The Press. — London, England, 1857-06-13 00:00:00

584 of War, then proposed to study immediately the strategic points of Paris, in order to settle a plan of defence. A plan of Paris was necessary for the purpose, and as there was none on the council-table the President of the Republic went into an adjacent room to seek for one. No sooner had the Prince left the room than General Chan. gamier, folding his arms, looked significantly at some members of the Council, and said, " I hope that if there be an emeute it will not be in the interest of that Thomas Diaforins that we shall combat it !"• The most critical period in the life of the present Emperor of the French was now approaching : we will return shortly to M. Granier de Cassagnac's detail of events. NEW NOVELS. The Professor. A Tale. By Currer Bell. London : Smith and Elder. YOUNG authors and authoresses who are in clined to grumble at the apparent caprice of publishers, and sometimes even, to question their powers of discrimination, may learn a lesson from the perusal of " The Professor." Had this story been the one fated to introduce the authoress to the world," Jane Eyre " would probably have failed in elevating her to that height of celebrity which she now deservedly occupies. She would in that case have at once been classed with an inferior order of novelists, from which her subsequent success could never perhaps have entirely removed her. The rejection of " The Professor " was in our opinion no less advantageous to the young authoress than creditable to the discern• went of the booksellers. The outline of the story, of which some use was afterwards made in " Villette," is as follows. Edward and William Crimsworth are the orphan sons of a manufacturer who had married a patrician wife. The elder is initiated when young into his father's pur suits, and becomes a flourishing millowner. The younger, left to the care of his maternal relations, is sent to Eton, and on quitting school receives the offer of a provision in the Church. Something in the tone of his noble relatives determine him at once to reject their overtures, and to set out forthwith for his brother's house, with the intention of becoming a tradesman. His brother makes him a clerk at ninety pounds a year, but treats him with so much cruelty and neglect that he throws up the situation after a very short trial. At this crisis he is befriended by a queer sort of character, with whom alone he had formed an acquaintance in the large manufac turing town in X—shire. Mr. Hunsden, for such is his name, is a kindhearted man at bottom, though with a rough, and even impertinent demeanour, and he furnishes William Crims• worth with introductions to some friends in Brussels, through whose aid he becomes in stalled as teacher of English in the academy of a M. Pelet, at a salary of 401. a year. He finds this situation far from disagreeable ; his Principal is polite and considerate, and he is soon enabled to add 201. a year to his in come by accepting a similar situation in a young LI dies' academy, kept by one Mlle. Reuter. The directress is about twenty-six, on the whole rather attractive in person, and of superior intelligence. She is, however, an arrant flirt, and does her best to enslave the aristocratic-looking young Englishman. He is very near succumbing to her arts, when he accidentally discovers that she has been for some time betrothed to M. Pelet. This dis covery steels him against her advances, and is the cause, perhaps, of his regarding with more attention some of the female forms with whom his duties as professor bring him in contact. Among them is Mlle. Henri, a girl of humble means, who supports herself by lace•mending and by teaching sewing at Mine. Reuter's academy. She becomes a pupil of the Pro fessor in English, and the sequel of the story is now, we presume, beginr.ing to loom before our• readers. They fall in love with one an other, both quit the establishment, and, after rather less than the legitimate number of difficulties, obtain lucrative appointments, marry, and eventually realise sufficient fortune ' to enable them to settle in England. The above incidents are too remote from the experience and the sympathies of ordinary life to awaken much interest in the reader, • (But few of our readers need he reminded that Thomas Diaforitis is a very ridiculous personage in one of the comedies of THE PRESS. and Miss Bronte had not yet attained to that powerful delineation of character which con stitutes the charm of her later performances. The present story has an attenuated air throughout, and smacks of the soup maigre of the Belgian boarding-school. Yet it must be confessed that the idea is original, and that we every here and there detect germs of that power which took the world by storm in "Jane