The Press. — London, England, 1854-09-09 00:00:00

9, 1854. 857 "Mr. Smithson's coal•black wig, }lad dandy, and half prig. (Mom thunders of applause .9 " Pretty Luey's whited eyes, Slaying waltzers as she tiles. And Lady Ridley's turnip face, In its cap of Irish lace. All till up the farcicalsceas 0 ! (Reiterated short+, of applause !) This is no invention of mine. These are some of the lines (written down by me with scrupulous accuracy; which produced applause so vehement as to make me al most fear that some cautious policeman might be induced to stop and inquire what was the matter. We will neither assume nor inquire whether the elaborate sketch of Richards is intended as a portrait. The vast applause bestowed on extempore doggrel, as described iu the last extract, is very ridiculous, yet in four or five instances we have seen Mr. Richardses hailed as marvels of impromptu rhyming power. We were much amused with the specimen of the genus as it appears in Mrs. Trollope's gallery of " living characters." Incidents which violate truth of nature, and are only suited for farces, too often appear as blemishes in Mt-s. Trollope's novels. The fate of the " clever woman "—married to a certain Cornelius Folkstone, a gentleman who is finally handed over to the police—is out of nature, and resembles too much the exaggera tions in other of Mrs. Trollope's works. Yet the last scene is powerfully worked up, and we shall extract a passage from the finale, leaving our readers in suspense as to how the " clever woman " got out of the gravest of her " adventures" : Cornelius waitei till the door was closed again, and then he said, in a deep, deliberate voice, which she felt to be more alarming than any violence, " Listen to me, Mrs. Folkstone, and believe what 1 say, for much may depend upon your doing so. I will have the money I ask for ; will you immediately sign your name to this cheque ? If you will, all will go smoothly again. lint if you refuse to do it peaceably, I hereby give you notice that I will make you. There is nobody in the house with us except your crippled aunt, and the man who has now left the room. He is my creature, and his life is already in my power, from circumstances with which lamacqnsinted concerning him. Think, therefore, for a moment before you decide upon offering any further opposition to my will. Take counsel from your common sense, Charlotte ; it will be better for you." There was something in this proceeding so very much out of the common every-day course of civilised life, that this appeal to her common sense settled the business at once, at least so far as her will was concerned. "You are quite right, sir," she replied. "It is to my common sense that i must have recourse, and not to any melodramatic effects in the hope of out-blustering yours. I will not sign the cheque you demand of me, and I will trust myself to the protection of English laws and the vigilance of English police." Cornelius made no reply; but it was now his turn to ring the bell, and be did so ; but it was without any haste or any violence. His faithful John could have been at no great distance, for the door of the reom was opened before the bell had ceased to vibrate. "My dressing-room is ready, I presume ?" said the mas.er. " Yes, sir," replied the man. " Then take the feet of your mistress in your hands, while I take her head." The twofold operation was performed in a moment, and the mistress of the mansion was thus carried, without any apparent violence, out of her dining•room. But my heroine was not subject to fainting, or nervous affections of any kind ; and, being therefore in perfect possession of her senses, she waited till she found herself in the passage, where, as being nearest to the house-door, she thought she had the best chance of being heard, and then and there uttered a very violent scream. But it really seemed as if the law'ess individuals who were thus treatuig her were so accustomed to acts of iio lence as to be aware of the probability of her giving this species of alarm, for they both instantly responded to it with so hearty and loud a laugh, that if a whole detach ment of the police had been parading before the door at the time, they could not have suspected for a moment that any thing ww:se than rather noisy merry-making was going on within. ' At right angles to the door leading to the kitchen-stairs there was in this house, as in many others, a door which would infallibly have lead into the garden, if garden there had been ; but, as there was none, the said door opened upon a small room about twelve feet square, very comfort ably fitted up as a gentleman's dressing-room. It contained a fireplace, dressing and washingapparatus, a writing-table, an armchair, and moreover a sofa. And this of the house ~ deposited. SEPTEMBER No bodily anguish or physical debility could diminish his habitual kindness and consideration for others. He would often at this time, though so weak that he could scarcely stand without support rise from his seat to place the cover over his sister's harp when her playing was at an en 1. Numerous other illustrations of the same tender