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    iLt%t^T ii, JT&gjl ' j , _ t^I x.JB;k^g ...

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    Four Novels. A Lot.T Love. B Y Aahford O...

    is by no means a happy one . A young lady has contracted a long engagement with an officer for whom she feels no very strong attachment . During his absence from England she meets with another man who powerfully attracts her , and who , after some preliminary difficulties and delays , apparently returns her love , and proposes marriage to her . She breaks her engagement with the officer , and accepts him . Times passes on ; until , on the eve of their marriage , she discovers that he has a first love whom he secretly prefers to her . Upon this she gives him tip . He accepts his liberty , and marries the object of his first choice . The deserted officer returns to England and to the forsaken lady—prevails on her to reconsider her refusal to marry him— and gets her at last to become his wife . Such is the bare outline of the story . Its most obvious defect is that it shuts out the heroine

    from the reader ' s sympathy . Neatly and skilfully as the more pardonable motives which lead her to hreak her engagement are set forth , still she has broken it , and when her second lover treats her as she has treated the unlucky officer , no reader can lament the retributive justice which thus overtakes her . The book is , in short , the history of a jilted jilt ; and if it had been less delicately and eloquently written , it would have sunk altogether under its unsympathetic subject . As it is , the authoress is entitled to praise for having made the best use of her bad materials . Passages of charming writing , neatly and happily-uttered truths , excellently-observed bits of character , and clever descriptions of scenery which never exceed due length , creditably distinguish the book from novels in general . And , wore than this , the work gives us ftiir reason to hope for better things from the writer . Give her a good subject , and she is capable , as we think , of producing a much better book than the very elegant volume which stands

    at the head of our present list . at the head of our present list . The scene of My Brother ' s Wife is laid in France , and the authoress seems to have boldly aimed at combining within the compass of one story the characteristics of the sentimental novel , the art-novel , and the dramatic novel . She has succeeded better than might have been expected in executing an injudiciously-complicated design . The hero is anticipated in winning the affections of a very charming cousin by his brother , and , upon that , leaves home to cure his wounded sensibilities by foreign travel . This is the sentimental part of the book . The art-division of it commences with a very clever sketch of a strange half-mad musician , whom the unsuccessful lover meets with in Germany . And the dramatic part fills the closing passages of the work with the death of the hero ' s brother , who plays false to his wife , gets into bad company , and is assassinated by the accomplice of a wicked prima doniia . with whom he has fallen iu love . This last part of the story is by far the best . The method of treatment adopted must have been breathlessl of Bleak

    suggested , we imagine , by those y-interesting chapters House in which " Inspector Bucket" by slow degrees discovers tie hand renlly concerned in the murder of u Mr . Tulkinghorn . " At the same time ( supposing that our idea is a correct one ) , it is due to the authoress to say that she has followed a great example with a dramatic feeling of her own which very few contemporary novelists appear to possess . Some of the details in her " murder case " are excellently and originally imagined , and tho interest is most successfully suspended , from chapter to chapter , to the end of the mystery . Of the characters in the story , generally , " Fletcher , " the musician ! is the best , because the most individual . The style , though too frequently defaced by Germanisms and by transcendental affectations of phrase , is in many parts so graphic and eloquent as almost to atone for certain minor blemishes in taste and defects of art iu tho earlier and middle portions of the book . With all its faults , however , M y Brother ' s Wife has one rare compensating merit , which we gladly dwell on in closing this notice

