The Press. — London, England, 1857-09-19 00:00:00

924 heroine increasing in goodness, dignity, and strength The issue our readers can doubt less foresee as readily its we did ourselves after the first hunlred pages. Vaughan and Caroline each full in love with somebody else, and each attain what happiness they deserve. Indeed, the interest of the book does not depend on its catastrophe. The delicate and careful deli neation of character in Vaughan and in Caroline's old governess, Miss Kendal, and the various pretty descriptions of Caroline herself, constitute its chief charms. These are so great that we fancy the writer would achieve success in more ambitious efforts. " A Lord of the Creation " is nut a work upon which a reputation can be founded It contains much promise ; but, as we have not had the plea sure of reading the author's former work, " Ethel," we are the less able to pronounce on his capability for improvement. . _ 3. "Sister Anne is another r eprint from the magazine culled Titan, and by the same author. It• strikes us that this is rather a clumsy way of reproducing these tales. Why could not they have all come out together in two volumes, in the regular way ? We do not know which of these two was written first, but as we read " A Lord of the Creation " first we accord it the higher praise of the two. " Sister Anne " is but a repetition of it. Helen is only Vaughan Hesketh in another sex, and Miss Blackburn Miss Kendal. Mr. Hesketh and Mr. llynevor are very much alike, and the plot is hinged on essentially the same contre temps—Helen representing to Mr. Avarne that her sister is already engaged, just as Vaughan Hesketh had done to Mr. Farquhar about C troline. Probably, if we had read " Sister Anne " before the other, we might have liked it even better. There is the same knowledge of character and freshness of feel ing, with more variety. The two children, Grace and Albert, are to us the most truly interesting personages in the story. They are thorough children, with a fine, healthy, and simple tone about them which is extremely pleasant. Their close fraternisation with Joy, the old gardener, is most naturally tout ; while Mrs. Dynevor's demeanour towards them is .described with a truth and humour surpassed only by the ever-memorable portrait of Mrs. Nicklety. The following passage of a graver stamp is well worth quotation : Children bred up in cities ! How shall we think of them, but in tender, regretful, reverent pity, as of angels Phut out of heaven without fault ; the sinl-as thrust among the sinful—the pure imprisoned in c'rruption—the inhe ritors of nature cruelly kept from their birthrivht. Poor little things—stunted it' mind—bereft of the fairer half of the faculties God set in each tiny being—dwarfed, deformed souls that will never on this aide of the grave attain to their full altitude, their complete symmetry. A child in a town, even under the most favourable auspices, is either a sad little alien, a forlorn wanderer in swinge scenes, or else, sadder yet, becomes by habit and use so citizenised that nature is the most foreign of all its associations, and the language she speaks is incomprehensible to its ears. Most melancholy orphanhood! They who, from any other cause than direst necessity, condemn their little ones to such, have surely much to answer for. Anne herself is, we hope and trust, a fair type of English girlhood, unspoiled by the vulgari ties of second-rate fashionable life. Yet even of these she herself speaks with warmhearted charity, and we believe with some truth. Her companion, Miss Blackburn, is commenting at a picnic on the follies of the commonplace young ladies around her : " Well, I maintain that all this affectation, and minau derie, and utter want of reslity in all they say or think, or do, is hateful, and therefore may b e a n d ought to be hated. Anne, you are too latitudinarian with your wild indulgent way of thinking. They are traitors to their sex, these girls; it is they who achieve tor uniremail womanhood the reputation it has with three quarters of the worl.l—tritliug, silly, vain, Mae." "Is that our character ? Ah ! it is you that are trai• torous," cried Anne ; " you are unjust —you blind yourself wilfully to the other and better portion m the nature even of modern young ladies. Think of the little halo of :me that encircles every one of these girls you have been de- crying. Think of the many, many acts of daily beauty that naturally, and almost inevitably, spring from the very position of daughter or sister. Think of the quiet good ness and unselfishness that we know goes on around us, though we do not, and may never, see it ; but which has been since the world began, until all these gentle, silent, but divine characteristics have grown to be summed up and esprevadd by the one word womanly." 