_Rescue_ (DENT) is a story in the authentic manner of Mr. JOSEPH CONRAD at his unapproachable best. If it is true, as one has heard, that the book was begun twenty-five years ago and resumed lately, this explains but does nothing to minimize a fact upon which we can all congratulate ourselves. The setting is the shallow seas of the Malay coast, where _Lingard_, an adventurer (most typically CONRAD) whose passion in life is love for his brig, has pledged himself to aid an exiled young Rajah in the recovery of his rights. At the last moment however, when his plans are at point of action, the whole scheme is thwarted by the stranding of a private yacht containing certain persons whose rescue (complicated by his sudden subjection to the woman of the party) eventually involves _Lingard_ in the loss of fortune and credit. Perhaps you can suppose what Mr. CONRAD makes of a theme so congenial; how the tale moves under his hand in what was once well called that "smoky magnificence" of atmosphere, just permitting the reader to observe at any moment so much and no more of its direction. Of the style it would now be superfluous to speak. It has been given to Mr. CONRAD, working in what is originally a foreign medium, to use it with a dignity unsurpassed by any of our native craftsmen. Such phrases as (of the prudent mate remonstrating with _Lingard_): "What he really wanted was to have his existence left intact, for his own cherishing and pride;" or again, "The situation was too complicated to be entrusted to a cynical or shameless hope," give one the quick pleasure of words so delicately and deftly used as to seem newly coined. _Rescue_, in short, is probably the greatest novel of the year, one by which its author has again enriched our literature with work of profound and moving quality. * * * * *