Eyre " and " Shirley." The same talent of graphic description is also at times conspicuous. The following description of the three upper girls on the occasion of the Professor delivering his first lecture at the " Pensionnat de Demoiselles," is an instance:— The three allude to were just in front, within half a yard of my estrade, and were among the most womanly looking present. Their names I knew afterwards, and may as well mention now ; they were Eulalie, Hortense, Caroline. Eulalie was tall and very finely shaped; she was fair, and her features were those of a Low-country Madonna; many a " figure de vierge " have I seen in Dutch pictures exactly resembling hers. There were no angles in her shape or in her face—all was curve and roundness—neither thought, sentiment, nor passion dis turbed by line or flush the equality of her pale, clear skin ; her noble bust heaved with her regular breathing, her eyes moved a little—by these evidences of life alone could I have distinguished her from some large handsome figure, moulded in wax. Hortense was of middle size and stout ; her form was ungraceful, her face striking, more alive and brilliant than Eulalie's, her hair was dark brown, her com plexion richly coloured: there were frolic and mischief in her eye; consistency and good sense she might possess, but none of her features betokened those qualities. Caroline was little, though evidently full grown ; raven. black hair, very dark eyes, absolutely regular features, with a colourless olive complexion, clear as to the face and sallow about the neck, formed in her that assemblage of points whose union many persons regard as the perfection of beauty. How, with the tintless pallor of her skin and the classic straightness of her lineaments, she managed to look sensual I don't know. I think her lips and eyes contrived tee affair between them, and the result left no uncertainty on the beholder's mind. She was sensual now, and in ten years time she would be coarse—promise plain was written in her face of much future folly. lf I looked at these girls with little scruple, they looked at me with still less. Eulalie raised her unmoved eye to mine, and seemed to expect, passively but securely, an impromptu tribute to her majestic charms. Hortense regarded me boldly and giggled at the same time, while she said with an air of impudent freedom— " Dictez•nona quelquechose de facile pour commencer, monsieur." Caroline shook her loose ringlets of abundant but some what coarse hair over her rolling black eyes ; parting her lips, as full as those of a hotillooded Maroon, she showed her well-set teeth sparkling between them, and treated me at the same time to a smile "de sa fac.on." Beautiful as Pauline Borghese, she looked at the moment scarcely purer than Lucrece de Borgia. Caroline was of noble family. I heard her lady•mother's character afterwards, and then 1 ceased to wonder at the precocious accomplish. ments of the daughter. These three, i at once saw, deemed themselves the queens of the school, and conceived that by their splendour they threw all the rest into the shade. In less than five minutes they had thus revealed to me their characters, and in less than five minutes I had buckled on a breastplate of steely indifference and let down a visor of impassable austerity. Of the characters in " The Professor," the heroine, Mile. Henri, and the " Directress " are decidedly the best. The hero is dull. The love-making between him and the young lace-mender is tame and cold—something widely different from the fiery energy of Mr. Rochester ; and we neither condole much with his misfortunes, nor rejoice much with his success. With Miss Henri, however, the case is different. The little quiet, piquant, indus trious Anglo-Swiss girl, is very pleasingly drawn. The description of her neat little room, and her pretty hospitalities, is marked by much feminine grace ; and the contrast between herself and the intriguing " Direc tress" is very skilful. Hunsden, on the con trary, is an improbable and rather clumsy creation—a mere dens ex machina—and a de cided blot in the construction of the story. But the crowning blunder is, in our opinion, the character of EdwardCrimsworth. His bru tality towards his brother is wholly un accounted for. In the possession of a large fortune, a handsome wife, and all that can make life pleasant, the most savage churl in the universe would be quiet until provoked. His brother comes down to him ; he no way presumes on their relationship, asks no favours, does a great deal of useful work for a small salary, and is yet treated like a dog. Such excess of wanton malignity is not in nature. Such a mistake as this, however, is simply the result of inexperience, which an extended acquaintance with the world would be certain to