The Press.
London, England, 1858-08-28 00:00:00

THE PRESS, AUGUST 28, 1858.

" alter, will some day swallow up Throne, Church,
" and Cottage."

This young Gascon gentleman, coming perfectly
raw and youthful from his father's chateau, un-
masks an astrologer at a country inn, and breaks
all his bottles and conjuring apparatus before he
has been two hours from home. has a remarkable
adventure at the house of his uncle the following
day. On the very first night of his arrival at
Paris is employed by the Grand Monarque him-
self on a piece of secret service in the palace, of
no less responsible a nature than watching for a
French noble at the chamber door of Mme. de Mon-
tespan. On the next day falls in with, detects at
a glance, exposes, and punishes a party of the
cleverest Parisian sharpers. Then fights and
overcomes the most skilful swordsman and for-
midable duellist in his regiment. Not satisfied
with this exploit, cuts out the Chief of the Police
in a love affair, and offers to fight him ! Is
lodged in the Bastile in consequence, from which
he escapes disguised as a baker, and walks about
Paris very much as if nothing had happened—
calling on the l'rime Minister in a free and easy
way to get his pardon, as if he had not committed
the most unpardonable offence which a French
subject could commit—and is almost immediately
let off by the King himself; who treats the
affair as a good joke. When we tell our readers
that all this occurs in less than the first volume
and a half, they will agree with us that there is
certainly stuff in the story.
The blunders to be found in this work, whether
clerical or authorial, are neither few nor far
between. The classical quotations are miserably
mauled. Mr. Thornbury makes his personages
talk a happy medley of French and English,
ancient and modern; e. g.:—

" ltut the boy's Virgil and his Latin verse, his Penta•
meters, his Alcaics. lton Dieu, his Alcaics? What, good
is a scholar without his Alcaics ? " stammered the tutor
turning pale, " he doesn't know his aorists."
" 1) his aorists," said my father, " the lad is a lusty
lie can ride, swim, shoot, use his sweri, pistol, an.d
musket, what e►se does a man want? what good is your
ninicurn ne crede coloris, to a lad who carries the colours ?'
• • • • •

But we determined to have a fight for it,-30 girding up
our loins and tucking up our gowns, struck up one of
David's battle psalms,

" Let God arise, and let Ms enemies be scattered ;"

and ran like bricks to a small stony hill close at hand, where
we stood at hay and awaited our adversaries, who were
headed by a fat butcher in a sttnflowcr•cjloured waistcoat,
studded with red roses.

" How is your mistress now ?" said Le Tellier.
" 0! she's horful ! " said the lacqney, who seemed mucli
disconcerted; " alie's a regular Herculaneum tigress.
She is tearing about, nirm.: like a liedlamite than a
Christian."

Once 1 plucked at the niguillettes of one as he passed
" Waen will the Marshal be at leisure ?"

" Oh, its no use you're bothering here, and stalling np
that window that we want for the dirty plates. I tell you
the Marshal won't see any more petitioners to-day, so you
may go. We can't have the hall blocked up in this 'ere
way."

I said, " Liekplate, tell him when he rises, that the
Governor of Saint Damian requests an hour of his leisure."
" Do von see this ? " said the insol •nt wretch, putting
his finger to his eye, " is there any partieulAr green there?
You a governor? %Vhy you are one of the playing chaps,
come about the benefit night. I know you ;it won't du
with me—hookey."

Mr. Thornbury's description of French military
society under Louis Quatorze, in a crack house-
hold regiment, is hardly consistent with all that
we know of the period. The coarseness, the
bullying, and the impertinence to superior
officers, could never have existed, we think, out
of Mr. Thornbury's imagination. But he scarcely
strives to throw himself back into the period of
which he is writing. his remarks on reviews
and on literary men are another instance of this,
and are as obviously the reflex of his own daily
observation as the horful" and the " hookey "
of the above extracts.
Mr. Thornbury's absolute mistakes are not
few. It was not Ilecuba that put out her eves
with shoebuckles, but, if anybody, (Edipus. Nor
can Mirabel's old colonel very well be made to
speak as follows in the year 1689:-
1
remember, when I first joined, I made just such a
mistake as you did. I catue into the messroom and saw
a little old man blind of one eye, with his back to the fire,
which he kept from every one else ; I called for my great
coat, just to turn the laugh on him, hut he did not move,
and made no reply. 1 found afterwards this was old
General Renaud, the man who turned the day at Steen-
kirk by seven consecutive charges at the head of Boisson's
kriliatler

For even in 1689 the y have
colonel could hardl
seen an officer distinguished in a battle that
was not fought till 1692—t0 say nothing of the
fact that he was referring to his own youth, sone
quarter of a century earlier.
We have adduced these specimens of tl_e ran.
dom and thoughtless style of Mr. Thornbury's
composition because we think it a pity that one
who can write so well should not take the trouble
to write better. We have a great deal to say in
his favour. Many of his descriptions are ex-
tremely spirited and graphic, and he has the art
of thoroughly carrying us along with him. There
is a native vigour in his pen that triumphs over
such defects as would prove fatal to the majority
of novelists ; for, independently of his incorrect-
ness, his plot is of the most flimsy texture, and
his young lady portraits are complete failures
—in fact, they are mere outlines, with scarcely
an attempt at filling in. Ilis novel, therefore, is
deficient in one great element of attraction—an
exhibition of the passion between the sexes.
That, with these numerous faults, "Every Man
his Own Trumpeter " should be so readable and
pleasant as it is, is a strong proof of Mr. Thorn-
bury's powers. Let him once learn and digest
the lesson that a novel cannot be knocked off
like half-a-dozen stanzas of rhyme, and we have
little doubt he may yet write a book which shall
be more than a merely amusing one.