re gaud for those around him might be cited in this place. He knew that his end was rapidly approaching, and, although the great chaage which was fast coming upon biro was never absent from his own mind, he seemed un willing to do or to suffer anything that would bring the sad truth painfully to the minds of others. He wished, there fore, that everything should go ou in his household as though his place were not soon to be empty. As a proof of this, it may be mentioned that he directed numerous large cases of books to be unpacked, and had bookshelves run up to the very attic windows, as though he had years of life before him. He would converse cheerfully ou all passing topics, public and private; and his keen sense of b Amour was unclouded to the last. He seldom or never spoke of his sufferings, and when others alluded to them he would generally say something about the many blessings he had enjoyed. " Thank you, he would reply, in acknowledgment of such expressions of sympathy ; but I have much to be thankful for. Hitherto, up to this event, I have enjoyed the blessings of unin terrupted health." The strongest expression with refer ence to his sad state which he was known to utter was upon one occasion when some one said to him, " 1 hope your lordship has enjoyed your drive ; " and he answered sadly, " Enjoyment is now no word fur me." But it is right to know that he had a support from on high to sustain him. He derived his moral fortitude from the only source that can assuage the agonies to which flesh is heir: — This child of seven years read God's blessed word to the dying statesman, and he received the glad tidings of salva tion as a little child. He was a man naturally of a reserved disposition. He was not wont to talk much of things that lay very near to his heart. And he was pre eminently of a nature so sincere and honest that he shrunk from anything that might appear like an ostenta tion of religious feeling, the reality of which, in his self questioning humility, he might have sometimes permitted himself to doubt. Of his habitual reverence and his gratitude to the giver of all good gifts incidental proof has already been afforded. He lived in a continual state of thankfulness, which even the agonies of his latter days could not quench or diminish. But it is not thus that the faith of Charles Metcalfe is to be described He had an abiding sense of the efficacy of the atonement. He rested all his hopes on the blood of the Lamb. They who were most about his person during the closing scenes of his life saw his spirit depart without a doubt of his acceptance. The power of searching the Scriptures for himself had long been denied to him. But sisterly affection bad supplied the want which his failing organs of sight had entailed upon him ; and every day it had been Mrs. Smythe's privilege to read to him those passages of the Gospel which contain the blessed assurance of forgive ness through Christ. He listened to them hopefully ; assented reverently to their truth ; and in the midst of all his great trials derived from them unspeakable consola tion. In presence of such a character, dying as a Christian, we feel that words are cold ; and even the epitaph written by Mr. Macaulay records with tameness as we think the per sonal trials so sweetly undergone by the Chris tian statesman. It is the only specimen of Mr. Macaulay's lapidary style with which we are acquainted, and we therefore extract it:— NEAR THIS STONE IS LAID CHARLES THEOPHILtrs, tirAL and last LORD METCALFE, a statesman tried in many high posts and difficult conjunctures, and found equal to all. The three greatest dependencies of the British Crown were successively entrusted to his care. In India his fortitude, his wisdom, his probity, and his moderation are held in honourable remembrance by men of many races, languages, and religions. In Jamaica, still convulsed by a social revolution, he calmed the evil passions which long suffering had engendered in one class and long domination in another. In Canada, not yet recovered from the calamities of civil war, he reconciled contending factions to each other and to the mother country. Public esteem was the just reward of his public virtne,. but those only who enjoyed the privilege of his frietdship could appreciate the whole worth of his gentle and noble nature. Costly monuments in Asiatic and American cities attest the gratitude of nations which he ruled ; This tablet records the sorrow and the pride with which his memory is cherished by private affection. He was born the 31/th day of January, 1755. He died the sth day of September, 1840. The Life and Adrenturet of a Clever Woman. s i t down to it! To be sure, the dear delig htful man has --- upon this sofa the lady of the house was deposited. no more voice than a raven, and no nurse ry rhymes that By Mrs. Trollope. London : Hurst and ever were composed could equal the silliness of his (Roi- " You will remain within call," said the lady's husband to Blackett. Jima), ) extempore couplets. But what matters it? if his servant. Whereupon the man left the room, and the ied air were left alone. THE title of this