many deep-sea fishermen who have fallen into the foolish habit of angling for sharks with a line fastened to one of their waistcoat buttons to save the trouble of holding it. * * * * * Mr. WILLIAM CAINE has a very nice and persistent sense of humour, and his last book, _But She Meant Well_ (LANE), shows him in his most natural and therefore best vein. His lady of the good intentions was one _Hannah Neighbour_, an incorrigible infant whose eminently virtuous resolves produced the most vicious results without the adventitious aid of any extraordinary circumstances. There is generally about people who mean well something pathetic and something else which is worse, and these characteristics are apt to become so exaggerated in fiction as to be almost offensive. Mr. CAINE'S young person is not of that sort; she is no prig, and her fault is not weakness but irrepressible activity. To whatever extent she annoyed me, I was always possessed with the morbid desire to see some even worse result attending her efforts; and all the while I had to give her credit for infecting the other characters of the story with a remarkable vitality. I congratulate the author upon his presentation of the problem, how can you deal with such a misguided child so that you may at the same time check dangerous proclivities and yet do justice to her excellent motives? Still more was I pleased with his frank, if abominable, admission that in order properly to inculcate discipline it is necessary for the most part to ignore motives and let justice be blowed. * * * * * The reappearance of _Dorothea_ as a volume in the new collected edition (CONSTABLE) of the works of Mr. MAARTEN MAARTENS has at this moment a strange aptness. For you may remember that _Dorothea_, herself of Dutch-English extraction, married into a Prussian family. Nay, more, into the family of a Prussian general. A very obvious interest attaches to the impression made by these people upon the mind of the author. Of the old General we find him writing that "his lofty soul had accepted the theory of the unity on earth of the good, the true and the beautiful." Who, I ask you, would have supposed it? But throughout the book these _Von Rodens_ stand as the perfect family, gently chivalrous, cultured and altogether charming. Then one remembers in explanation that _Dorothea_ was written some time ago, and that this was the old-fashioned _Kultur_. There you have the German tragedy in a nutshell. Of _Dorothea_ herself I will say little. Probably you already know her, and may agree with me in considering her an unattractive prig, whose place in the list of Mr. MAARTENS' heroines is decidedly at the wrong end. But those amazing pathetic Prussians! and the conflicting emotions they stir in your heart as you read! * * * * *