The Press. — London, England, 1854-02-25 00:00:00

f II FEBRUARY 25, 1854. Sittraturt. Lady Lee's Widowhood. By Edward Bruce Hamley, Captain R.A. London : Black- - wood. WE have no doubt but that many of our r eaders, like ourselves, perused this tale with interest during its serial publication in the pages of Blaektoooa's Magazine. It comes before us now for critical inspection, and in its reprinted form we can more fairly estimate how far the merits of its racy style and refined humour compensate for certain defects of con struction in the story. " Lady Lee's Widowhood" has one of the greatest merits which a fictionist can display for attracting readers, or softening the adverse comments of a critic. No quality in a writer is so winning as freshness. There is something peculiarly genial and exhilarating in the vi vacity of an unworn pen; and, even in social intercourse, we are all of us pleasurably in fluenced by freshness of mind and heart. The world's votaries, and the books pretending to describe them, are too often stale and imitative, suggestive merely of routine emo tions and elaborated artifices ; while minds that breathe of nature affect us with some thing like the spell of genius. What a difference there is between the mountain tor rent, brawling through turfy banks and heath clad ravines, and its waters when, after being pent in the reservoir, it trickles through leaden cupids and marble spouts ! And so with the style that bursts spontaneously from an original nature, as contrasted with the mono tonous murmur of an artificial flow of thought. It is impossible to read the first volume of " Lady Lee's Widowhood " and not be at once caught with its sparkling ease and racy liveli ness. The author writes as if through joyous impulse; and, turning his pen into a toy, he amuses at once his reader and himself. But now and again there occur passages so vi gorously penned that the ambition of literary laurels is suggested to the critical, while his keen remarks and graceful irony, never tres passing on the bounds of the sarcastic, remind us that we are in the presence of one not un skilled in perusal of the human heart, and neither unable or unwilling to chastise us, even in play, for our social peccadilloes. For the author is a humorist, not a satirist; and, though several of his touches at times recal the manner of Mr. Thackeray, it is evident that the writer of " Lady Lee's Widowhood " has no desire to moralise like a blubbering cynic, or paint the world from the point of view suggested by our whimpering Diogenes. The gravest doubts about the extent of his powers, or of the rank to which he may attain, are raised upon the question as to whether he has depth of passion. Wherever his incidents (like the love of Orelia for the soldier in the ranks, or Lady Lee after the loss of Julius) require a full-toned utterance, he fails ; and, if we are to judge of his resources by this tale only, we should say that he has not the force to paint the pathetic or the terrible, and that, though he can with sportive ease make the flash of mirth flit across the reader's face, he cannot wring the tear from the eye of sensi bility. We will do Captain Hawley no such injustice as to judge of the whole extent of his powers by his present performance. Not the least of the many pleasing thou g hts, suggested by his graceful writing, was the consciousness that we were introduced to an author capable of doing still more, when his pen would be more practised, and when the writer would have more command over his resources. There is a diffusive spirit of healthy enoyment i his mind that makes us very anxious that one who can do so well should not content himself with anything short of the excellence within his reach. In reply to some dull detractors who talked of the time taken by Sheridan in elaborating his comedies, it was well said, " That Sheridan spent his labour, " not in making what was bad into good , but " in turning that which was already g into " better and best." Captain Hawley already writes with admirable ease and graphic viva city. His humour is manly and refined ; his fancy is fertile in comic tracery ; and the mere THE PRESS. rhetoric of his composition is spirited and graceful. It remains with himself to see whether in a future effort he cannot construct a more coherent tale than his present work. For, charming as a book, and most attractive as a series of sketches, " Lady Lee's Widow hood" wants the enduring fascination of a story. The work commences with the presen tation of Lady Lee—the sweet sentimental widow—and her fair friends, the tall, stately, and a leetle stilted Orelia, and the plump, mirthful, and rubicund Rosa—the lily, tulip, and rose of the social parterre, at the "Heronry ." Nothing in its way cm be better than the painting of these three female friends. The "Heronry " and its inhabitants are one of the most