_The Mailing of Blaise_ is Mr. A. S. TURBERVILLE'S first novel, and it is easy to understand why Messrs. SIDGWICK AND JACKSON have drawn attention to this fact. For the work reveals a great ignorance of, or a supreme contempt for, the art of construction, and its theme is very hackneyed; but at the same time Mr. TURBERVILLE observes so keenly that I groan in the spirit when I think of so much labour misspent on a subject unworthy of his talent. Here we have a boy with the artistic temperament born into the house of one _Brown_, a Cheapside tailor with puritanical prejudices and the mind of a sparrow. He and his rather futile wife were enough to make anyone rebellious; but too much irony is spent upon them, and it would have been less difficult to sympathise with _Philip_ if his parents' point of view had been more fairly stated. After many domestic frictions the son rushes away from London and lives a Bohemian life (extremely well described) on the Continent, until he marries a delightful and penniless wife. All the marks for charm go to _Athenee_, unless a few of them can be spared for their child, _Blaise_, who had, or so it seems to me, great trouble in thrusting his way upon the scenes. _Philip_ and _Athenee_ were going to do great things for their son, but unfortunately both of them were killed while he was still a little child, and he had to be retrieved to the bosom of the _Brown_ family. The change from freedom to rigorous conventionality did not suit poor _Blaise_, and I could not be very sorry when he annoyed most of the _Browns_ by catching measles and petrified all of them by not recovering. Still, he lived long enough to get his name into the title, though this, I feel, was a bit of favouritism. * * * * *