16.

--
Bart., the Mayor of Hereford, Mr. G. Clive, M.P.,
idle Ven. Archdeacon Waring, Mr. S. Allaway, Mr.
JAL Arkwright, Mr. R. Barton, the Rev. H. Blissett,
itev. J. Bullock, Mr. T. Dunne, Mr. E. Griffiths, Mr,
J. M. Herbert, Mr. W. Herrick, Rev. J. Hopton, Rev.
T. long, Mr. A. R. Boughton Knight, R,-v. 0. Orme.
rod, Mr. R. Peyton,
Rev. T. Powell, Rev. Dr. Sier,
and Rev. Berkeley Stanhope.
Her Majesty and the Prince Consort graciously
accord their patronage. Lo
i rd Bateman, the Lord-
Lieutenant of the county, s the president, and the
vse• .presidents are the Bishops of Hereford, Glou-
ter and Bristol, and Worcester.
Monday was fully occupied in the rehearsals.
The chorus and most of the principals, with the
band, met at the cathedral in the morning, and Mr.
Townshend Smith, the conductor of the festival, by
virtue of his office of organist of Hereford Cathe-
dral, tried over such portions of the sacred music as
the choristers were least familiar with. The prin •
eipal singers were Mine. Clara Novello, Mrs. Weiss,
Miss Louisa Vinning, Mrs. Clare Hepworth, Miss
Lascelles, Mme. Viardot Garcia, Mr. Sims Reeves,
Mr. Montem Smith, Mr. Thomas, and Mr. Weiss.
Mr. H. Blagrove was leader of the band, Mr. Aroott
(organist of Gloucester Cathedral) officiated at the
organ, and Mr. Done (organist at Worcester Ca-
thedral) was pianist. The choral band was se-
lected from the three cathedral choirs and choral
societies of Hereford, Gloucester, and Worcester,
and the Liverpool Philharmonic Society.
On Tuesday the festival actually opened with full
cathedral service. The musical part of the service,
on the whole, was remarkably well performed.
Tallis's severe, perhaps occasionally monotonous,
but unquestionably sublime music can never, we
think, be effectively replaced by anything else, new
or old, in the preces, responses, and chant to the
" Venite." There is a certain indefinable solemnity
about the measured phrases of the Elizabethan
organist which it would be hard now to imitate, and
which has become precious through long association.
Handel's very grand Dettingen " Te Deum," though
a thanksgiving for a victory about which no one
thinks much just now, is nevertheless set to words
of universal application. The choruses were very
effectively given,fand the solos in all instances care-
fully delivered by Miss Lascelles, Mr. Montem Smith,
Mr. Thomas, and Mr. Weiss—the last-named gentle-
man, especially, singing the pathetic appeal " Vouch-
safe, 0 Lord ! " (so like, in more places than one, to
a well-known bass air in Mendelssohn's St. Paul)
with fervid and admirable expression. The
- Jubilate" of Mr. Townshend Smith—the same, we
believe, which was introduced on the last festival—
a praiseworthy offering to the cathedral service
from the pen of the cathedral organist. The solos
in this were intrusted to Madame Weiss, an expe•
rienced singer of sacred music, Miss Lascelles,
Messrs. M. Smith and Weiss. The anthem after the
third collect—a solo (Mr. M. Smith) and chorus,
"Blessing, honour, glory," from Dr. Spohr's oratorio
above mentioned—could scarcely have been better
chosen. The execution of this anthem was for the
most part extremely satisfactory, and we were much
pleased to note the good impression produced by
Mrs. Clare Hepworth, who both in style and self.
possession exhibited a marked and gratifying im•
provement. The other soloists (who have nothing
to do beyond assisting in the quintet—the last piece
but one) were Messrs. M. Smith, T. Barnby,
Thomas, and Weiss. In Sir F. A. G. Ouseley's
anthem, "The Lord is the true God," which followed
the sermon, Mr. Thomas sang the bass solos in a
thoroughly artistic manner. Through this anthem,
if we are not mistaken, the Oxford professor of music
obtained his decree.
The programme of the first miscellaneous concert,
which took place on Tuesday evening, was on the
whole well selected and creditable to Mr. Townshend
Smith, the conductor. It was a " Mozart night "—to
employ M. Jullien's familiar nomenclature. After
the Jupiter came a well varied selection from the
opera of La Clemenza di Tito, the last dramatic
work of its composer. in the same year Mozart
wrote Die Zauberjlate and the Requiem. Thus, it
was an eventful period in his artistic career; and
that it was also a fatal one we need scarcely remind
our musical readers, who are, of course, aware that
the
greatest of musicians died at Vienna. Dec. 5,
1791, at the age of thirty six—having done more for
lots art than any of his predecessors or contempo-
raries. The selection began with the beautiful duet,
" Ah perdona," about which so many pretty anecdotes
are narrated. This was sung with taste and correct-
ness by Mme. Weiss and Miss Lascelles. The grand
airs," Parto," " Deh per auesto " and " Non pin di
Uri," were respectively allotted'-' to Mmes. Novello,
Weiss, and Viardot Garcia, all of whom showed so
thorough an acquaintance with the traditions of the
music, and acquitted themselves so artistically, that
it would be unfair to single out one for preference,
In the first and last Mr. Lazarus played the ohligato
"'.ntePaniments for the clarinet with a tone,
style, and execution alike irreproachable. To
the above must be added the melodious tenor
604, With chorus, "Ah grazi si rendano,"