spirited pieces of grouping we ever saw in a novel, and the recollection of their bright home and pleasant aspects will dwell in the memory of every reader of taste. Then the contrast, of the military life of the officers in a country town (though a stock artifice with novelists) is picturesquely touched iu with the lively pen of Captain Hamley ; and, unlike others who have described barrack life, he does not make his officers smell too much of punch and cigars. His picture of the mess table of his dragoons is as superior to similar scenes iu Mr. Lever's novels as a Wellington by Lawrence and " The Hero of Waterloo' on a village signboard. Of the bad characters in the piece we have rather too much, especially the hideous Seager ; yet, as a piece of " real life," the masterly baring of the gradual cor ruption of Colonel Lee's character is the most powerful portraiture in the work. But, as critics, we mist protest against the improbability of the attachment between Orelia and the dragoon ;and the manner of her revealing it when, on Corporal Onslow being thrown desperately in the steeplechase, Orelia springs from Lady Lee's carriage and picks up the soldier, is not in nature, especially when she is drawn as proud and rather haughty. So also the incident of the mine pool, the making away with the boy, and the comparative composure with which Lady Lee bears up against the sudden loss of her only child, are very unreal. It would have been better to have painted her excessive anguish, and to have described her old lover hunting the country in search of the lost boy, and bringing him back to the object of his affec tion. These and some other shortcomings, which thicken in the second volume, suggest the incoherence and want of constructive cleverness in this pleasant work. Leaving our readers to peruse the story (if it can be called oue) for themselves, we will give them some specimens of the graceful humour and pleasantry of Captain Hamley's sparkling style. How well he takes hold of our attention when he first introduces us to his female characters : Once upon a time, then (to guard against this error), there was assembled in a room at the Heronry, the residence of Lady Lee, a goodly company—goodly, not so much in point of numbers allays in personal appearance. Three ladies were there, ing, and none of them plain. Lady Lee was a young widow, the handsomest since Dido. Her face was pale and oval, her eyes magnificent, but somewhat languid. Her hair formed a splendid frame work to her face, being of the richest and darkest chestnut, scattered with ruddy, gulden gleams, dancing on its innumerable ripples. It formed a sort of natural diadem, but was now, unfortunately, hidden by a close crimped widow's cap. Orelia Payne was a tall dark beauty, with a nose stronl arched, a curved and somewhat severe mouth, a cleft chin , and straight dark eyebrows surmounting black sparkling eyes. Rosa Young was a plump fair little thing, with a face of a quaint and somewhat comic caste. Her nose turned up slightly, and was obsequiously followed by her upper lip, thus displaying the least glimpse in the world of very white teeth. Her complexion was very fresh, and would, per. haps, have been too ruddy, if the red had not been of such a delicious colour that you decided, at a glance, it was im possible to have too much of such a good thing besides, if your eye wanted relief, there was the white of her neck or the blue of her eyes to turn to. Her hair was carried off above her ears and dressed plain, or at least intended to be so •, but stray tresses were continually breaking out of bouds, ad wanderi in libertine curls about her cheeks, ears nand neck, ng requiring to be caught and pinned up in a supplementary fashion, till the number of these truants increased to such an extent that the whole structure had to be remodelled. Only two little curls, like those on a drEue's trail, were authorised to appear, ono each cheek, near the ears. Novel-readers will be divided as to which of these three characters is most attractive. 183 Sometimes, as we have hinted, the author gets them into strange situations ; and, as our Peelite readers probably never saw a lady in a shower-bath, we will indulge them with a sly little treat, described in a highly charac teristic passage Boss, constitutionally an early riser, used to be always up before Orelia in the morning, until the latter took it into her head to hive a shower-buth fitted up in the closet that opened from their room. Into this she would enter every morning with great majesty, and pull the string with no more hesitation than if she bad been ringing the bell for her maid, and would subsequently emerge, all calm and fresh and shining. But not content with indulging in this luxury herself, she would also insist upon getting it filled again for Rosa ; and that was the reason wl.y Rosa, who preferred performing