The Press. — London, England, 1858-02-20 00:00:00

188 Miss Godwin (her mother being dead), and a mutual attachment is the result. But the young lady, though the match is desired by all parties, and though she has actually accepted her lover, retracts her consent. The reader is surprised? So was Gaston Bligh. Miss Godwin satisfies him by pro ducing her mother's last letter, in which she is charged " to make a friend of Gaston, but nothing more ;" and, though suffering intensely, is thence forth inexorable to his suit. Gaston goes abroad, and, after a year's travelling, meets a young heiress with light hair. Women with light hair are oiten very dangerous. Miss Smith was so : a sort of fast mermaid, with yellowish green locks, exquisite fea tures, and " grey eyes like a shallow sea " (reminding us, by the way, of an equally formidable damsel in " Guy Livingstone"). Gaston fascinates and is fas• cinated ; cots oat his rivals—which is part of the fascination—and in one night loses 20mila at bil- liards and wins the heiress. Sirens, however, are not safe till you actually have them in church and the ring round their finger—perhaps not then. From a delirious waltz with his charmer Gaston is sum moned to the side of his lost love, Sylvia Godwin, who has never recovered the rupture of their engage ment, and to whom the news of his fresh affiir proves a death-blow. After her death Gaston has a fever, from which he recovers to find Miss Smith carried off by a lord, and, being now poor, he denotes the residue of his life and cue-impaired fortune to works of benevolence and quiet social amelioration. Our summary gives no idea of the very great power with which the story is told, the epigrammatic piquancy of the conversations and reflections, and the depth of occasional remarks, which will come home to the experience of many a reader. The whole book sparkles with esprit, and the characters talk like gentlemen and belies, not like cubs or cockneys. The author's mind seems quite saturated with good poetry, and the descriptions show pictorial feeling, and are not introduced too often. Altogether, it is very enjoyable reading, and we rise from it with the impression of the author's extreme cleverness. But there is a but. We should not have analysed the story in the tone we have used, had we not felt the very strongest disapproval of the conception and principal motive of the story. To patronise and foster a youth, and become his friend aad protector —to persuade him that he is understood—to accept his repentance for his faults—and to forbid a beau tiful girl with whom he will inevitably associate, and as inevitably fall in love, to make him "more than a friend "—all the while giving him no warning, and even alluring him by the bait of the permitted friend ship—is a refinement of cruelty which none but a very exemplary person would have thought of, and only a very strongminded person would have carried into execution. On the part of Mrs. Godwin there is the fallacy of supposing that one's daughter is to marry cote but a perlect character, and the pre sumption of desiring to play the part of Providence even after death. On the part of Miss Godwin there is an overstrained view of filial obedience, and the pet absurdity of recent heroines, that self•sacrifice is a good thing in itself, independently of the objet for which it is made. We are required to allow-1. That Sylvia was bound to adhere to her mother's wishes; 2. That by consequently going into a con sumption and wasting her lover's life she was effect ing the purification of his character and her own, and doing an act acceptable in the sight of Heaven. All tliis we utterly disbelieve and deny. No casuistry will make us admit that we are forbidden to take happiness which is placed within our reach, and is not in itself Inconsistent with divine law ; and it is a morbid view both of divine law and moral obligation which asserts that we are bound to obey the direc- tions of a person who is necessarily ignorant of the circumstances on which we are to decide and the changes of character in those who are to be affected by our decision. We do not, of course, expect the author to modify at our suggestion what we consider the perversity of his views; but, at any rate, we may warn our readers against being led away by th e spe ciousness and brilliant talent with which they are presented. We should be only too glad if we could see another novel by the same hand, written with equal power and pervaded by healthier ideas. 2. We have already had occasion to express our seives favourably of the works of this authoress, and we are glad to be able to repeat our praise in the present instance. Unpretending as:tier stories are, they have the merit of accomplishing all they profess, of being written with entire good taste and good feeling, Anil of adhering to a high standard of cor duct with. ont any of those overstrained and morbid views of moral obligation which are unhappily so prevalent in stories of a similar class. " Uncle Ralph" is de cidedly the best work of fiction its authoress has yet produced. It is superior to " Dorothy " in know. ledge of life, to " Da Cressy " in pathos and dramatic force, and to " Still Waters " in general interest. The characters are clearly brought out, and the motives and impulses by which they are actuated are of a genuine, healthy, and human kind. They talk As people do in common life, but perhaps with a less THE PRESS, FEBRUARY 20, 1858. am3unt of twaddle. In fact the authoress has the power, which is much less common than is desirable, of wr►ting conversation which reads naturally and easily, and which might really be supposed to have taken place. Whether this is the result of careful elaboration, or simply of feminine tact and ladylike education, we do not know, but the result is ex tremely pleasing, and would probably render the volumes of the authoress popular evon without her other merits. The story of " Uncle Itilpti " moves through too great a succession of small incidents for short analysis, but when we say that it is a love story of which the conclusion is not perfectly ob vious, and that the scenes belong to domestic upper middle•class life, we shall convey a sufficient idea of its character. 