The Press.
London, England, 1858-09-11 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 11, 1858.

like a ebtiception of Mrs. Marsh's,
scenes in which she appears re-
Le incomparable first volume of
ie herself must be reckoned among
tanning of recent heroines, and worthy
lore determined efforts to obtain her
was inclined to make. Hut the
greatest skill seems to have been be-
character of Isabella, whose pecu-
Aces, together with the pride, deli-
less, and self-abnegation with which
,em, are finely conceived, and elaho-
patience and a distinctness which
ive been the writer's chief favourite.
as it here stands before us, is, we
one, and ite execution alone would
raise the book above the common
.., without the other merits we have
The great pains which have been
this personage, together with a cer-
ideas and certain peculiarities of
almost induce us to imagine that we
lthor of " Framleigh I iall" before,
le veil of the anonymous, but for a
trpose. The following extract, rela-
lla, is an instance of what we mean :

, passel the age when, for a woman, there
igredient in life. Ono thought, one hone,
alone absorbed her whole being, and these
.need! To look forward through a dreary
years, and see nothing but the shadow of one
-• rest from suffering, except in a stagnation
licit any suffering seemed preferable, and
was her duty to strive—who would not re-
existence of which this was to be the sole
thought that the most intense spontaneous
lilt was one with which she must struggle
• sin, overwhelmed her with a sense of in•
point was it in her own power—when
stopped and said, " Here esteem ends,
gins ; I will go no farther "? She total
point. She knew her love was hope-
winent it had had life, and yet 'so much
her than any other joy that she wished to
rather than survive it
have loved at some time—the only qnes-
All through life she had longed for some
to expend the energy of affection, which,
such vent, consumed the heart where it
Where such a capacity exists, and is
_ill come a time when it awakens to some
spasmodic exercise. The feeble thread of water,
on through a dusty torrent bed, will one
a devastating flood, sweeping all before
happy with whom the stream, fed by hidden
alike from the heat of summer and the
r, holds un its tranquil, fertilizing course
Tike,—whose affections find sufficient exer-
_ formed earliest of all and the quiet inter-
every-day life ;—happy for this, among other rea-
' them love, if it comes at all, will come from
Ind of a distinct personal preference, and not
;tract craving for something to fill the void
of these favoured ones, Isabella was not one.
the only maul she had ever known, except
tom it was possible to love; lie did not so
her with a strong passion as awaken one
dormant iu her heart.

something in the above passage that
very strongly of an excellent book
may have met with, called " Morning
the subject of the formation of
character, and especially directed to the
and habits of such minds as Isabella's.
and smoothness of the style and the
and depth •of many of the reflections
us to• a similar conclusion,—which,
have no intention of putting forward
but a hypothetical one. Should it
. would account both for the practice
writing betrays, and for a degree of
literary and scientific, occasionally
_, and which is rather beyond the tether
female novelists. For a woman we take
be, though until the Welsh personal
is generally adopted, we must, in
the nameless, perforce use the
gender.

our surmise be correct or not, we
to meet with the writer of "
on another occasion. In spite of the
Inconsistencies and improbabilities we have noted,
iperior novel, and bears evidence of
hid' if carefully cultivated and de-
' hereafter produce still richer and
fruit.

a somewhat antiquated piece of scan-
tics,—to the effect that if you examine
of the books they have reviewed, you
Aely to find the leaves uncut. We, of
indignantly repudiate the slander as
ourselves, yet every one must be aware
doing more than glance through

