The Press. — London, England, 1856-11-15 00:00:00

1096 till at last she hardly finds a single human being, with the exception of a tavorite cousin, Susan Graham, from whose society she derives any happiness. In this state of mind she is induced to accept an offer of marriage from Claude Egerton, a young gentleman of large fortune and excellent principles, who is repre sented as loving her truly, deeply, and ge nerously. Helen's notions of freedom do not, however, agree with those of her lover, and after some months of courtship, perpetually interrupted by quarrels upon trivial subjects, the match is finally broken off just as Helen begins to discover she liked Claude better than she thought she did. In the next part of the story the acquaintance between Claude and Susan is drawn much closer, and the interest of the reader is highly excited by the uncertainty which involves its issue. Susan is in love with Claude, but up to the last chapter we are iu doubt about the sentiments of the hero, who ultimately turns out faithful to his first love, her character having now been purified and strengthened by a long course of domestic trials. In this portion of her tale the authoress has dis played consummate skill. The uncertainty of which we speak is not the mere conventional uncertainty of fiction which the reader can always dispel by the slightest mental effort ; we are really kept in doubt of the authoress's own intention till such time as she chooses to reveal it. And this power of exciting genuine suspense and curiosity must be acknowledged to be one of the highest, as it is also one of the rarest, merits of novel-writing. In Miss Sewell's characters the principal merit is their complete and careful finish. No opportunity of eliciting a trait is ever lost ; the by-play, as it would he termed on the stage, is perfect. No person, moreover, is in troduced without a purpose, and the most in significant do something to help the story forward. From Claude and Helen and Susan, down to Mrs. Graham, her uncle, and her other two daughters—from them to Sir Henry and Lady Clare, and thence to Madame Rein hardt, Captain Mordaunt, and other infe rior performers, the action descends by a well regulated scale, and is so artfully contrived that we never feel sensible of any declension of interest. The most pleasing character of the number is perhaps that of the old admiral, Mrs. Graham's uncle, whose last illness and death-bed are described with affecting truth fulness. Susan Graham enlists from the first our truest sympathies, but her career is in many respects too painful to be attractive to novel-readers. Characters like Claude, of course, command our respect, but they do not serve to make virtue amiable. It' Miss Sewell would see an instance in which the highest moral and Christian greatness is combined with a soft and human temperament, let her study the features of Mr. Holme Lee's " John Halifax." It may be said that Claude's hard. ness was a necessary conductor to Helen's pride and petulance. But we say that Claude is too prominent and influential a character to be dealt with in this way ; and that, at all events, if we concede this point, sufficient pains are not taken to show that his harshness was a fault. Miss Sewell has a dangerous leaning towards this kind of male characters, though we must do her the justice to say that she puts into the mouth of the admiral one of the best reflections on this subject that we have often met with. "If you don't take " care," he says to Claude, " you'll begin by " acting coldness, and you'll end by feeling it." The method of moral teaching adopted by Miss Sewell, both in " Ivors " and her other stories, i' sufficient to account for their popu larity. She loves to dwell on the conflict of superior natures with the ordinary trials of life ; to point out the dangers which beset a warm imagination, a strong will, or a generous heart ; and to warn us what mere apparent trifles may put a whole life-time out of joint, and corrupt the most splendid gifts. This is a method which all can understand, for all undergo trials, and all believe them selves in some points superior to their fellows. Of the utility of this system we are, however, more than doubtful. There aro dispositions, perhaps, to which it may be beneficial, but we are compelled to assert our belief that its general tendency is pernicious, by setting THE PRESS. young minds on a process of self-examination, very likely to be carried to a morbid extreme, and generating that perpetual self-conscious• ness which is a bar to all healthy mental action. Of this lady's style and language it would be superfluous to speak. The simplicity of a refined nature, the ease of a skilled writer, and the correctness of an industrious one, are conspicuous in every page. There is no straining at effect, no distortions of English palmed off as originality, no distrust of native vigour evinced by a recourse to artificial. In all these respects " Ivors " is a most charming and comfortable production. With one word more of recommendation we must close our notice. "Ivors " is entirely free from the slightest insinuation of theologi cal opinions. If anything, we see a slight tendency to condemn [formalism. There is certainly a complete absence of all that tone of thought by which certain of the authoress's former works were supposed to be pervaded. We are sure this announcement will be re ceived with pleasure by all that class of readers who prefer keeping their creeds and their amusement distinct. Whatever its other faults, " Ivors " will irritate no religious con• victions. Nor will the enjoyment of a single pleasant chapter be marred by the intrusion of the odium theologicum. The Girlhood of Catherine dc Medici. By T. A. Trollope. London : Chapman and Hall. ALL that Mr. Trollope has to relate concerning the girlhood of Catherine de Medici might well have been comprised in twenty or thirty pages of this volume. Busy as the life of Catherine was, and large as is the space it occupies in historic annals, very little is known of her until after the point at which this narra tive terminates—her marriage with the Duke of Orleans, second son of Francis I. Of her cha racter in girlhood scarcely a single anecdote has been preserved ; and to make out his volume the author has entered into a history of the transactions of the troubled period of the pontificate of Clement VII. His theory is, that— She [Catherine] was in truth a remarkably fine speci men—a normal and well developed product—of the social life of an epoch, which has from many circumstances been regarded of late years with an admiration it surely in no wise merits. There is some truth in this view, no doubt. Characters cannot be disjoined from their epoch nor from their training ; and it is always difficult to decide in what light historical per sonages should be considered whose crimes and errors are, in great part or altogether, a reflex of the age in which they lived. To judge them wholly by their time would be to set up a standard which few modern readers would understand : it would be to get rid of one deception to substitute another in its place. Characters blotted with great crimes would be made to appear virtuous and heroic, because they were a little less depraved than the depraved age in which they lived. It would be to refine too far to estimate indi viduals in this way,—to assert that Catherine was not cruel and treacherous because she breathed an atmosphere of cruelty and treachery, and that the Borgias are not to be detested, as in a wicked social state their superior wickedness only showed the supe rior ardour of their nature. The same sort of excuse has been made in modern days for the crimes of the French revolutionists. The gloomy triumvirate, Marta, Dantor, and Robes pierre, were the products of their time, and were the victims of circumstances ; but are we therefore to content ourselves with saying that they were fine specimens and well developed products of their epoch? This would be to obliterate the distinction between right and wrong, and to intimate that humanity has no better standard by which to regulate its judgments than the changing ideas of different epochs. There would undoubtedly be harshness and error in estimating person ages of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by the moral standard now prevalent; yet such error would on the whole be less danger ' ous than to represent their crimes as excusable SATURDAY, because they were common. The historian, however anxious he may be to avoid injustlce to particular names, should yet keep a higher object in view, and recollect that he is under an express obligation—whatever may be the characteristics of the times he paints—to represent those qualities which oppress and scourge humanity as hideous, and those which raise and ameliorate it as lovely. This duty may be fulfilled without malice or partisan ship. The victims of moral deformity are themselves objects of pity ; but, as the de formity is personified in them, we must show it in all its repulsiveness, and condemn it with all the force of righteous feeling. In those times in which Catherine lived there was a wider scope for individual action than is afforded by the more regulated society of our day, and accordingly in that age there were greater examples of moral elevation, and baser examples of depravity, than are often to be found in this nineteenth century. Both classes of character were in some respects the products of their age ; but are we therefore to regard both with equal favour? More and NVolsey were contemporaries : shall we view them as equally estimable ? The time which produced a Duke of Alva produced a Sir Philip Sydney : taking both as equally well developed products of their age and circum stances, shall we write of them as we would do of two turnips or two cabbages produced from different fields by different modes of culture ? Mr. Trollope appears to belong to that advanced order of authors who bear the same resemblance to the established ranks of litera ture as a mob of ragged urchins do to some noble and stately procession which they pre cede. Ho affects to follow Carlyle in his style of thought, and in his contempt for all those details of grand ceremonials which old chroniclers were so fond of setting forth, and which the modern world—as we know by the popularity of the Illustrated News—is still so fond of reading. Of the coronation of Charles V., by Clement VII., at Bologna, Mr. Trol lope w•iites Mankind knows but too well by heart the routine of such great days ; the solemn hymns and the silken hang- ings ; the shouting crowds and shining soldiery; the old oaths broken and the new oaths sworn ; the bowings and the benedictions ; " Te Deums " and dinners; bargaining, overreaching, and signing and sealing ; the processioning, and trumpet-blowing, and organ-swelling ;—all the great ness and all the glory producible by the united efforts of cooks, tailors, priests, trumpeters, and upholsterers. We know all about it; and have no difficulty whatever in pie taring to ourselves the grave and graceful courtesies that passed between God's vicegarent in cloth of gold, and God's anointed in velvet. This supercilious tone and affected superiority of sentiment are not becoming in a writer of Mr. Trollope's order of abilities. Frequently he puts forward reflections which the reader could well spare. At page 9, for example, there is a digression on the defects of historic writers previous to the advent of Mr. Trol lope : Many a page of history has been written with a deter mination to make Mnemosyne decent at whatever cost of vague euphuisms and convenient suppression. To be decent, the muse is made to speak only quod decel—that which looks well. Better than so were it that she should never speak at all. Is Mr. Trollope, then, anxious to in augurate an indecent style of history? The historic student well knows that not all which he finds recorded will bear repetition. Not even our author has thought it judicious to call in the aid of Aretino to illustrate the manners of Catherine's age. We should not have criticised Mr. Trollope's style had it not, been in places offensively affected, and had it not also been marked by the insolent and vulgar assumption which is common to a number of modern writers who have yet their spurs to win in the field of literature. In every kind of historic compo sition, the first requisite to be desired is plain and succinct narrative. Most persons are able to think for themselves on the facts placed before them, and nothing can be more impertinent than for au author to continually break the thread of his story to dictate the train of reflection which the minds of his readers should pursue. Every writer may be modest, though he cannot be brilliant. There is no more fatal mistake than to confound