correct. SATURDAY, The language of " The Professor " is e very good, though at times tainted with that coarse ness which disfigured Miss Bronte's later works. We allude more especially to the character of Mlle. Trista, and her unladylike and insubordinate habits. In the moral of the story Miss Bronte seems to have broken down. It was, she tells us in the preface, in tended to show what a man can do unaided by any of those rare pieces of luck which are commonly introduced in novels. Yet, surely, the accident which gave William Crimsworth a claim on the family of Mr. Vandenhuten, was as great a piece of good fortune as could possibly befall a man ; and even the way in which the little lace mender obtains her pro motion is liable to the same criticism. The Romany Rye. A Sequel to "Lavengro." By George Borrow. Two Vols. London: Murray. Ma. BORROW comes before us in such a great variety of characters that we can hardly hopo to escape our share of the indignation which he so freely launches at the head of all those critics who have neglected even the minutest point in his volumes. Philologer, theologian, novelist, social and political philosopher, his claims really embrace such a wide area, that it is totally impossible we should attempt to follow him over the whole of it. Believing, therefore, that nobody cares very much for the two first-mentioned subjects when pre sented to them through the medium of a novel, we shall confine our very brief ob servations to the two last, more especially as it is in these two characters that he presents himself under the most contradictory aspect. At the conclusion of "Lavengro " our readers will, perhaps, remember that the hero was left in his dingle with the postilion whose chaise had been upset, and the maiden Isopel Berners, who had done man's service in the battle with the " Flaming Tinman." " The Romany Rye" commences with the morning following the postilion's disaster; and the two volumes are occupied with the adventures of Lavengro, first in the character of a gipsy, and secondly in that of a sort of upper ostler. The narrative termi nates as abruptly as that of " Lavengro," and is succeeded by an appendix of eleven chap ters upon various national faults, written as if the author had carefully selected for imitation all the worst and weakest points in Carlyle and Thackeray. To these, however, we shall return presently. The narrative itself is delightful. Th 3 English lower orders are described with rare fidelity, though their language is perhaps at times a little unnatural, and each successive incident wears an appearance of truth and nature. The appearance of the gipsies at a country church is an excellent specimen of Mr. Borrow's powers : At last I gave over reading, took a slight refreshment, and was about to emerge from the dingle, when I heard the voice of Mr. Petulengro calling me. I went up again to the encampment, where I found Mr. Petulengro, his wife, and Tawno Chikno, ready to proceed to church. Mr. and Mrs. Petuleugro were dressed in Roman fashion, though not in the fullblown manner in which they had paid their visit to Isopel and myself. Tawno had on a clean white slop, with a nearly new black beaver, with very broad rims, and the nap exceedingly long. As for myself, I was dressed in much the same manner as that in which I departed from London, having on, in honour of the day, a shirt perfectly clean, having washed one on purpose for the occasion, with my own hands, the day before, in the pond of tepid water in which the newts and efts were in the habit of taking their pleasure. We pro ceeded for upwards of a mile, by footpaths through meadows and corn-fiAds; we crossed various stiles; at last, passing over one, we found ourselves in a road, wend ing along which for a considerable distance, we at last came in sight of a church, the bells of which had been tolling distinctly in our ears for some time; before, how ever, we reached the churchyard the bells had ceased their melody. It was surrounded by lofty beech trees of brilliant green foliage. We entered the gate, Mrs. Petulengro leading the way, and proceeded to a small door near the east end of the church. As we advanced, the sound of singing within the church rose upon our ears. Arrived at the small door, Mrs. Petulengro opened it and and entered, followed by Tawno Chikno. I myself went last of all, following Mr. Petulengro, who, before I entered, turned round, and, with a significant nod, ad vised me to take care how I behaved. That part of the church which we bad entered was the chancel; on one side stood a number of venerable old men—probably the neighbouring poor—and on the other a number of poor girls belonBing to the village school, dressed in wlute 6 I h 1 N 1 • m w I • • • INE s 1 N w • i • • . • a • 1 • • I i'i