It is not so very long ago that Mr. William Black's novels began to charm us. He did not take Fame at a single leap, but wooed her patiently, and suffered many a repulse. His first book, _Ion; or, Marriage_, was probably the very worst novel ever written by a man who was finally to make a great success. _The Daughter of Heth_ achieved this result, and _The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton, A Princess of Thule_ and _Macleod of Dar_ deepened, one by one, the witchery the first threw over us. The author's power was especially shown in investing his maidens with glamour and piquancy: Coquette and Sheila led their captives away from the suffocating dusts and the burning heats of life. Then his backgrounds were so well chosen--those mysterious reaches of the far northern seas, the slow twilights over the heaving ocean, the swift dawns, the storms and the lightnings, and the glad blue skies. Even the music of the bagpipes inspired lamentations only less sweet than notes of joy. Mr. Black still has lovely girls; his yachts still pitch and roll and scud over the tossed and misty Hebridean seas; there are the same magical splendors of air and sky and water and shores; the wail of the pibroch is heard as of yore-- Dunvegan! oh, Dunvegan! Why, then, is it that his last book fails to do more than arouse dim memories of some previous enjoyment? Why are his violets without perfume? Why is his music vacant of the old melodies? In _Roy and Viola_, on the contrary, Mrs. Forrester is seen at her best, and has given us a book of lively interest. The situation in some respects suggests that of _Daniel Deronda:_ D'Arcy is a sort of Grandcourt cheapened and made popular, acting out his instincts of tyranny and brutality with more ostentation and less good taste. What is subtly indicated by George Eliot is given with profuse effect by the present writer. Viola, if not a Gwendolen, is yet an unloving wife. Sir Douglas Roy plays a somewhat difficult role--that of friend to the husband and undeclared lover to the wife--without losing our respect. He is in many ways a successful hero, and acts his part without either insipidity or priggishness. A genial optimist like Mrs. Forrester, as her old readers may well believe, sacrifices to a hopelessly unhappy marriage no lot which interests us. Disagreeable husbands die at an auspicious moment, and everybody is finally made happy in his or her own way, which includes the possession of plenty of money. The conversations are piquant, and the interest of the story is well kept up.