The Press. — London, England, 1857-04-18 00:00:00

APRIL 18, 1857. Sittraturt. Dynevor Terrace ; or, Ms Clue of Life. By the Author of " The Heir of Redclyffe." Two Vols. London : J. W. Parker and Son. THE authoress of this book is one of the most fortunate of modern novelists. Her works are evidently penned with great facility, and they command a price in the literary mitrket which appears marvellous when compared with their modest pretensions. We have heard that a thousand pounds was offered for " Daisy Chain" and refused. We doubt whether so large a sum was ever offered for a child's book before; for it is a peculiarity of these produc tions that they are but a superior kind of children's books. Not only do they want depth and strength, but they are deficient in the constructive skill which can dispose simple materials in a symmetrical form. They have none of that elaboration which the true artist in every department feels to be essential to the perfection of his works. In " Dynevor Terrace " tile characters are about three times as numerous, and the inci dents ten times as many, as an author of more artistic ability would think it necessary to introduce. At the beginning of the story an elaborate pedigree is printed to explain the relationship which different sets of characters bear to each other. They embrace three generations. We have, to begin with, a grand mama, two uncles, an aunt, and four cousins, with numerous collateral relatives and con nections, with old servants and young depen dants. Thus, the aunt, Mrs. Ponsonby, has a sister, Miss Ponsonby, and a husband, Mr. Ponsouby, who when Mrs. Ponsouby is re moved from the scene marries a senorita at Lima, and does nothing but plague his daughter by his first marriage, Mary Pon sonby. Then one of the uncles, Lord Ormers field, has a sister-in-law, Lady Conway, who has a family of her own, and who entertains a ►laughter of her husband by a former mar riage, and who employs a butler, one Mr. Delaford, who is made to play a conspicuous part in the story. Now, as Lord Ormersfield is first cousin to the first Mrs. Ponsonby, it becomes rather difficult to discover what is the precise degree of relationship between the daughter of this first Mrs. Ponsonby and the daughter of Lady Conway's husband by his first marriage, Miss Isabel Conway; and still more difficult to find out in what degree of cousinhood this Isabel Conway stands to Mr. James Frost, the grandson of Lord Ormers field's mother's sister, the venerable Mrs. Frost. The incidents are as tangled as the charac ters. One of the uncles, Mr. Oliver Frost, spends a lifetime in Peru to amass a fortune, that he may repurchase his family estates ; he comes home to buy them, and finishes by losing them again, through the bankruptcy of his foreign enterprises. Mary Ponsonby comes home from Peru with her mother, then goes out again to see her father, then returns when she hears of his marriage, then crosses the Atlantic once more, and finally once more returns. As for the young people, they rarely seem to know their own minds ; they fall into love and fall out again. Whether Lord Fitz jocelyn will marry Mary Ponsouby, or Isabel Conway, or Clara Frost, is for along time kept in suspense ; and the like uncertainty is main. tained whether the little maid-servant Char. lotte will ultimately be the prize of the fine Mr. Delaford, or the humble Tom Madison. This crowding of characters, and cross-pur pose kind of action, produces an effect which we know not how otherwise to describe than as "higgledy-piggledy." The reader's mind is not permitted to repose on a pretty piece of description, or a pleasing passage of narra tive. If he skips a dozen lines, the chance is that he misses a circumstance which changes the current of the story. Somebody appears unexpectedly on the carpet, or some one sud denly dies, or something unlooked fur happens. We never met with any books which had so much of what on the stage is called " busi ness " in them—that is, movement without any other purpose than for a time to fill the scene. THE PRESS. We think that this confusion and want of unity seriously detracts from the merit of these fictions, and will most likely prevent them from attaining permanent popularity. Their chief merit lies in the development of character, and in showing the influence exer cised over it by circumstances. The favourite of the author in this production is Lord Fitz jocelyn. He is represented as of an amiable disposition, very sensitive and facile, but with great natural ability. The writer's invention is displayed to the highest advantage in the relation of incidents which bring out all the fantastic hues of this character. He is Louis le Debounaire, at once careless and feeling, sad and sprightly, idle and active, foolish and sensible. It is impossible not to admire the instinctive skill with which his peculiar quali ties are manifested. When he totally forgets some commissions with which he has been charged, he has a gay answer ready : Indeed, Mr. Holdsworth, I can say no more than that I was a wretch not to remember. Next time I will write it all down in the top of my hat, with a pathetic entreaty that if my hat be stolen the thief shall fulfil the commiasicns, and punctually send in the bill to the Rev. W. B. Holdaworth. This gay flightiness is admirably sustained, and, being mingled with genuine feeling, and great quickness of perception, makes the character one of the most attractive the writer has ever drawn. He is contrasted with his cousin, James Frost, who is east in a sterner mould. His pride is uncompromising, and he is the cause of much disaster throug setting up indepen dence as an idol to be worshipped. It does not, however, appear natural that he should relapse into something so near brutality or fail so signally as he is represented to have done. Still less was it necessary that the lovely and poetic Isabel should decline with him. Narrow circumstances are represented as de a 0 rading their natures : Isabel sighed, partly at the memory of the imaginary being for whom she had taken James, and partly at the future prospect, the narrow sphere, the choice between solitude and dull society, the homely toils that must in crease, worn-out garments, perpetual alphabets, children always whining, and James always irritated, thinking her remiss, and coming in with that furrow on Lis forehead, and his hair standing up wildly. The young couple have several children, and are visited in their poverty by Lord Fitz jocelyn Dinner was announced by Charlotte, as usual, all neat grace and simplicity, in her black dress and white apron, but flushed and heated by exertions beyond her strength. All that depended