    —it can interest , the reader . Of the two dull books on our list , we have little to say beyond putting tho sad fact on record that we have found them remarkably hard reading . Cleve Hall is tho latest of a long series of stories of the moral and religious sort , which have sold freely in the moral and religious market , but which , as it appears to us , are for the most part utterly destitute of any literary merit whatever . Tho especial sermon in fiction now before us is full of good pattern characters ( appropriately set oil " , of course , by bad ); full of long , prosy dialogues which lead to nothing but moral conclusions and pious truisms—full of everything , in short , but interest , fancy , invention , and fair observation of life as it is . This sort of book may possibly do moral g ood tu the unfortunate young people who will be set to road it ; but we feel quite certain that it must , at the same time , send their minds to sleep in tho most lamentable manner . Good ndvice , by itself , is a very excellent

    thing ; but good advice which cannot possibly address juvenile humanity except through the medium of an utterly wearisome and clumsy story , becomes a species of moral outrage which we find it impossible to endure On any respectable or pious grounds whatsoever . Wcj readily admit that Cleve Halt is filled to I . lusting with excellent intentions ; but we protest against it for nil that , because it is , in plain words , a wretchedly dull book . In thoi preface to <' , » ist < tntiiu > , Captain Spencer informs us that lie has chosen for uubjeet " that wtormy period in the world ' s history when the Moslem bosts of Mahomet II . planted their sanguinary standards on the crumbling wulb of Constantinople . " More , again , the author has the best possible intentions—of tho historically-instructive kind , Una tune—and yet

    ho wearies ua dreadfully . His book . shows patient research and cnrelul workmanship , lie has evidently tried earnestly and industriously to do Ins best : buthuinii . it excuse us if we tell him candidly that he has no turn for writing Iktion . That one nil-important art , the art of tolling an interesting-story , he does not possess . Neither his plot nor his characters lay any hold on the nttciition or the heart of the render ; and we put his book down with the unpluasimt conviction that tho author made a mistake when he selected fiction us his medium for addressing tho public . \\ hen he next sooka to instruct thorn on an historical subject , we suggest , with a I possible rospoct , that ho should carefully restrict himself to the historical form .

    LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND . Lives of the Queens of England , of the House of Hanover . By Dr . Doran . In Two Volumes . Richard BenOeV . Dr . Doran has executed his task with considerable humour . The phrase is , perhaps , strange as applied to an historian ; we will , therefore , substitute the more appropriate word—flippancy . But unhappily the Doctor ' s vivacity has betrayed him into a still greater fault , that of inaccuracy . And as ff these two blemishes were not enough , he haa been guilty , not only of familiarity of diction , but of positive vulgarity of thought . He has stooDed

    to the stage trick of introducing unfavourable allusions to Russia and the Russians , and has apparently imbibed all the small bitternesses of the day . This is truly an unpardonable fault in a chronicler of past events , with whom a dispassionate judgment is the first and most positive duty . It is true that in his second volume our author claims to be *¦'• rather a storyteller than a historian , dealing more with anecdotes of persons than with parties and politics . " But he should , at least , have taken care that his anecdotes were all authentic ; nor is there any excuse for his indulgence in funny writing , the bane of contemporary literature . After bestowing thus much of censure , we are , however , constrained to admit that the learned

    Doctor is an excellent " gossip , " and—to use his own words—that he has succeeded in " affording not much less amusement to the readers than if he had been twice as ambitious , and therewith , perhaps 3 infinitely more tedious . " The most bitter foe to royalty would be puzzled to find more striking illustrations and arguments in favour of his views than are furnished in the lives of our sovereigns of the House of Hanover . A more degraded and utterly effete family never swayed the sceptre of any nation , through consecutive venerations . It would almost seem as if Providence itself had

    shrunk from the responsibility of continuing such a race , and so left it to the decision of chance . The Duchy of Brunswick was divided into seven portions on the death of George I . ' s great-grandfather , and the seven heirs came tj the conclusion that , if they aU married , " the ducal gem would be ultimately crushed into numberless glitterings but not very valuable fragments . " They therefore agreed that one alone of their number should enter the holy state and raise up an heir to the dukedom . The seven brothers , in pursuance of their plan , met in the hall of state in their deceased father ' s mansion , and there drew lots , or threw dice , for reports differ on this point , as to who should live on in single blessedness , wearing bachelor ' s buttons for ever , and which should gain the prize , not of a wife , but of permission to find one . The lucky prince was George , the sixth , son , and he experienced little difficulty in finding a princess willing to be the mother of a new race of Brunswick princes . The lady , cavalierly wooed and ready to be won , was Anne Eleanore daughter of the Landgraf of Hesse-Darmstadt .