4. Wily do people write stories like "Kathe rine Evening"? We do not see the object. It is a tale of painful interest from beginning to THE PRESS, SEPTEMiItER 19,1857. end. But the pain seems wantonly inflicted, and to answer no adequate end. The eternal misunderstandings between Katherine and Mr. Lynton are as irritating as they are unnatural. People don't act with that mar vellous sort of underplay in real life. Why don't they marry and a' done with it We are sick of the heart agonies—and the glittering glances—and the suffocating sorrows—of this style of fiction ; and when, to crown the whole, the luckless hero is smashed by a luggage train on the eve of his marriage, our disgust is completed. It is a pity that the author of Katherine Evering " should have fallen into this offensive style, as he (or she) unquestion ably possesses real power : witness the some what exaggerated account of Katherine's fears on the night of the accident. But, in spite of glimpses of this sort, the book is not worth detailed criticism. 5. " The Story of My Girlhood " is nicely written, and in a tone of great earnestness. The heroine is privately married at fifteen by the advice of a sick parent, who foresees the regime of a stepmother, and takes this step to secure her daughter's independence. The husband goes abroad, and in due time the stepmother arrives at home. But, instead of the stereotyped Noverca, she comes in the shape of an amiable and clever girl only a little older than the forlorn bride herself, and endeavours, as far as possible, to be a sister to her. Annie, however, repels her advances, and is very miserable at the absence of her husband, whom she believes herself to have irrevocably offended by some hasty words spoken soon atter their wedding. To add to her self-reproaches she falls in love with an interesting stranger, yclept Warren, and the story is happily brought to an end by that gentleman turning out to be none other than the truant bridegroom, who, unrecognisable through the effect of years and climate, had returned to win her love before he asserted his rights. It is a pretty story, though rather too full of angelicisms. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED-SErr. 17. BOOKS. Molds and Jonquils. 2 Volt. Saunders and Otley. Sebastopol, and other Poems. E. Derry. Hill and Virtue. Ornament Drawing and Arehitectural Design. Ward and Lock. The Garries and their Friends. Frank J. Webb. Routledge. FERIODICLL. Reriged English Version of the Holy Scriptures. Trubner. PAMPHLETS. Tracts on the Native Army of India. Smith and Elder. A Skeleh on Medical X. fin tn. T. Hatchard. HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE—The remark able success cf the extra performances has decided the director to give one more on Saturday next, the 26th inst., previously to the company leaving for D üblin. Piccolotnini and Giuglini are both announced. Mn. Ells Ens, the veteran horn-player, and head of no accomplished famiiy of musicians, announces a farewell concert to take place this day at the Crystal Palace. The programme is of a very attractive nature, and, in addition to the interest of the occasion, will doubtless be the means of assembling a large concourse or patrons. The principal names in the list of executants are those of Mme. Novell°, Miss Poole, Mme. Caradori, Mr. Hamilton Braham, Mr. Charles Braham, THE BisHor OF NORWICH, on being applied to for his patronage to the Norwich Musical F.'stival, declined to give it, we are informed, on the plea that, " with every desire to promote the interest of the charities to which it is proposed to devote the profits of the musical festival, he could not concur with the committee in secking to advance them by such means." The present Bishop of Norwich (says the Times reporter) would seem to maintain very diffe rent opinions on such matters from those of his three immediate predecessors—Bishops Bathurst, Stanley, and Hinds—who were all lovers of music, and stanch supporters of the festival, keeping open house in munificent style during the entire week. Bishop Stanley even went so far as to entertain a songstress—Jenny Lind, herself not an apathetic labourer in the field of charity—at his residence. This only shows, however, that prelates may indulge in wholly opl:osite opinions on other points than those of pure theology. M. AVOUsTE CONTE, chief of the Positive School of Philosophy, with whose principal work the English public were made acquainted, a few years ago, in translations by Miss Martineau and Mr. Lewes, has died after a brief illness. The friends of philosophy will regret in the death of M. Comte the loss of one of the most original of modem thinkers. pUStC. THE NORWICH FESTIVAL. (From our own