The novel is one of a peculiar class. To borrow a convenient phraseology recently introduced into the language, its interest is more subjective than objective,--or, in other words, is derived more from marked and careful delineations of individual character than from the march of events or brilliant procession of incidents. With a single exception,--the abduction of the fisherman's daughter,--the occurrences narrated are such as might happen any day in any small community living near the sea. Novels constructed on this plan are less likely to be popular than those in which the interest is derived from a skilfully-contrived plot and a rapid and stirring succession of moving events. To what extent the work before us may be popular we wilt not undertake even to guess; for we have had too frequent experience of the capriciousness of public taste to hazard any prediction as to the reception a particular book may meet with, especially if it rely exclusively upon its own merits, and be not helped by the previous reputation of the writer. But we certainly can and will say that to readers of a certain cast it will present strong attractions, and that no candid critic can read it without pronouncing it to be a remarkable work and the production of an original mind. The author we should judge to be a man who had lived a good deal in solitude, or at least removed from his intellectual peers,--who had been through much spiritual struggle in the course of his life,--who had been more accustomed to think than to write, at least for the press,--and whose own observation had revealed to him some of the darker aspects of the Roman Catholic faith and practice.