on her had been well done; but it would nut seem to have occurred to her mistress that three people ate more than two ; and to Louis, who had been too busy to take any luncheon, the two dishes seemed alarmingly small. One was of haricot mutton, the other of potatoes ; and Charlotte might be seen to blush as she carried Lord Fitzjocelyn the plate containing a chop resembling India rubber, decorated with grease and with two balls of nearly raw carrot, and followed it up with potatoes apparently all bruises. Louis talked vigorously of Virginia and Louisa—se cretly marvelling how his hosts hal brought themselves down to such fare. Isabel was dining without apparently seeing anything amiss, and James attempted nothing but a despairing toss of his chin as he pronounced the carrots underdone. After the first course there was a long inter. vat, during which Isabel and Louis composedly talked about the public meeting which he had been attending, and James fidgetted in the nervousness of hardly-restrained displeasure; but suddenly a frightful shrieking arose, and he indignantly cried, " That girl !" fi," Poor Charlotte in her hysterics again," said Isabel, moving off, quickly for her, with the purple scent-bottle at her ,hatelaine. " Isabel makes her twice as bad," exclaimed James ; "to pet her with eau-de-Cologne is mere nonsense. Some day I shall throw a bucket of cold water over her." Isabel had left the door open, and they heard her softly comforting Charlotte with " Never mini," and " Lord Fitzjocelyn would not care," till the storm lulled. Char lott.e crept off to her room, and Isabel returned to the dinner-table. " Well, what's the matter now ?" said James. " Poor Charlotte !" said Isabel, smiling ; it seems that she trusted to making a grand appearance with the remains of yesterday's pudding, and that she was quite overact by the discovery that Ellen and Miss Catharine had been marauding on them." " You don't mean that Kitty has been eating that heavy pudding at this time of night ?" cried James. " Kitty eats everything," was the placid answer; " and I do not think we can blame Ellen, for she often comes down after our dinner to find something for the nursery supper." " Things go on in the most extraordinarymanner," mut tered James. " I suppose Charlotte misses Jane," said Louis. " She looks ill." " No wonder," said James, " she is not strong enough for such work. She has no method, and yet she is the 387 only person who ever thinks of doing a thing properly. I wish your friend Madison would come home and take her off our hands, for she is always alternating between fits of novel-reading and of remorse, in which she nearly works herself to death with running after lost time." " I should be sorry to part with her," saia Isabel ; " she is so quiet, and so fond of the children." " She pill break down some day," said James; " if not before, certainly when she hears that Madison has a Peru- vian wife." " There is no more to come," said Isabel, rising; "shall we come upstairs?" James took up the candles and Louis followed, consi derably hungry, and for once provoked by Isabel's serene certainty that nobody cared whether there were anything to eat. This episode of domestic poverty, like many others in the book, answers little purpose. James's temper is first soured by misfortune, and then sweetened by it. Both changes are nailer too sudden to appear very probable. In this as in her previous works the authoress plays too much with the sympathies of her readers. She pathetically describes dcath-beds which after all turn out to be beds of recovery. Fitziocelyn is represented as dangerously ill. When he sinks to sleep ex hausted, " they felt what that sleep might " become !" When his eyes close, and a calm, pure sweetness settles down upon his face, the clergyman exclaims:— We might as well wish to detain a snow•wreath! Yet, turning over the next page, we find that all the tears called forth by the pathos of this painful scene were unnecessary—" That sleep " was not unto death," and " gradually there " was a diminution of the dangerous symp " toms." The authoress must know the result of crying " Wolf " when the fold is safe. We think novelists generally act injudiciously in exciting sympathies and anticipations which the result does not justify. As for the merits of the book, they are pecu liarly those which took the public by storm iu " The Heir of Redclyfle " The personages have an appearance of actual life, and their very eccentricities become them. Some of the reflections, especially those which are illustrative of character, are exceedingly shrewd. The moral tone is pure; and against that total want of artistic aim and skilful manipulation of material on which we have dwelt, must be set the animation which naturally springs from perpetual movement and the never-ceasing current of some kind of action. Kansas ; or, Squatter Life and Border Warfare in the Far West. By Thomas H. Gladstone. London: Routledge. This volume is a reprint of the letters which appeared in the Times not long since, with considerable additions, and not a few correc tions. The picture given of Kansas is striking, and abounds with touches that realise the extraordinary nature of life in that strange community. The last line of the volume is, " How the contest will end time only can " show," which is a platitude of the oracular kind. But enough is stated even in this work to prove that the pro-slavery party has far more tenacity than superficial observers sup pose. Mr. T. H. Gladstone, like Mr. Russell (the Crimean correspondent of the Times), is an adept in describing external life, though setting up no pretensions as a writer. His quick eye, and talent for seizing details, - enable him to produce remarkable descrip tions. But he is not a thinker, and it is impossible to obtain the highest merit as a traveller without habits of reflection. We read these letters with interest at the time of their publication, and we have again examined them. There is one cause tending to keep up slavery which has never received sufficient attention from the controversialists on the Abolition side. There is a coarse love of power, a base desire of class ascendancy, at the bottom of the political love of slavehold ing. To detend slavery for selfish reasons and for commercial gain is one thing; to insist on keeping it up as an "institution " is a different purpose, and the distinction is not always apprehended. The pages before us attest that the latter object inspires the border ruffianism of Kansas. Some of the most perverse, and yet powerful, passions of the human heart are illustrated by the history of slavery in America during the last fifty years. .~.