The Press. — London, England, 1856-11-01 00:00:00

1048 considerations we must turn to the works before us. 1. The young authoress of tho story of struggles called " The School of Life " inherits a popular literary name, and has talents and accomplishments of her own qualified to sus tain it. We may express serious doubts, how ever, as to whether fiction is the best suited to Miss Howitt's talents. It is only rarely that young men or women can have seen enough of " life" to render their experience of value to a novelist. Miss Howitt looks at the world too much through the " spectacles of hooks." As yet, at least, she does not show that close, practical knowledge of the social workings which we demand in a modern novelist. Her story is all spun out of the brain, and its sub stance is not based on reality. We recollect, however, that Miss Howitt is too young to form a decided opinion on her talent for fiction, though her easy flow of eloquence and plastic style prove her literary accomplish ments. Miss Howitt has evidently attainments greatly superior to most of the fair candidates f or literary laurels. She is skilled in lan guages, and has an extensive knowledge of books ; and we recollect with pleasure some of the letters from her pen in a well-known critical contemporary. " The School of Life" is a Germanesquo production, and reads like a translation, in consequence of the author thinking in German. Its interest is made to turn on the enthusiasm for " art " as shown by a young man reeling under the " over-soul." In England there is not enough of practical sympathy with " art " to enable an author to make up interest . _ for the Leonard Mordant of the tale' before us. The following aspirations are too merely intellectual to excite the interest of general readers : Leonard had started with earliest dawn from the old attic in the house of his uncle, with bitterest anger boil ing within his soul both against his uncle and his mother. " Why must any human being, forsooth, yield up his soul, his life, to a career which was abhorrent to his nature ? What were the morn ties of nature, of blood, in compari son to the yearning love which had impelled him again and again to seek out for himself an abode amongst forms of beauty, of strength, of gentleness? There was a world, he knew, where what he aspired to do anti to become was a thing worshipped, applauded, crowned with bay and with myrtle; and oh, ungoaded, untaunted, to yield him self up, body and soul, to the service of a divine art—what bliss ! His spirit would clear itself of all bitterness, all contempt and anger, all would be harmonious, easy; he could then believe in a God of love; his soul must invo luntarily sing each day deepest hymns and praises to the God who had created such wonders of loveliness—might he but steep his heart in this beauty, this calm. His poets all sang the praises of this divine something in the world; he had seen at times forms of marble and of clay, or forms traced upon canvas or upon paper, which had thrilled him like the sound of organs and of trumpets ; his hand quivered to create some tangible expression of what burnt within him, and to electrify other human beings who groaned like himself under slavish bonds. Oh! to be up and doing that which would be to him life—full, true life. God scatters his wondrous poetry upon every bough, every blade of grass, every feather of a bird, every scale of a fish, every leaf of a flower; yet if he sought to love this God as he alone could love him,—as the awful Poet, the awful Painter,—he was upbraided in cruelest terms, he was subjected to punishments which would be indignities to a child." And so on throughout the tale. Life is seen not as it actually is, but as it seems. The story, also, is loosely constructed. Thus, in the middle of it, we read : How Mrs. Mordant had escaped from the asylum, and how she bad travelled up to London, always remained a mystery. The belief in her son's existence seemed gra dually to have dawned upon her mind after poor Leonard's miserable interview with her, and to seek for him through the world had become her ruling idea. It was supposed that, in pursuance of this idea, she had wandered up to London. There were laid in her coffin various scraps of childish paintings of flowers and a little needle-book, which she appeared, in her insanity, to have treasured beneath her pillow, forgetting their mtistence in the clear ness of vision before her death. John Wetherley, in after years, hearing of this singular circumstance, gave his ex planation. Little, as he assisted in raising the bleeding woman from the bank, did he imagine that his childish drawings and the needle-book intended for Honoria were concealed among her garments. Nothing can be more awkward in a novel than stating a mystery which " never was disco vered." And then the next chapter opens : Jetlertaseiu eigen Gliick tinter den I I nden , wiederKiirtsler eine rohe Materie, die er to elner Gektalt umbild►n will. Aber es tat unit dieser kunst wiu unit Allen; nur die Viiiiigkeit wird uns angebeeen, ale will gehatit and sorgfiiltig ausgeiibt seyn.