Correspondent.) Noewicit, Thursday, THERE will be, in all probability, great changes in a few years in the management of the musical meet ings held triennially in many provincial towns. It will be found hereafter absolutely necessary to disregard local infltzences of every kind in the engagements, in order to secure the most effective performances of the great sacred works. Railroad facilities afford country amateurs such a prompt mode of reaching the metropolis that they have not now to wait once in three years to have a chance of listening to an oratorio executed on a large scale. It will be, there fore, imperative on the part of the managers of the principal festivals to secure finer performances than in the days when there was little or no competition. Provincial partisanship, local favouritism, and per sonal prejudices, must give way to the paramount consideration of the general good. A festival must he organised for art as well as profit ; the critical element must be combined with commercial con siderations. If a first-rate orchestra is to be engaged, the question as to competency, and not as to birth, ought to operate in the decisions. In the choice of the chorus the singers must be chosen with care and discrimination. And when the band and chorus are picked on the basis of entire effectiveness, with a total disregard to " town " clannism, and a conductor found because lie is thoroughly experienced and conversant with his onerous duties, leading Nocaliste must be judiciously sought fully capable of singing oratorio music, and possessing such general amount of popularity as to fix interelt. There is too much of prescription in the mode of engaging principal singert. Why should it be a rule to make relative ranks, as it were, heirlooms, so long as the organ will lest? Variety is everything in a festival. To stereotype the schemes, and perpetuate one class of names, is a monstrous absurdity. Novelty should be aimed at in the programmes, and in the selection of the artists. The competition with the metropolis is bec..ming every year more difficult for the success of the provincial gatherings, but with ordinary tact, taste, and judgment, a most interesting prospectus could surely be issued once in three years, even to provoke the curiosity of the hardest worked London critic, who assuredly has little to tempt him to pass his holidays at the ponderous meetings of the Three Choirs. At Birmingham, the questions just mooted are well understood, and Norwich has honourably distinguished itself in the struggle for novelty; but one great mistake was made in the last-mentioned town. It set up an idol. It was nothing, at one period, without Spohr. Small men hung on his skirts—they swelled as their pet predominated. This hero-worship has scarcely passed away, for attempts were made to renew it at the present meet mg. Failing on Spohr, the committee have fallen back on Pierson. Spohr and Pierson ! " Powers eternal, such names mingled !" Soohr, who, what ever view may be taken of his peculiarities, is really a great musician—a giant compared with the pigmy whose Jerusalem ought to have at once disposed of his pretensions. It is in this course of policy at Norwich that the clanship is recognised. It has presented itself, it is true, in a more subdued form : that it may be annihilated altogether must be the wish of every sincere lover of art and of art pro gress. Looking at the favourable portions of the pro gramme of this meeting, let it first be noted that there is the finest orchestra ever yet heard at these festivals. It must not be pronounced perfect, because, here and there, there is room for improve ment. Let the names in the " wood " and " brass " band be scanned, and it will be seen where the changes are required. It is nonsense to engage a player because he is a Norwich man. With Stunton, Blagrove, Tolbecque, Dando, Deichinann, Oary, H. and E. Chipp, Newsbam, Mori, Clementi, H. and 1L Blagrove, Doyle, Webb, Trust, Westrop, Thomp son, Hausmann, Phillips, Paque, Reed, Goodban, Howell, Severn, R. Pratten, Mount, tte., amongst the stringed ; and Pratten, Barret, Nicholson, Lazarus, Maycock, C. Harper, Rae, Cioffi, Antoine, Winter bottom, Prosper, T. Chipp, amongst the wood, brass, and percussion, the elements of a great orchestra are found to exist. Add to the list the experienced hand of Benedict to wield the baton, and a notion will be come to how the overtures to William Tell, Fre Diarolo, Ruy Blas, the Nozze di Figaro (the latter most admirably executed), and Meyerbeer's Camp of Silesia march, were played. But great and deserved, as are the orchestral honours, not less potent are the claims of the choral masses fur fame and distinction. In numbers they counted about 250, proportioned into 70 trebles, GO altos, GO tenors,