The Press. — London, England, 1858-06-05 00:00:00

God save the Queen." The courtyard of the palace was brilliantly illuminate 1. " Abdul Medjid " and " Victoria " were hung in the bnghtest lamps across the darkness, after the Turkish fashion, which has a magical and beau tiful effect. The Sultan has a benevolent and pleasing countenance, one that you like at once,—mild and melan choly, and exhibits a great contrast to those of the fero cious-looking Pashas about him. Sad to say, his troubles and distracticns are msking him drink champag n e an d brandy too freely, even for aFrank. He wits much amused at the novel scene presented to him, and looked on with interest while a quadrille was formed before him. Edmund and I were close to his chair of state, and saw him plainly. But I must not anticipate my promised long letter. I was, if von care to know, a Spanish lady in a black mantilla fastened with beautiful damask roses. And elsewhere (pp. 274-5) we have glimpses of him at another ball, but he is so surrounded with company, lights, and gay whirlers in the waltz that we can only perceive the glory of the revelry, and admire tile animated style in which Mrs. Hornby's pen records showy effects. Mrs. Hornby's views of Turkish " interiors " are amongst the best things from her pen. and it must be recollected that her sex, and the official influence of her husband, gave her special oppor tunities. Amongst the best of these is the visit to a harem, and we shall extract much of it at length : We soon reached the garden-door of the harem, and found ourselves in a pretty but formal garden—formal, perhaps, on account of the shade which long trellised paths, bordered with tall orange and lemon trees, afford in the sultry heat of summer. There was a beautiful yew -tree in the very heart of the garden, and underneath, as far as its rich dark branches extended, a pretty pavement of pebbles had been laid, in small black and white stones. The design was charming, and something like the disc of a huge sun. flower. Cushions were arranged all around, and pretty little lamps were suspended from the branches ; I suppose to light up for a supper or concert of music, and the usual night feasting of Ramazan. None of the ladies were there now; but cross-legged, under a tree close by, sat a hideous negress, with a fair, sickly-looking chili in her arms, which she was trying to rock to sleep. She seemed savagely fond of it, and would hardly permit us to look at the poor little thing. but roughly said to Iliac Barker that it was ill, and afraid of strangers. No doubt the faithful nurse feared the " evil eye ;" and if the poor baby had been worse that night, she would have laid it to our charge. She did not offer to guide 11.3 to the house ; but, calling out in a harsh grating voice, some other slaves appeared, and leading the way up a wooden flight of steps, covered wits luxuriant creepers, ushered us into a large cool hall, floored with the usual matting. We were than conducted through several rooms to a shady one, with a painted ceiling and latticed window, looking on to the Bosphorus. Besides the divan,there was nothing in this apartment but a kind of cabinet, filled with some old china, and a table. upon which two gaudy clocks, several flower vases and other ornaments, were heaped up, just as if intended for in spection sad sale ; in fact, as you would see them at a broker's shop. As we were noting these things, and the comfortless look of the room, the door opened quickly, and a young Turkish lady, dressed in a light-coloured muslin jacket and trousers, ran up to th • Armenian lollies, kissed them rather boisterously, laughed like a school girl, with a stray shy look at us, and seated herself on the divan. She laughed again in my fac2 when I was introduced to her, and said something, which, on inquiry, I found was that she thought a bonnet must he a very uncomfortable thing. Notwithstanding this attack on our national costume, I offered ray hand in a f - iendly way, which she took with another giggle, and then clapped her hands for the eternal sweetmeats and coffee, which s'ie afterwards declared she had almost forgotten to call for, it being Ilarnazsn. She was not at all handsome : her eyes were rather fine, but the face fat, heavy, and uninteresting, although certainly good tempered looking. She had several slaves about her, but none of them at all pretty, except one charming little girl of eight, beautiful as an angel, the child of a former wile who was dead, and evidently the pet of the harem. Each lady at that particular harem had her sepa rate set of apartments, and each her private slaves. Mrs. Ilornby was taken to see a rich lady in the harem, and the following account is very interesting : These rooms were prettiest of all, anti looking on to the garden. They were hung with pale blue silk, instead of towered chintz, like the others ; for the lady inhabitant had been a present from the Sultan, and etiquette demands that her apartments be better furnished and adorned than all the rest. Ili r bedroom was charmingly fitted up ; • deep alcove covered with rich Persian carpets, filled with luxurious cushions and embroidered coverlets, taking up one side of it. On the other side was a light green and gold bedstead, covered with