—Oorrult. THE PRESS. More than a twelvemonth has elapsed since the death of Mrs. Mordant, and Leonard is living once more in England. This quototion from Goethe at such an awk ward junction between two parts of the story will not conceal the clumsiness. Miss How•itt can describe with eloquence, though she can not dramatise. The following painful picture is poetically touched : When the rejoicing rays of the morrow's sun darted sparkling through the matted boughs of a solitary wood, some miles from London, they fell upon the pallid face of a man who lay prostrate at the foot of a twisted and gnarled old thorn just bursting into blossom. The snn's rays danced merrily among the leaves ; the soft morning breeze arose shivering through the branches, and scatter ing down the rain-drops which hung upon them from a shower fallen in the night. The little birds suddenly burst forth into their morning anthem, and the whole wood was awake and filled with an active joy. But the man lay unmoved. The glittering rain-drops fell upon him, glancing upon his soft but matted hair, and quietly rolling over his white face like bright tears. The wind waved his hair and the skirt of his coat; and a little bird, fluttering down from the thorn-tree. perched upon his uncovered head, and began pecking the long, dark hair which fell upon the mossy ground, and with several hairs in her bill flew up again to weave them into her nest. A lovely green and orange beetle crawled wonderingly out of a hole in the thorn-tree root, and passed slowly across the man's clenched hand, as it lay outstretched upon the moss. Trees, birds, insects, and flowers had all awoke to activity and joy, but the man lay motionless among them. The sun rose higher into the heavens, and his rays fell through an opening among the trees with a searching violence upon that passive face; and then came a sudden shower, drenching the hair and clothes ; but the form remained quiescent and as fading as a mass of crushed flowers which lay beside him. And sounds of gay laughter, from a picnic party in a distant part of the wood, floated upon the breeze to the old thorn-tree; and the cheerful splash of oars from a little river which flowed through the wood; and the quiet bleating of sheep from sunny up lands; and the barking of watch-dogs and the crowing of cocks from lone homesteads and the yet more distant village. The sad face grew darker and more ghastly, and birds continued to sing over the poor corpse for three days; and grass, full of its young vernal vigour, and con volvulus, and vetches, had begun to nod over the face and hands and catch at the fearful fingers with their innocent, loving tendrils. From this highly accomplished young lady's future efforts we expect more success than can be assigned to the " School of Life " 2. Although knowledge of books will go a small way to teaching a novelist his art, it is certain that considerable literary attainments are absolutely necessary for any one who writes an historical novel. Fielding's advice to a young author. " It will be desirable that " you should know something of your sub " ject," ought not to be forgotten by the writers who attempt to give imitations of the Waverley school. Mr. James Grant thus opens his new historical story : An hour before daylight, on a morning in December, in the year 1632, the bell at the gate of the University of Glasgow was rung furiously, and the despairing cry of a woman was heard echoing among the heavy balconies and dark quadrangles of the edifice. Old Nehemiah Spreul, the porter, started in dismay from his box-bed, and unde terred by the energetic warnings of his cosy helpmate, Hannah, threw a plaid over his shoulders, snatched up a broadsword, for the times were perilous, and hastily opened the eyelet hole of the deeply-arched and richly-carved gate which faces the High-street. The morning was dark and cold ; the sharp sleet pat• tered heavily on the lofty windows, the ponderous stone balconies, the steep roofs and pointed towers of the college ; but, save the howling of the wing r wind, all was still in the quaint street, which is overshadowed by the Auld Pedagogie of Bishop Turnbull. Cautiously honest Nehemiah unbarred the wicket, and, gathering courage, peeped out to discover what " that eldritch yell " might mean. Then great was his horror to perceive a woman prostrate on the pavement, with the blood flowing from her bosom in a long red current over the white snow ; one hand was still upraised as if it had just relinquished the knob of the bell, which had given a summons so startling ; the other clasped to her breast a poor little child about a year old—blue with cold, and haif dead of privation and exposure. Reader, this child was-2YSELF This is, indeed, an intensely modern style, and reads like an anachronism under the date of the seventeenth century. The illusion of a novel is at once