3. "Dawn and Twilight" is one of those books which from its external appearance, '0 general tone, and the mixture of religion and aristocratic society which pervades it, we are apt to associate with the influence of Miss Yonga. It belongs to a class of which for our own part we think there is now quite a sufficient supply; though such works enjoy, we believe, an extensive circulation, and are widely read by persons similar to those whose fortunes they record. These volumes describe the career of Con stance Montrevor, a beautiful, wellborn, accom plished, and in every way good and charming young lady. Constance grows up in the country, in the society of her widowed father, her uncle who has the family living, and her two cousins, his sons Percy and Eustace. The latter is in love with her, and appears to have a very good chance of success,—if the authoress would only allow him to try, which she does not, partly because it would bring the story to an end in no time, partly because Eustace is of that much-enduring type which young lady authoresses choose for working up into model clergymen. The marriage of fist cousins is certainly not desirable, and if Eustace's presumptuous hopes had been nipped on physiological grounds, we should have had nothing to say. But, when he sounds his father on the subject, " his answer was given even more folly "and decidedly than Eustace's question demanded, " and it made him clearly see that both to his father " and uncle any attempt on his part to win his " cousin's affections would cause great sorrow and "discomfort." We are not further enlightened as to the objection, which seems purely arbitrary, and would, we are persuaded, have bad no operation in real life. Meantime the lady goes on through her first season "in msliden meditation, fancy free," but is at length fascinated by the attractions of Mr. Clif- ford, a senti-Byronic hero, about whom there is an occasional gloom which we feel bodes no good. When Constance makes the acquaintance of a young lady who is dying of consumption from having been jilted by a perfidious lover, the reader will be pre. pared—which Constance of course is not—for the announcement that Mr. Clifford is the culprit. After watching the deathbed of the victim of his incon• stancy, she cannot very well marry him, but will have no one else, and on her father's death devotes her large fortune to establishing a sort of religious hos pital in the manufacturing town where her chief property lies. Here, one day, a railway accident occurs, and among the casualties is Mr. Clifford, who having in his travels met with Eustace, has been converted by him, and lives long enough to leave Constance with an entirely satishictory impression of his spiritual state. The story is throughout amiable and well-principled, and the denouement of Mr. Clif ford's mystery is described with a good deal of power. The conversations are natural, if occasionally trivial, and the characters very fairly discriminated. By those who affect this class of books, " Dawn and Twilight" will doubtless be found an agreeable story. British Almanac and Companion for IS3B. Lon- don : Knight and Co. THIS excellent volume is so well established in public opinion that its thirtydrirat number needs tio praise of ours to commend it to popular notice. We need only state that the high character of its useful ness is fully maintained in the present issue. Some of the best articles which have been written udon the subjects are to be found here upon "The Manchester Exhibition,"—" The Leviathan ' " " The Atlantic Telegraph,"—" The Educational Conferonce,"—" The Purchase of Commissions," Sze.; while an excellent chronological account of the connection between England and India gives an especial value to the current number. From the article upon the Levia than we extract the following description of the hotel departments : The hotel departments are limited to the upper half of the ship, and to the centre rather than to the two ends; all below is a mystery, not to he solved by the passengers. In these lower regions the compartments are subdivided and strengthened by iron walls, longitudinal and transversal, horizontal and vertical, so as to adapt the vast interior to the reception of engines, boilers, furnaces, steam-pipes, smoke-funnels, working-tunnels, coals, water, and cargo. . . . The two longitudinal iron walls, about thirty-biz feet asunder, divide each of the five central compartments into three, one adjacent to each side of the ship, and one in th centre ; they have square openings fur doors and wiudow: communicating from the saloons in the centre of the ship to the sleeping-cabins at the s id e. T he saloons are in two ranges, one over another, each nearly fourteen feet high, and most of them sixty feet i n l ength by thiriy-si-in breadth. As all the saloons and berths in each comport. ment have doors of communication, each