gauze curtains. The toilette table was extremely pretty, dressed with muslin and lace, after our fashion ; a Persian looking-glass. shaped like a sunflower, in mother-of pearl, hanging above it. The ceiling was painted with a trellis-work of birds, leaves, end flowers. Three steps led into the cool and shady Orden, and to the wide-spreading household tree I told 7 00 of. Opposite the alcove were doors ; one led into a sitting room, hung with the same blue silk, and furnished with richly-cushioned divans ; the other opened into a beautiful white marble bath, the air still heavy with steam '1 0 " P e rrone. The poor lady had just taken her firth. I i h, how pale a n d s i c kl y she l oo k e d , an d h ow ver y pretty , le n“--so touchingly g en tl e and graceful in her manners! ' yes much charmed. She talked some time to us in her Intl . )• room, but merely asking a dew titiestiAs : as to how THE PRESS, JUNE 5, 1858. long I had been here, and how I liked the country. pre. gently the black nurse came in with the little child. It was sail moaning in her arms ; and as the poor mother hung over it, it was difficult to say which looked the fastest fading away. My old Armenian friend took it kindly in her arms, and, speaking Turkish, talked over its ailments, while I walked with the other ladies to the• end of the apartment ; then, seeing their conversation over, I returned to say adieu. A sweeter or a sadder face I never saw—it quite haunted me. Our merry friend did not show much sympathy for the invalid, and insisted upon our returning to her apartments to show me her clothes and jewels. Robe after robe, carefully pinned up in muslin, was pro- duced, of every colour and shade, for all the ladies ran to fetch their wnole stock of finery. Dresses of light preen edged with gold, and violet trimmed with silver, flowered dresses, embroidered dresses, shawls, scarfs, and jackets, were prod iced in endless array, and with an immense amount of chattering. Then I must be dressed up in them, they said, laughing with delight as the masquerade progressed. You would certainly never have known me in the gorgeousness of Eastern array, which, however, they pronounced became me very well. Two large sprays of brilliants, set as a kind of convolvolus, with turquoise centres, were fastened in each side of my hair. And in justice to the English writer of these most ladylike letters, we must :quote her con cluding reflections : Ths very stin isplicre of the harem seemed to stifle me; and I could hardly help throwing the jewels and finery away from me in disgust. What Mrs. Lotigworth told me some time ago is quite right:—" If a Turkish woman possesses an atom of refinement, one particle of affection for either husband or children, one thought of the future, she must he wretched ! Her only chance of crntentment is in being degraded to a mere animal state, eating. drinking, and basking in the aim." . . We mse to go; the ladies crowding roam', and pressing us not to leave so soon. Pour ! they are so greedy after a litle amusement in their utter idleness. I felt more snip) , and impatient than you can well conceive, and kept exclaiming to Miss Barker, " Say we must m— let us get away directly; if we meet the Effendi returning, I shall certainly be taking off my slipper and heath g him upon the face in a most savage manner, or breaking his chibouque, or making him ' eat dirt' in some dreadful way or other, to my utter disgrace in Turkey and else where." Here we must finish. Our extracts faithfully describe the character of these letters, which, after all allowances have been deducted, are a welcome addition to the light literature of the current season. Doctor Thorne. A Novel. By Anthony Trollope. Three Vols. London : Chapman and Hall. WE fear that Mr. Trollope has been betrayed into undue security by the success attending the publication of his first three novels. In his pre sent one we observe a general falling off of power, which we believe we are right in attri buting to negligence, rather than to any intel lectual exhaustion. The plot of " Doctor Thorne" is less clever, the characters less dis tinct, and the moral less clearly brought home, than in either "Barchester Towers" or " The Three Clerks." But we feel in almost every other page the same observant humour, the same strong sense, and the same ability to touch the heart, which distinguished his former works. The scene of the present story is the village of Greshamsbury, in the west of England. Here reside John Newbold Gresham, Esq., a gentle man of the purest old blood in all the west, with a large but embarrassed property, and Dr. Thorne, a medical practitioner, also the scion of a gentle stock, with whom lives his niece Mary, one, perhaps, of Mr. Trollope's most pleasing female characters. At Boxall-hill, recently dis severed from the Greshamsbury estate, is Sir Roger Scatcherd, a great railway contractor, worth nearly half a million, and one of Mr. Gresham's principal creditors. Sir Roger had originally been a common stonemason in the town of Barchester, and while living there in that rank of life, his sister, the prettiest girl in the town, had been seduced by Dr. Thorne's brother. Scatcherd kills the seducer, and is sentenced to six months' imprisonment for man