work might suggest to some p eo p le are resolved to be delighted they will be delighted— marr p nothing can prevent it. I wish I could remember an entire persons that Mrs. Trollope had written herln the recent dearth of readable fictions leastsong, but I canno t . A con p let br .0 0r two, however, I may at own memoirs but, though our readers would doubtless like to know the "adventures" of a save from immediate o tvi n— this novel may be recommended to those who like being amused without being fastidious in very " clever woman" like the humorous and "Mrs. Browning in her shawl, Which she wears at every ban their taste or exorbitant in requiring origin- sarcastic authoress, we have to announce that (Thunders of applause 1) silty of mind. • THE PRESS. the work is only a novel, and not an auto biography. Literary celebrities close their careers with recounting their own stories, but Mrs. Trollope continues to write with so mul•h talent that we should be sorry to think that we were to have no more novels from her fertile brain. She has two distinct styles in her fictions : in one she aims at broad touches, and pushes the ridiculous to the verge of the mere grotesque, trusting to her sustained fluency and humorous power of narration fir hiding the defects incidental to that particular school of composition ; in the other she aims at repase, and preserves a rather subdued tone. The latter style is that which she has adopted in her present volumes. In every page we recognise the practised literary me chanician ; the puppets go through their parts with great lifelike activity and dexterity of change; hut, though there is even more than the usual quantity of clever writing in this novel, we miss that freshness and creative fi,rce which are required to produce tile first rate in fiction. Charlotte Morris, the heroine of this tale, becomes, with her banker father, a resident in Gloucester-place, and the sole object of her ambition is to get into society ; and a con siderable portion of the story is written in the style known as " the silver-fork school." The small follies and petty ambition of the middle classes, and the absurdities of second-rate gentility as it apes aristocratic habits, are for the thousandth time laid bare. We confess that we are tired of such constant harping on one string. Charlotte Morris, herself, has much of the Barnaby blood in her, though her pedigree is not stated ; and a long acquain tance with her hard, coarse character is not edifying or pleasing. But, with great inge nuity, our practised authoress has interwoven a second story, recounting the romantic adven tures of Zela Richards, the charming daughter of a portrait-painter; and by far the most agreeable part of this fiction is the history of poor Zela's trials, and pains, and final happiness. The character of Richards, the portrait-painter, seems sketched from real life, and perhaps two or three originals were selected for the points. The, heroine, in her diary, thus re counts her first acquaintance with Mr. Rich ards " Is that showy lady only the wife of a portrait-painter?" I exclaimed with more naïveté, I suspect, than tact, for my handsome partner, Mr. Wilson, laughed in a manner rather too genuine, I thought, to be flattering. However, he immediately replied, " Oh ! I understand you perfectly, and I am by no means astonished at your astonishment. By the time you have added another lustre to your expe rience, my dear young lady, you will have discovered that there are many and various claims for fashionable notoriety. Mr. Richards is certainly rather above par as a clever painter of portraits, but his fashionable notoriety does not arise from that." " From what does it arise T" said ',looking innocently in his face, hut determined with all my innocence to find out why Mrs. Knighton paid more attention to his vulgar wife than almost to any other lady in the room. " More from his caricatures, I think, than from his portraits," replied my partner, nodding his head as he spoke, with an air of great intelligence. " Do you mean that he draws caricatures of the people he meets in society ?" said I. " Do you mean that he wins his way to fame and fashion by handing to one set of his friends, grotesque likenesses of another set ?" I added with very genuine astonishment. " Something like it," he replied, laughing. " People in general are very fond of seeing good caricatures of their friends." But this gentleman, it appears, had another way of getting into society. He is represented as a sort of Brummagem Theodore Hook, a facetious extemporiser of doggrel verses The heroine thus sketches him in the scene of his triumphs : I no longer wonder that Mr. Richards should be a per feet drawing-room idol. Whichever way he moves, wit and frolic seem to move after him. Over and over again, last night, I observed a group looking the very perfection of dulness. lint lo ! the very instant Richards approached them, the aspect of every one seemed to change as if by magic. And what a relief it was to see the crowd that gathered r3nnd the pianoforte when at length got him to • ' •be - the dear delightful man has