"'Toast worthy of Lucullus and Ovid! and you are a master of the science,' said John Trevenna, who was perhaps the only one who saw quite clearly through that intoxicating atmosphere of pastilles, and perfumes, and wines, and crushed flowers, and bruised fruits, and glancing tresses, and languid eyes, and lips fit for the hymns of a Catullus. "'He is the darling of the gods!' cried Flora de l'Orme, that magnificent Arlésienne, with her melting, Greek-like glance, and her cheek like a peach in the sun, while she leaned over him and twisted, Catullus-like, in the bright masses of his long, golden hair a wreath of crimson roses washed in purple Burgundy." Probably, if the pink-cheeked beauties on glove- and handkerchief-boxes could be filled with the breath of life, and be set down in a land of which the only authentic representations are those on a drop-curtain, this is the way they would talk and act; and the same refined taste that goes to the painting of such figures and scenery is manifested in the production of such literature as makes up the bulk of many of Ouida's novels. And yet a writer who so handicaps herself with vulgarity and actual indecency and the grossest snobbishness has underneath that unattractive varnish a fervent passion that is at least impressive. While revelling in such scenes as made the notoriety of the author of _Guy Livingstone_, she has touches of real pathos, over-wrought possibly, but cold in comparison with her absurdest writings. In _Signa_, for instance, the whole story of Bruno's love for his betrayed sister's child has certain elements of fineness which atone for much of the rubbish swept into some of Ouida's earlier novels. The book is not one for the Sunday-school library, nor will any one be injured by not reading it, but there is more ability in it than one will find in a great many books by more discreetly-admired writers. It is a romance of a kind not over common in English fiction, and it forms a grateful change from the arid records of the cool love-making of English curates and home-bred young women as sung by this writer's contemporaries. The book has the faults that surely mark an untrained writer, but there is nothing petty in it: indeed, there is a generous breadth of treatment which shows most strongly how Ouida's natural gifts, which had been wasted by glorifying club-talk and midnight suppers, blossomed forth under the influence of Italy. She was possessed by its charm, and inspired by it to put all her new feeling into this story of passion. There is no trace of the confining bounds that had previously kept her busy turning over unworthy material: she spoke out boldly; and if this is not a great book, it is at least a book with some of the qualities of greatness in it. Indeed, it is of a sort that makes one regret that the author had not been exposed to more favorable influences: wiser blame and more temperate praise might possibly have freed her from the faults that show their head even