her ablutions in a less terrible manner, hewn to be lazy of a morning—pretending to be sleepy—to be interested in a book—and other devices to while away the time, till Orelia would come and pull her out of . bed. Then the little thing, all shrinking and shivering, with her hair drawn into a tight knot at the back of her head, would be driven, in a sort of tottering run, towards the dreaded deluge by her imperious task mistress —balancing herself on the rim of the bath before entering—and then, tremblingly, would stretch her hand towards the cord, in which one might suppose, from her trepidation, she hail been ordered to hang herself. Then she would beg to be allowed to draw the curtains of the bath, which Orelia would by no means permit, suspecting she might in some way evade the ordeal, unless strictly watched. Then she would pretend to recollect something particular to tell Orelia, who, not to be battled in that way, would sternly order her to tell her by and by, and to pull the string without further nonsense ; and poor Rota, thus detected, would get up a little shivering laugh, broken short off by the prospect of her impending and inevitable doom ; and, shutting her eyes and mouth so tight that those features became mere threads in her comical little face, and putting her plump little shoulders considerably above her ears, she would hold her breath, and fumble blindly for the string, till Orelia, out of all patience, would give the fatal twitch, when a strangled shriek might be heard in the descending rush like that of a caught mouse, and Rosa would emerge all pink and palpitating, and glad it was over. We could fill columns with similar passages, written with the same easy humour. We should like to treat our readers to the conver sation at the mess-table, which is very natural and not overdone. Cornet Suckling, attempt ing to pass for an experienced man of the world, and his blunder about the wine, with his affected ease and real bashfulness, is a very comic sketch. We prefer, however, to give one example of the author's power in de scribing a serious incident. Colonel Begot Lee has been gradually sinking in the world, in consequence of " sharp" practices and dis reputable companions. Nothing decisive can be brought home, until an indictment is laid against him and his confederates, for cheating in a sporting transaction. Resolved to brazen it out before the trial comes on, the wretched Colonel faces the ordeal of a visit to his club : With doubtful and anxious feelings he now revisited the scene of his former glory, rutting on as composed a face RR possible, ho went up stairs and entered the library. There were several people in it whom he knew. One well known man-about-town, with whom the colonel was rather intimate, was seated opposite the door reading a news paper, and, as Bagot could have sworn, fixed his eye on him as he entered, but it was instantaneously dropped on the paper. Another member—an old gentleman who was strongly suspected of a happy knack of turning up honours at critical movements of the game of whist—looked round at his entrance, and the colonel advanced to greet him, in perfect confidence that he, at an d y rate, was not a likely person to cast the first stone at him ; but Bagot was mis taken. The old gentleman shifted his chair so as to place his back towards liagot , w ith a loud snort of virtuous forwar d, whis p ered to a neighbour so me hurried words, of which Begot could distinguish— " Deuced bad taste'—don't you think so ?" Crimson with rage and shame, Begot bent down over a newspaper to recover himself. and fumbled with trembling hands at his eyeglasses. He heard a step behind him presently, but he dared nut look up. " Lee, my boy, how are you?" said a stout hearty man about fifty, slapping the colonel on the shoulder. " I've just come back from a to ur, and the first thing I saw i n the paper was about yon—about your "—the stout gentle man stopped to sneeze, which he did four times, with terrible convulsions of face and figure, during which Begot was in horrible suspense, while every ear in the room was pricked up—" about your good fortune," said the stout gentleman, after he had blown and wiped his sonorous nose as care• fully as if it were some delicate musical instrument that he was going to put by in its case. " I congratulate you with all my heart. Fine property, I'm told. Just wait while I ring the bell, and we'll have a chat together." He went to the bell and rung it ; but, on his way back to Begot, he was stopped by a friend who had entered the library with him, and who now drew him aside. Bagot stole a glance over his paper at them. He felt they were talking about him. lie heard his stout friend say—" . God bless me, who would have thought it ! " and be perceived that, instead of rejoining him , accordin g to promise, he took a chair at the farther end of the room. i