The Press.
London, England, 1853-07-30 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

and their imagination. And upon the self-
same topics, we venture to prophesy, will a
remote posterity of writers and readers seve
rally lavish their pains and their sympathies,
even until the last " library has erased its eir
eulation, and the latest longo-post-futurum
publisher of '"rhe how " has issued the
ultimate hotpressed octavo from his over
loaded shelves. For the topie, like Shalt-
speare's genius, is " not for an age, but
for all time." And so long as the thing exists
—varying maybe') in phase, but the same in
nature—so long will novel-writers endeavour
to work it usefully and profitably, just as
while the moon continues to rule the night no

dread of plagiarism or of ridicule will prevent
unfledged poets front apostrol►ltising the
" chaste goddess ;" or, while youthful pulses
beat hot and higlt, all the hequeses in the
world cannot stifle the sonnets which lovers
will insist on inditing to their mistress' eye-
brow.

Upon a subject thus perennial Mr. tiwynne
has composed his new romance, whose date it
has pleased him to fix about the time of the
Great Rebellion—we really don't know why.
So tar as the outline of the tale goes it would
have synnuetrised as well and better with the
era of the South Sea scheme, the railway
mania, or our own July instant than with
the selected period of Cromwell's lronsides
and the (heat Plague. Aliter visa►*, how-
ever•, to the author, and accordingly we
have an old world-period assigned to his story,
with sundry old-world settings in the way of
style and typography wherewith to supply its
dresses and decorations. In this idea of put-
ting a rococo frame around a picture whieb be-
longs to no age at all Mr. tiwynne has had
many predecessors. Th►e " Lady Willoughby's
Diary" wa►s the first, and Mr. Thackeray's
" Henry lismonde" the most distinguished, of
the class. For sue imitator in the same line
nothing eau justify hi►s presumption but suc-
cess. and we are forced to conti.tes that the pre
sent author has not succeeded. Removing his
scene from the present century, he has failed to
seize and depict the characteristics of the past.
Following in the tracks of certain eminent, and
therefore trite, exemplars, he has fallen de-
plorably short in that attempt at imitation
where something approaching, at all events, to
equality with the well-knownoriginals could be
alone tolerable.
Thus we find that the titular hero of the
book is described as a " merchant" with all
the low, safe, penny-turning character of the
dealers in the present day, whose every risk is
covered by insurance ; stud whose cargoes are
safely consigned, per steamer, to markets
where they are commercially certain of ar-
riving at a prescribed date, and selling for a
fixed and modentte modicum of profit. Yet,
with these wholly modern propensities for
safety and certainty, Silas IZarnst,r•ke is *mule
the merchant of a period when " merchant
adventurer" wets the title of the whole Owes
—when mercantile transactions we-re really
"enterprises," involving hazard, requiring
knowledge, and necessitating the possession
of an open, generous, liberal spirit, such as in
formed the tireshams and Italeighs of old, and
all whose avenues to distinction and wealth
would have been remorselessly shut to the
mere sordid take-care-of-your-pennies usurer,
such as Mr. Gwynne has described his hero
to be.
Again we have extracts from a diary sup-
posed to have been kept. by this same hero,
and in which the Castlenmine finds dishonour-
able mention ; and are shown glimpses of the
Plague. In the former there is a weak endea-
vour to imitate Pepys the inimitable ; in the
latter st few pieces are passed off from time
Defoe mint, all the coin front which, sterling
as they are in value, beau• a private mark that
renders the attempt at smashing peculiarly
perilous. Through the whole, the tricks that
have been practised in order to give the mo-
dern painting a gloss of antiquity are ttetected
at it glance. We recognise not merely the pla
giarisms in the design, but the brown varnish
whieh has been spread, by way of disguise-
ment, over the canvas.
This assumption of fictitious antiquity, with
its supposed qutaintnesses and crudities, has
become a frequent and offensive ruse among
modern litterateurs. Rarely used, and exe-

cute(' with eonsummate knowledge and tart, it
may be, and has been, rendered a must effective
medium whereby the contemporary generation
can be brought face to thee and m►nd to mind
with their aneestors. Our consciousness of
its value as an embodiment for literary art has
rendered us inure sensitive to the degradation
it has undergone in the hands of pretenders,
and has induced us to offer this protest against
the herd of imitators who, like Mr. Owynne, so
thoroughly - work out " the idea, that it be
comes too hackneyed and threadbare for those
better-endowed writers who might have turned
to real account its goodly and golden possibi
lities. It is provoking to see a good idea
spoiled through rash and incompetent hand-
ling. Still more does it provoke us to see a
writer such as Mr. Owynne, who evinces the
possession of some orig►nal talent, condescend
to enact the part of spoiler.

The Adrentares of a Lady its Tartary, Thibet, China,
and Kash►nir, through Portions of Territory never
before visited by European ; with Journey fr►n►
the Pu►jaub to Bombay, Overla►d, rid the famous
Caves of .junta a►d Ellora, a Histo►y of Kashmir,
and an :Would of the Mshobleshwur and Neil-
gherry Mountains, the Sanatoria of the Bombay
and Madras Presidencies. Hy Mrs. Hervey. Lou-
don : hope and Co.
THE best put of tins hook is its title. The authoress
passed some two years in the Kashiniriatt a►d Tibc
Mtn mountains, seeing strange sights, traversing din-
triets little visited, a►d running not a few risks of
various kinds. Here is good material for book-
making, but unluckily Mrs. llervey has not the gift of
description. !ter narrative is diffuse, a►d her word •
sketches leave behind no clear impression. We have
looked in vain ter a passage to extract which might
give a favourable idea of the style.