The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-15 00:00:00

802 On the left—a still more extraordinary sight presented itself. A kind of baby glacier actually hung suspended half way on the hillside, like a tear in the act of rolling down the turroned cheek of the mountain. T have tried to convey to you a notion of the falling impetus impressed on the surface of the Jan Mayen ice rivers; but in this case so unaccountable did it seem that the overhanging mass of ice should not continue thunder down upon its course, that one's natural impulse was to shrink frGui crossing the path along which a breath —a sound—might precipitate the suspended avalanche into the valley. On these inhospitable shores there is no vegetation but a little scanty black moss, and the slightest modification of the sun's power, even in the month of August, produces a thin pellicle of ice over the sea, which causes the waves to assume the appearance of billows of oil. The melancholy result of the few at tempts that have been made to winter on the island is attested by the open coffins and bleaching skeletons which, undisturbed some times for a century or two, moulder unburied on the frozen ground, too hard to he pierced by any spade:— No description can give an adequate idea of the intense rigour of the six•months winter in this part of the world. Stories crack with the noise of thunder ; in a crowded hut the breath of its occupants will fall in flakes of snow ; wine and spirits turn to ice; the snow burns like caustic ; if iron touches the flesh it brings the skin away with it; the soles of your stockings may be burnt off your feet before you feel the slightest warmth from the fire ; linen taken out of boiling water instantly stiffens to the con sistency of a wooden board; and heated stones will not prevent the sheets of the bed from freezing. If these are the effects of the climate within an airtight, fire•warmed, crowded hut—what must they be among the dark, storm• lashed, mountain peaks outside! Lord Dufferin returned to England by way of Trondheim in Norway, and Copenhagen— having been absent the greater part of a year. Our extracts have dwelt more on the extraor dinary aspects of nature than of human nature which he encountered. If the glaciers of Spitzbergen, however, should have struck too cold a chill to the reader's hones, he may find an antidote in the following trait of Icelandic manners, which goes far to realise the tropical paradise imagined by Don Gaul tier. Fitz (the surgeon) having, while at the Geysers, unluckily caught cold, instead of sleeping in the tent, he determined to seek shelter under a solid roof-tree, and, conducted by our guide Olaf, set off on his pony at bedtime in search of en habitation. The next:morning he reappeared so unusually radiant that 1 could not help inquiring what good fortune had in the meantime befallen him: upon which he gave me such an account of his last night's reception at the farm, that I was almost tempted to bundle tent and beds down the throat of our irritable friend Strnkr, and throw myself for the future upon the hospitality of the inhabi tants. It is true, I had read in Van Troll of something of the kind, but until now I never fully believed it. The doctor, however, shall tell his own history. "No twoner," said he, " had I presented myself at the door, and made known my errand, than I was immediately welcomed by the whole family, and triumphantly inducted into the guest quarters : everything the house could pro duce was set before me, and the whole society stood by to see that I enjoyed myself. As I had hut just dined, an additional repast was no longer essential to my happiness; hut all explanation was useless, and I did my hest to give them satisfaction. Immediately on rising from the table, the young lady of the house—(old Van Troll says it is either the mother or the daughter of the house, if she be grown up, who performs this office)—proposed by signs to conduct me to my apartment: taking in one hand a large plate of skier, and in the other a bottle of brandy, she led the way through a passage built of turf and stones to the place where I was to sleep. Having watched her deposit —not without misgivings, for I knew it was expected both should be disposed of before morning —the skier by my bedside, and the brandy-bottle under the pillow, I was preparing to make her a polite bow, and to wish her a very good night, when she advanced towards me, and with a winning grace difficult to resist, insisted upon helping me off with my coat, and then—proceeding to extremities — with my shoes and stockings. At this critical part of the proceedings I naturally imagined her share of the per formance would conclude, and that I should at last lie restored to that privacy which at such seasons is generally considered appropriate. Not a bit of it. Before I knew where I was I found myself sitting on a chair, in my shirt, trouserless, while my fair tirewoman was engaged in neatly folding up the raviahed garments on a neighbouring chair. She then, in the most simple manner in the world, helped me into bed, tucked me up, and having said a quantity of pretty things in Icelandic, gave me a hearty kiss and de parted. If," he added, "you see anything remarkable in my appearance, it is probably because— "rhis very morn I've telt the sweet surprise tsfunexpected lips on seated eyes;' " by which he poetically intimated the pleasing ceremony which had awaked him to the duties of the day. I think it needless to subjoin that the doctor's cold did not get better as long as we remained in the neighbourhood, and that had it not been for the daily increasing tire of his looks, I should have begun to be alarmed at so protracted en indisposition. THE P li, E S AUGUST 15, 1857. We hear that this book has driven all the aristocratic young ladies in London wild with admiration for its noble author. We wish " them, or one or either or any of them," every success ; but if congenialities of temperament and. sympathies of travel are to be taken into account, there is a " party " who has a prior claim. It need scarcely be said that we allude to the junior of the two " Unprotected Females in Norway." NEW NOVELS. 1. A Woman's Story. By Mrs. S. C. Hail. London : Hurst and Blackett. 3. Life and its Realities. By Lady Chatterton. London : Hurst and Blackett. 3. Lucien Playfuir. By Thomas Mackern. London : Smith and Elder. 4. Leonora dOreo. By G. P. R. James. London: Newby. 5. The Athelings. By Margaret Oliphant. London : Blackwoods. 