the pages of a book, especially of a novel, it is
possible to form a tolerably correct estimate of
some of its not least important qualities. Such a
rough survey usually enables us to discern the
amount of esprit and originality possessed by a
writer, however necessary a further examination
may Le in estimating the probabilities of a plot
and the naturalness displayed in the develop-
ment of character. We say to ourselves, " This
will do," and sit down to the deliberate perusal
with a confidence similar to that which we feel
when formally introduced to a person whose general
appearance is prepossessing, and whose remarks,
casually overheard, have inspired us with a wish
for further knowledge. And, from the chance
expressions, the scraps of dialogue, the paragraphs
which we inevitably read through here and there,
and even from the proper names occurring, the
calibre of a writer and the kind of fare we are to
expect may be pretty accurately tested. Any one
who should look through " Rita " in the way we
have mentioned, would probably feel a strong
desire to cultivate that young lady's acquaintance.
Neatness of style, pointedness of expression, and
cleverness of remark, are observable in almost every
page; and the descriptions which occasionally
arrest the attention show a realistic tone and air,
and argue that the book has been preceded by
much more study of life and observation of
character than the " ruck " of novels usually
display. The following passages, for instance,
would certainly tend to excite curiosity. Rita is
the daughter of an invalid, well-meaning, once
beautiful mother, and of a handsome, dissipated,
-

unfaithful, extravagant father, who live in earls,
in a shabby-genteel sort of way, waiting for
" something to turn up." Something does
turn up :
I was alone in the drawing•room, when my father burst
open the door
Papa, what is it? Is Uncle Rossborotigh coming?"
This was the event to which I knew my parents were
always anxiously looking forward, and I could conceive no
other cause fir my father's elation. He laughed aloud.
" Better than that, old Queen of Tarts ! better than
that! The old curmudgeon's dead. Fetch me my
slippers." And he kicked his boot to the other end of
the room.
I ran for the slippers, then flew to my mother's room,
and such was my anxiety to be the first to communicate
the intelligence, that it oozed out before I got half• way to
the bed.

" Mamma! mamma! Uncle RORSboronsch is dead l "
She started from her pillow. " Good God, child ! what
do you mean ?"
I repeated the words, and my father, following me, cor-
roborated them. She pressed her hands to her eyes.
"Poor old Uncle John!" Then after a pause, raising
them to my father's lace, she looked into A eagerly,
inquiringly.
")bur thousand pounds ! "

• • • •
Over us lived a little old French general and his wife,
with whom I very coon struck up an intimacy. Ile hail
belonged to Napoleon's army, and had been present on
every battle-field, from Lodi to Waterloo
At what period of her existence this gold and faithful
ally [i e. his wife] signed the solemn treaty that united
her to her general, I know not. Her antecedents were
shrouded in mystery : and there were not wanting ill-
natured stories. Some said she had been a vivandiere,
and knew quite as much about the general's battles as he
did himself. Some declared that she had heen the
personal property of several generals in turn, until, at last,
she married a commissary, and that it was with the wealth
of that deceased functionary she endomed the general
upon her second marriage. The latter part of this I
believe to have been true: but I always thought her
personal appearance the most powerful refutation of the
scandal. Ihe irregularities of her face forbade the thought
o. any in her conduct. She was deeply pitted with small-
pox: her complexion more like a coarse cheap sponge
than anything else; the features having lost all clear
articulation of outline, and presenting a generally in-
distinct an I bruised appearance. She dressed rather with
an eye to strong colouring than pleasing combination, and,
altogether, I must confess there was a decided flavour of
camps in her aspect and demeanour. lint one could not
see her, as I saw her, without knowing what a kind,
generous heart beat beneath this unpromising exterior.

Rita grows up, at first perfectly wild and un-
educated, afterwards under the tuition of an ex-
cellent pedant in petticoats set over her by an
aunt who desires to save her from the paternal
influences. She shows a talent for drawing, and
finally takes to selling her works to get rid of her
father's most pressing creditors; meeting, in the
course of these negotiations, with a rich and bene-
volent Jew agent, and an equally benevolent and
magnanimous picture-dealer, through whose
somewhat apocryphal merits the first part of the
story is worked out. llerc, too, she meets with
the thoughtful and exemplary young gentleman
who is to play the part usually assigned to such
heroes relatively to beauty in distress. lie, with
the aforesaid aunt, and another very forbidding

old person, are her good angels throughout the
story. The bad ones are, her father, her father'll
—not exactly kept, mistress, because it is the other
way,—and a certain Lady Greybrook, who has
been a sort of fashionable George Sand. The
latter is rather powerfully described :

The lamp was now brought in, and while Lady Grey-
brook proceeded with Russian sangfroid to examine we
from head to foot, I will do the same by her, fur the
reader's future recognition.

