of which, generally, he has been more or less identified for many years past. “The Subordinate” we have not had the pleasure of reading. The present book, “Insubordination,” is excellently written in its way; although we must be pardoned for saying that the _way_ itself is not of a high order of excellence. It is all well enough to justify works of this class by hyper-democratic allusions to the “moral dignity” of low life, &c. &c.—but we cannot understand why a gentleman should feel or affect a _penchant_ for vulgarity; nor can we comprehend the “moral dignity” of a dissertation upon bed-bugs: for the opening part of “Insubordination” is, if anything, a treatise on these peculiar animalculæ. Some portions of the book are worthy of the author’s ability, which it would rejoice us to see more profitably occupied. For example, a passage where Jimmy, an ill-treated orphan, relates to the only friend he has ever found, some of the poignant sorrows of his childhood, embodies a fine theme, handled in a manner which has seldom been excelled. Its pathos is exquisite. The morality of the story is no doubt good; but the reasoning by which it is urged is decrepid, and far too pertinaciously thrust into the reader’s face at every page. The mode in which all the characters are _reformed_, one after the other, belongs rather to the desirable than to the credible. The style of the narrative is easy and _truthful_. We dare say the work will prove popular in a certain sense; but, upon the whole, we do not like it. * * * * *