is devoted ex. elusively to first, second, or third class passengers, as the case may Le. Thus this matchless ship will contain five or six hotels, each not only secluded from all the others, but adapted in all its parts f o r a particular class of voyagers. It may perchance be consistent w ith t h e plans of the Com. puny that even third-class passengers will exper i ence an amount of comfort rarely obtained on shipboard; but, Le this as it tiny, all the requirements of class-exclusiveness will be Provided fur those having the will and the means to pay for it. The height of the " tween decks" will be a boon such as sea-passengers have never had before. What the commercial arrangements will finally be perhaps no one at present fully knows; but so far as the slip is con cerned, there are ample means for accommodating 4,100. human beirgs—viz. 800 first-class passengers, 2,0./0 second class, 1;201 third-class, and 400 crew. The crew will be pretty equally divided into three equal bodies; one-third engineering, one-third sailing, and one-third domestic. The command of this mighty host is intrusted to Captain Harrison, who has been for so many years connected with the Cunard line ; and his staff will consist of twelve offi cers in addition to the chief, sixteen engineers, a sailing. master, purser, two or more surgeons, &c. &c. It is, of course, only the saloons or general rooms of assemblage that have so remarkable a height as 13 or 14 feet; but even the aleeping.cabitie have ( the better class of them) a height of 7k feet, with 14 feet of length and 11 of breadth. These berths are ranged in veritable streets and squares, right and left of the various saloons; theme are long corri dors, out of which short passages branch ; and each of these passages gives access to four cabins, with all the conveniences that can add to the comfort of the passengers. There are 500 side lights or windows in the upper part of the hull of the ship, each consisting of a circular piece of very thick plate glass, from 8 to 14 inches in diameter, nicely wedged into a circular brass rim, and this rim held in a cast-iron frame. When the passengers emerge from their cabins and saloons, and ascend to the deck, a superb promenade is befive them ; the upper deck is more than an eighth of a mile in length, flash from end to end, ex cept skylights, staircases, and ventilating openings. These ventilating openings are square vertical shafts, carrying fresh air and light to the boiler.-rooms far down in the bowels of the monster ship. So vast a:e the arrangements, that there are even staircases in the paddle-boxes, to give passage for domestics without walking the decks. That gas for lighting the ship will be made on board ; that electric telegraphs will be employed to communicate signals from the captain to Lis subordinates far ahead or astern, or far down in the depths of the monster; tnat electric lights will be hoisted at maintop as night-signals on the ocean ; that compasses are to be hoisted high aloft, out of the way of the attraction of the iron of the ship— these are among the on &Is of the Great Eastern; and it will be safer to treat them, at present, ouly as such. The writer anticipates a mighty future for the great ship, not in short passages and moderate trade, but in long voyages : When, under the best appointments, and by the costly Suez route, a voyage is male to Australia in fifty days, the achievement is jaistly regarded as creditable to the companies concerned ; but if the Great Eastern should ac complish the distance in forty days or less, and if cheap fires and cheap freight should result from the large amount of passengers and goods taken, then there will be every kind of saving effected at once—time, money, provisions ; and, we may perhaps add, the dread of sea-sickness, and the physical and mental exhaustion attendant on a long ocean voyage. Thera is talk of a trial trip to America; tins may be, but we must look further for the real glories of the Great Eastern. A ship that could take out guests enough to people a small town, goods enough to supply all the shops in that town, and co sls enough to serve the town with fuel foi three or tour years—ought to have a mighty future before it. The usual abstracts of parliamentary documents, chronicle of events, and descriptions of public im provements, are given with great accuracy, and testify as usual to the singular ability displayed in . the compilation of this m us t excellent volume of reference. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.-FEDIWARY 18. BOOKS. A Narrative of the Missionary sent by the Governor General of India to the Court of Ava in 1t4:51. Captain Henry Yule. Smith and Elder. The Descendants of the Stuarts. By William Townsend. Lng . nand Co The Poetical Tros of Henry Durand. a ll) n the a liev . ac A. 'Bonifield. W Lay. - - . By J. 1' Select Odes of Horace in English Lyrics. .IYti• black. Smith and Elder. Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron. BY E J. Treliveny. Rational Philosophy in History and in System. Constable and Co. The Galley Slave and His Daughter. By Mrs. 11. Thompson. Maddou and Oldham. PAMPHLETS. Mind and Body. Brown and Co—Scenes from the late Indian Mutiny. Moody—A Few Hints to Cottage Brides. Ditto—Remarks on the Rapid Tranionbmion of Troops to India. E. Stanford—A Description of the Building at South Kensington. Chapman and HAI-- Truth out of Place. By William be Burgh, DI ) . Hamilton and Co—Poor Rates. A Simple Irish Tale. Maddon and Co—The Cherubim. A Tale by the Rev. W. Dalin. Ditto.