slaughter. During his captivity an illegitimate daughter is born to Mary Scatcherd, who is rescued from the want and misery that await her by Dr. Thorne, who takes the child off her hands, and so enables her to marry a former lover and emigrate to America. It is universally believed that the child is dead ; and when, ninny years afterwards, a young lady is brought home from school to the Doctor's house at Greshamsbury, no one of course suspects in this "daughter of a brother long since dead " the offspring of the stonemason's sister. By this time. however, the stonemason himself has become a baronet and a 537 millionaire, and had Mary's birth been legitimate there could have been no longer any reason for concealing it. Concealed, however, it is; and between the age of eighteen and twenty-one Miss Mary contrives, of course, to win the heart of young Frank Gresham, the only son and heir of the squire. As his mother, Lady Arabella, and his maternal relations, the Countess de Courcy and family, have all made up their minds that Frank must " marry money," of course we have the usual series of family quarrels on the subject. But Frank remains constant to his first love. And when, by a series of events too long to be narrated here, Mary becomes Sir Roger's heiress, and at the death of that worthy from liquor, owner of three-fourths of the Greshamsbury estates, her lover's virtue is rewarded, and the heroine herself treated to sonic very sweet revenge over the great folks that had so unmer cifully snubbed her. Now, it seems to us that an element of interest is wantonly sacrificed by allowing the reader to be in the secret of Mary Thorne's parentage. It has the effect also of dividing our sympathies. For it cannot be denied that Mary's birth would be, from Mr. Trollope's own point of view, a lawful objection to her union with Frank Gresham. We cannot, therefore, help feeling throughout that his family are not treated quite fairly; and certainly the splendid fortune which Mary ultimately brings them is all required to atone for the impropriety of the concealment. A third objection to this feature of the story is that it materially weakens, or else obscures, the moral meant to be conveyed. If Frank and Mary had not been a hero and heroine, but ordi nary people, they would probably have suc cumbed to the resistance offered to their union, and the Greshams have lost the only chance of recovering their ancestral lands. Ergo, don't oppose love matches ; don't make young men marry for money; and, though Norman blood is an excellent thing, don't forget that • A simple maiden in her flower Is worth a hundred costs of arms. But then, as Mr. Trollope of course admits, the reproach of illegitimacy is something totally dis tinct from that of humble origin ; and those who are above feeling any contempt for the latter might very well shrink from connecting them selves with the former. The feeling may be wrong or it may not, but it ought to have been dealt with. Either Mary should have been born in lawful wedlock, or the Greshams should have known that she was not. As it is, whenever we are tempted to adopt Mr. Trollope's lesson, we are held back by the consciousness that the ex periment is not having a fair trial. Our indigna tion at Lady Arabella's conduct towards Mary is always liable to a secret deduction on account of what is kept back from her. If it is not justifiable because of Mary's poverty or inferiority of birth, it is justifiable for another reason. If Lady Arabella has no excuse for herself, the reader has one for her. The objection to the marriage is a sound one, though the reason for it is not. Lady Arabella's case is not weakened because she herself did not know its strength. Like the Chinese with the Arrow, she does what in reality it was right to do, though she is ignorant of the one circumstance which makes it right. How far a person is blameable in such a case will of course vary with the facts relating to it. But the introduction of this doubt is, we repeat, fatal to the force of Mr. Trollope's moral. • Mr. Trollope's minor characters are drawn with his usual felicity, but are placed in less in teresting situations than they occupy in his pre vious stories. Mr. Oriel and Beatrice, Lady Augusta and Mr. Moffatt, Miss Dunstable and the Duke of Omnium, arc all fresh, lifelike sketches. But perhaps the best bit in the book short enough to bear quotation is the description of Miss Gushing, the young lady who tried to captivate the Pusevite clergyman, who had de clared himself an advocate of celibacy : And then there was Miss Gushing, a young thing. Miss Gushing had a great advantage over the other competitors for the civilization of Mr. Oriel, namely, in this—that she was able to attend his morning services. If Mr. Oriel was t) be reached in any way, It was probal.le that he might be reached in this will-. If anything could civilize him, this wculd do it. Therefore, the young thing, through all one long, tedious winter, tore herself from her warm bed, and was t 3 he reen—tio, not seen, but heard— entering Mr. Oriel'a church at six o'clock. With hide fati.fable aysiduity the rrotonses were made, uttered from under a close bonnet, and out of a dark corner, in an en. thusia:tically feminine voice, through the whole winter. 4