ABSTRACT
Fresh from exposing 'New Grub Street' and its obliquities, Mr George Gissing gives us, in Denzil Quarrier, an electioneering novel-a novel, at least, in which electioneering humours form the seasoning. Very effective is his little satire upon the working of representative institutions in the borough ofPoIterham twelve years ago. One is diverted in turn by the candidates, vehement in public and nonchalant in private, by the officious Tapers and Tadpoles who 'turn the machine,' and by the prattle of Mrs Taper and Miss Tadpole. But Polterham politics, after all, are only the accessory of a story of more than usual psychological interest-a story which leaves no solution of more than one of its problems to the imagination. The hero-let us say the principal character-is one ofthe candidates for the representation ofPoIterham. He reminds us now ofMr Boythorn in Bleak House, such is his strength in superlatives; now of Mr Victor Raynor in One of Our Conquerors, such his sanguine, all-subduing spirits. He resembles Mr Meredith's latest hero in another respect, that he is braving Society with a union