I remembered a woman fair and brilliant; I beheld one
faded, withered rip, and worn, with eyes whose fire seemed
to have burnt down into their sockets, and to have con-
sumed, as it were, the whola upper part of the face, though
still the embers mouldered at the further end of those
dark caverns, sending out sparks ever and anon, and
lighting up the sharp, but still handsome features, with
a feverish flash. Those features were seldom in repose ;
a sort of restless eagerneas possessed the mouth, even
when she was not speskiog ' • and though the eye no
longer gleamed and shone and sparkled with the brilliancy
that had been so remarkable in youth, it was never still
an instant; the most fatiguing eye to watch, and giving
one an impression that it never could relax its vigilance
for a single moment, or succumb tinder the influence of
sleep. She talked with a hit-or-miss kind of cleverness,
which, while it is less alarming than actual wit, often
passes for such, when assisted by a natural olf•hand
manner. Hers, which was partly natural to her, partly
the result of the atmosphere in which she lived, was par-
ticularly agreeable ; it was said, indeed, that her " success "
had always been greatly owing to this charm. What this
" success" was, I shall presently inform the reader. I
will only add now, that she was magnificently dressed ; and
I had time to observe that her hands and feet were remark-
ably small and well-shaped.
There is also one of those characters of whom
lady novelists are so fond—a gloomy, Byronic,
sarcastic, diabolical, disappointed, Englisli noble-
man, who shows his eccentricity by making a
hypothetical proposal to Rita the instant he is
introduced to her, who bestows on her the accu-
mulated treasures of his cynical observation, and
ends by falling desperately in love with her.
Meanwhile her mother dies, and her father,
having married the woman in whose power he is,
and for whom his wife has been neglected, tries
to force his daughter to espouse an old marquis
(of the regular "old marquis" stamp), on whose
fortune he and his ally count for future relief
from their embarrassments. Mr. Rochford, the
lover whom Rita really prefers, is not at hand,
havin,, been deceived by false reports about her,
and having seen her in an apparently equivocal
situation. No help is at hand, and Rita reluc-
tantly throws herself on the repeatedly offered
assistance of Lord Rawdon. They fly together;
but at the end of the first stage Rita meets with
an English family whom she has known in better
times, accompanies them on the instant to Lon-
don, leaving her lover, who had gone out on
business, plaittei lei on his return. Then, by a
concatenation of circumstances, at the nature of
which every experienced novel-reader will easily
guess, she is again brought into the society of
Mr. Rochford, who on his part has supposed
her married, and has through pique become
engaged to a country neighbour, his cousin.
Hence, of course, ensues another entanglement—
which, however, we shall leave to the curiosity
of our readers to elucidate for themselves. They
will be able to judge front the preceding sketch
whether there is as much in the book, as we
think there is, to induce them to send for it.
The favourable opinion we have expressed of
the quality of the writing and vivacity of the
scenes could hardly be applied with similar jus-
tice to the whole conduct of the story, or to the
delineation of all the characters. In the working
out of the former there is a good deal that is im-
probable; in the conception of the latter there
is a deal that is conventional. The father
of ra, Colonel Percival, seems to us the best
done. In the character of Lady Greybrook, also,
there is much that is natural and striking. But
such a being as Lord Rawdon exists only in the
imagination of young lady writers. The goter-
ness, Miss Lateward, is not very successful--her
goodness and prudence not having much injivi-
uality about them, and her pedantry being ex=
hibited in letters, the Johnsonian style of which
appears to us quite forced and staey. There is
also a certain degree of perversity about the
authoress's views on minor ethics. She is nob
exactly of the " self-sacrifice" school of novelists,
but her heroine shows an over-scrupulousness on
some occasions and an over-forwardness on others
which seem inconsistent with the general cha-
racter ascribed to her, and sometimes to be not
altogether ladylike. Thus, we do not think that
a real Rita would have solicited a flirtation in tbb

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