_The Inheritance._ It is unquestionably the best novel of the class of
the present day, in so far as I can yet judge. Lord Rossville, Adam
Ramsay, Bell Black and the Major, Miss Pratt and Anthony Whyte are
capital, and a fine contrast to each other. It is, I think, a more
elaborate work than _Marriage_, better told, with greater variety, and
displaying improved powers. I congratulate you, and have no doubt the
book will make a prodigious _sough'."_ [1]

[1] Sensation.

Mr. Blackwood adds: "I do not know a better judge nor a more frank and
honest one than the writer of this note."

Again he writes:--

"On Saturday I lent in confidence to a very clever friend, on whose
discretion I can rely, the two volumes of _The Inheritance._ This
morning I got them back with the following note: 'My dear Sir-I am truly
delighted with _The Inheritance._ I do not find as yet anyone character
quite equal to Dr. Redgill, [1] except, perhaps, the good-natured,
old-tumbled (or troubled, I can't make out which) maiden, [2] but as a
novel it is a hundred miles above _Marriage._ It reminds me of Miss
Austen's very best things in every page. And if the third volume be like
these, no fear of success triumphant.'"

[1] In _Marriage_ the gourmet physician to Lord Courtland, and "the
living portrait of hundreds, though never before hit off so well."

[2] Miss Becky Duguid.