6. Tom Burke. By Charles Lever. London : Chapman and Hall. 1. The first tale upon our list is written by an old popular favourite, and, we doubt not, will he recognised as worthy of her former produc• Lions. "A Woman's Story" bears unm►stake ably the stamp of intellectual power. Possibly it is to some extent deficient in that grace and softness which frequently lends a charm to lady writers even where more solid attractions are wanting, but none can deny that it is written by a woman of real literary capacity and considerable vigour of thought. There is no silliness in it. It is sometimes, perhaps, dry, but never empty or frivolous. Helen Lyndsey, the heroine, is a young lady who takes to literature as a means both of paying her father's debts and securing her own inde pendence. She becomes the authoress of a successful tragedy, and the reading of the play in the greenroom and subsequent de meanour of the company is decidedly the cream of the story. It is no detraction from Mrs. Hall's merits to point out that this scene has been drawn before by a hand which it is not'easy to surpass—we mean the author of " Gilbert Gurney." But her own picture bears the impress of originality, and we acquit her most readily of anything resembling plagia rism. The villain of the piece, a certain Mr. Marley, is a rather mysterious character, and the secret that binds him and Helen together is, perhaps, a little too far-fetched. 2. "Life and its Realities" has less power than " A Woman's Story," but more softness and more interest. The character of Lucy is drawn with great skill. She is a true woman, and we are made to sympathise with her fortunes just as we should with those of any pretty woman in real life whose charms pre vented us from investigating her conduct too closely. The principal error in this novel is, we think. the [number of characters in troduced. We have, indeed, three genera tions before us, and the interest completely passes away from the original heroine long before the end of the story. This is a defect of art, and must always prevent any fiction from enthralling our attention. But it by no means hinders it from being extremely read able. We learn to take an interest in Lady Chatterton's characters as they pass before us, and we do not pause to inquire how far the unity of the tale may be violated by their appearance. The incident of the haunted room is worked with considerable melodra matic force, and the apparition of the murdered child is so managed as to leave us in doubt of the authoress's own opinion of the subject till such time as she chooses to clear it up for us. This is a very high and very rare merit. Lady Chattcrton's style is pleasant and polished, and the stream of her story is kept clear from superfluous moralising, in which we are sorry to say lady writers are rather too apt to indulge. 3. " Lucien Play fair " is a story we cannot make much out of—it is confused and wordy. But the author has some graphic power, and various scenes in the three volumes are drawn with much vividness. Mr. Mackern is clearly a man of some thought and reflection, but we question if novel-writing be his forte. 4. " Leonora d'Orco " possesses most of Mr. James's stereotyped faults and merits. It is marked by the inveterate mannerism, the boarding-school morality, and the mechanical action, which have, nevertheless, been unable to drown the s ubstantial counterbalancing attractions of the author of. " Richelieu," " Harry Masterton," and " The Gipsy." Vivid descriptive powers, a truly English love of nature, and great gentleness and purity, are the qualities which have achieved for Mr. James an enduring popularity, and which exist more or less in the pages of " Leonora d'Orco." The scene of the present story is in Italy, during the last decade of the fifteenth century, which witnessed Charles the Eighth's invasion of Naples, and the commencement of Ctesar Borgia's career. The two lovers are for a while separated by the machinations of a vindictive retainer, who intercepts Leonora's letters to her Lorenzo, who returns with the French King across the Alps. They are brought together again after a decent interval, and fairly married in the last page but one of the third volume. There are the usual number of assassinations and intrigues—of mountain gorges threaded by brilliant cavalcades—and dark-souled men who sometimes look upon the stars and meditate on infinity. As a. broad picture it may, perhaps, represent with sufficient accuracy the aspect of Italian life at that period. The costumes are carefully painted ; and the characters move through their allotted parts without any violation of the stage proprieties. Mr. James, however, shines most in English stories and quiet home scenery. His best novels, of which we may say with justice that they form a school of their own, and will be read with great interest while novels continue to be read at all, are of this character, and oa this particular ground wo think he h as no rivals. 5. " The Athelings, or the Three Gifts," lately reprinted front Blacktenod's Magazine, is not as a story equal to that which preceded it in the same periodical—we mean " Zaidee"— but it is a very charming story nevertheless. There is a soft, warm, sunny effect about the whole production which is inexpressibly at tractive. The two girls are really loveable creations. In their muslin dresses and simple bonnets, their artless grace and lithe gesture, as described walking through the streets of London, or sauntering on the lawn at Mrs. Edgerly's villa—they form the prettiest picture we have met with either in art or reality for a long time. The young authoress is the most interesting of the two. Marian is rather too much of a child ; and her love for Louis grows up rather too suddenly. But the growth of the affection between Agnes and Lionel Rivers is depicted with consummate skill. The latter character himself we cannot help thinking rather a failure : he is drawn as a man of high intellect, profound learning, and unconquerable zeal, who passes from Tracta rianisin to scepticism, and from scepticism hack to faith in the simple tenets of Christianity. But Mrs. Oliphant will excuse us for saying that a character of this sort appears to be a little out of her depth. Psychological analysis is fre quently attempted by ladies, but rarely with success. They are learned in the workings of the heart—they can read with accuracy the foibles or the virtues which are the product of the moral part—hut they are, from the natural results of their education, entirely at sea when they try to handle the perplexities or inconsistencies of a metaphysical mind. But in such a character as Charley, again, " the big boy," the authoress is excellent. Mrs. Atheling, Miss Anastasia, Mrs Edgerly, are all finished and lifelike portraits ; Mr. Endicott, too, the American lion-hunter, is an excellent specimen of a class that is half amusing and half offensive ; Louis, his little sister, and Lord Winterbourne, not perhaps quite so natural, but still forcible and striking. The plot is sufficiently good, and the story revolves round it in a style that evinces genuine constructive talent. 6. There cannot be a greater contrast than between the quiet story of " The Athelings " and the dashing military adventures of Mr. Lever's hero. We are not those who profess to observe in " Tom Burke " the first syino toms of decadence in Mr. Lever. It is true that there is less Irish fun and anecdote ; but '''‘