The _Duchess of Wrexe_ (SECKER) is, I think, the longest as it is certainly the most substantial novel that Mr. HUGH WALPOLE has yet given us. It is the work of one who has already made himself a force in modern fiction, and after this book will have more than ever to be reckoned with. Whether the reckoning will be to all tastes is another matter; I incline to think not. Four hundred closely printed pages, in which hardly anything happens to the bodies of the characters, but a great deal to their spirits--this perhaps is toughish meat for the ordinary devourer of fiction. But for the others this study of the passing of an epoch, the time of the Old Society, as symbolised by the figure of the _Duchess_, will be a delight. You might suppose from this (if you were unfamiliar with your author) that we had here a social comedy. Nothing in fact could be further from Mr. WALPOLE'S design. For him, as for his characters, there is almost too haunting a sense of the tragedy of trivial things. No one in the book is happy. The _Duchess_ herself, stern, aloof, terrible, broken but never bent by the oncoming of the New Order; the various members of the family whom she terrified; _Rachel_, the granddaughter, between whom and the old woman there exists the bond of one of those hatreds in which Mr. WALPOLE so exults; the secretary, _Lizzie Rand_--all of them are tremendously and miserably alive. I think the matter is that they have too much sensibility, of the modern kind. They see too many meanings. A primrose by a river's brim, or more probably in a flower-seller's basket, is not for them a simple primrose, but a portent of soul-shaking significance. To make up for this the author has gifted them with his own exquisite sense of colour and words, and especially a feeling for the beauty of London that at times almost reconciles them to life. But I could wish them merrier. * * * * *