    In this strange and comical manner was perpetuated the family destined to give a new dynasty to England . But more ominous was the manner in which the house of Hanover was nominated to the succession . " The solemn question of naming the heir to the throne was intrusted to . . . Sir John Bowles , who was then disordered in his senses , and soon after quite lost them . " And what sort of man was he whom the nation chose to rule over them ? " George Louis was mean in person and character . . . . He was the lord of small virtues ; and his insignificance of person was insigr nificant only because it bore not about it any manly stamp , or outward promise of an inward merit . " Having espoused a virtuous , accomplished , and beautiful princess , he early abandoned her for a woman whose mind was as coarse as her person was obese . On vague and unsubstantiated , suspicions he condemned the unhappy Sophia Dorothea to long years ot

    isolation in the dreary castle of Ahlden , and even at her death retusea to recognise any degree of relationship between the hapless lady and himself or their children . " But his ire burst forth into an explosion of rage when he heard that his daughter , with the Court of Prussia , had gone into mourning for the death of her mother . " His own dea ^ h was the result of a surfeit on melon , though previously warned of the consequences , but even this was less cross than bis indulgence in stale oysters when in health . I here were only two other things that he loved , according to Macaulay , |' punch and f ; it women . " And this was the first monarch of the Hanoverian line who wore the crown of Great Britain and Ireland . His son , George II , was even worse . A bad son , a faithless husband , a tyrannical fnther , a coarse sensualist , a foulmouthed , passionate churl , he polluted the throne , and would have disgraced a tavern . Fortunately for the country the Queen possessed sufficient tact to guide her wretched consort in all essential matters appertaining to public affairs , while , like

    most weak persons , he plumed himself on his independence . It is « id tlwt he sneered at Charles I . for being governed by *« wife ; at Charles II ., for being governed by his mistresses ; at James , led by ^ pneats , . at WUliam , duped bv men ; at Queen Anne , deceived by her favourites ; and at his father To allowed himself to be ruled by any one who could approach , him And * e ^ fimshed his catalogue of scorn by proudly asking , Who governs now ? " The courtiers probably « ni ? ed behind their jaunty hats . The wits , and some of them were' couriers too , answered the query more roughly , and they remarked , m rugged rhyme and bad grammar— ^ ^ ^^ ^^ dapper George , but 'twill all bo in vain ; We know ' tis Queen Caroline , not you that rciga — You govern uo more than Don Philip of Spain , Then if you would have us fall down and adore you , Lock up your fat spouse as your dad did before you .

    Of the king ' s undignified manners and language , an aimusmg instance w given at the time Sir Robert Walpole ' s Excise bill had brought both Court mid Ministers into great disfavour with the people . IIlftUifiwted hia The king on this occasion was as excitedlas nw conao rt , but uo ¦ ^ feeling- in « different way . Ho made Lord Hcrvoy ^^ " ^ en tnxy at oach thwarted the views of the crown , and he grunted forth . m « ' *!> ., * wrtod tho ki-ffimmo . " Lord John Cavendish , " began IIcryey . fi J " ¦ „ „ whimsical ' « I ord Charles Cavendish . " " Half mad . »> " ^ r W . ll . a « nJ ^ then Tyrcounel . » fdlorvT "Sir Thomas lWdergast . " « ' «» Yt 'f sZc rfde . " "A puppy , - said Georgo , " who never votes twico oa the , a e k ^ Rolie f Again , on the occasion of the « P f ° P *\ WP ° V ! £ " of the prelates as « a > Bill , » the hereditary defender of tho faith * spoke oi I

    Ilt%T^T Ii, Jt&Gjl ' J , _ T^I X.Jb;K^G ...

    iLt % t ^ T ii , JT & gjl ' j , _ t ^ I x . JB ; k ^ g # B ! : 775

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 11, 1855, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11081855/page/17/