destroyed by such obvious unreality. Then we read such passages as this : Then flying off at a tangent, he lifted up his eyes, and flourished forth the following rhapsody : Arianism, that melapert, perfidious, malicious, and vain glorious heresy, against which Hillary, the bishop, blew the trumpet in vain ; Socinianism, whilk boasteth of making reason alone its guide, and runneth like a mad horse into glaring inconsistencies and monstrous nbsurdi ties ; Quakerism, whilk abjureth all ordination and orders of priesthood; Pelagianism. the cheats of whilk were de tected by the synod of Diospolis, and whilk, as thou knowest gudewife, objected that if concupiscence be one effect of sin, and that if men are born in sin, then must SATURDAY, marriage itself be a sin ; Latitudinarianism, Scepticism, Anabaptism, Deism, Brownism, and many other heresies, are growing among us in these distracted times. Misery to thee, 0 kirk of the wise Knox and pious Wi,hart. This farrago is put into the mouth of a corporal in the days when Cromwell invaded Scotland. " Latitudinarianism " and " scep ticism " are those ante-dated for the author's convenience, and the " Soeinianism " of that age did n,ot boast of " reason," and had scarcely aught in common with the " Uni tarians " of the days of Priestly and Belsham. An author "up " in the " properties" of an historical novel of the seventeenth century would not have omitted " the Seekers" in the foregoing invective. The heroine of the " Black Dragoons " is the " Lady Flora Campbell." We never heard of such a person before, and Mr. Grant has shown extreme clumsiness about his heroine. lie writes:— My beautiful puritan coloured a little, and, becoming somewhat reserved, turned to converse with her sister, the Countess of Caithness. I now observed her particularly, and saw that she far surpassed the other daughters of Argyll—three proud, starched, and stately puritan women. Lady Jane was Countess of Lothian, Lady Mary was Countess of Caithness, Lady Anne was never married, as her lover had been slain when the Campbells were routed at the battle of I nverlocby Now the eighth Earl of Argyll had but two sons and three daughters ; but Mr. Grant, in an historical novel, gives hint a fourth daughter ! He assigns to her a name, " Lady Flora Campbell," which at once puts a Scotch reader on his guard, for there was not such a name in the Argyll Campbells in the seven teenth century, and lie has needlessly violated the laws of an historical fiction. It would have been easy to have taken a heroine from a non-historical family. Scott in his principal characters used not to violate the plain facts of history. There are many other literary blunders in this volume which deprive it of claims to acceptance as an historical novel. 3. If we had never before read any de scription of provincial life in America we could patiently have toiled over the " Hills of the Shatemuc " But such steep literary " hills " we have rarely clambered. The book is a prolix succession of diffuse dialogue, spread over the page in the following fashion : " Are you going?" said Winthrop, starting up. " Yes—going ; and going South, and going to be an engineer, and, if possible, to reach the goal of honour on the back of that calling, by some mysterious road which as yet I see not." " Stay here to-night, Will." " No, I can't—l've got to see somebody." "All night ?" " Why, no," said Rufus, smiling. " I suppose I could come back ; more especially as I am going bona fide away. By the way, Winthrop, do you know they say the yellow fever is here ? " " I know they say so." " What will you do? "—" Nothing." " I mean, of course, if the report is true."—" So I mean." " But you will not stay here ?"—" I think I will." " But it would be much better to go out of town." " If I think so, I'll go." " I'll make you think so," said Rufus, putting on his hat, " or else I won't go engineering ! I'll be back in an hour." The authoress must lose her vogue if she cannot mend her hand in her next attempt. Her present work is a series of unreadable dialogues with claptrap titles at the heads of the chapters, and is much inferior to her pre vious productions. To conclude, we must record our convic tion that the public is getting too much of "cheap original novels." Such a mode of spinning " yarns" must end in what the Man chester people might call a " shoddy school of fiction." Addresses of Major-General Sir Riciard Airey before the Board of General Officers at Chelsea Hospital. London : Murray. (Second Notice.) SIR RICHARD AIREY'S defence of his conduct concerning the marquees and hutting is based upon the same general grounds to which the calamities of the entire army are attributed by the Commissioners,—viz., " over-work and " want of transport," p. 35. But, as every little detail connected with that unhappy history is of the highest interest, we shall trouble our readers with a somewhat lengthy extract on the subject of providing hutting for the troops, reminding them at the same