The Press.
London, England, 1858-08-07 00:00:00

the admirable authoress of " Pride and Pre-

judice."
The errors of omission are numerous in this
work. here we have no notice at all of such
novelists as John Galt, Miss Ferrier, the author
of "Tom Cringle's Log," or of Major liamley
(" Lady Lee's Widowhood "), or of Banim
(" O'Hara Family "), or Gerald Griffin. Neither
the writer of " Wlntefriars," nor Mrs. Moberly,
nor Lady G. Fullerton, nor Lady Emily Pon-
sonby, nor Eyre Evans Crowe, nor Dr. Maginn,
nor Robert Bell, nor Marmion Savage (" The
Falcon Family "), nor a host of other novelists,
are mentioned, although Mr. Jeaffreson extols so
casehardened a bookmaker as Mr. S. W. Fullom,
and gives space to Miss Emilie Marryat, Mr. E.
M. Whitty, Mr. Folkstone Williams, Mr. M. F.
Tupper, &c. &c. After he has exhausted himself
in panegyric upon Mr. Dickens, he finishes off
seventy-three novelists in exactly seventy-three
pages ! And those seventy-three writers will be
little obliged to Mr. Jeaffreson for the mode in
which he has " done " them.
He gives us no notice of henry Brooke, author
of " The Fool of Quality"; of Mrs. Sheridan,
authoress of " Sidney Biddulph" ; or of Charles
Johnston, author of Adventures of a Guinea."
lie mentions writers without any reputation, and
he omits those whose works made a noise in their
day. The prose fictions that came from the pens
of Mrs. Jamieson, Sheridan Knowles, and the
late Jane Phillips are disregarded by him.
Recollecting how identified the publishers of this
work are with the literature of fiction, we
must express our surprise at such a production as
the present, so rich in pretension, and so poor in
performance, issuing from their distinguished
press. It may be observed that Mr. Jeaffreson
speaks of Sir Walter Scott's interesting and
genial sketches of the leading novelists of Eng-
land as " clumsy volumes." (!)
We thank thee, Jew, for teaching us that wora.

i
Miss Edgeworth, n one of her latest and most
finished works, pronounced a very different
estimate of Scott's " Lives of the Novelists."
The errors of commission are almost equal to
those of omission :
In 1835 Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton was made a baronet
nominally for his literary merits, but the literary
service which won for Bulwer Lytton this questionable
dignity was his political pamphlet " The Crisis." His
baronetcy was simply au acknowledgment of his political
services to Sir R. Peel. (!!)
There is a tissue of blunders in this passage. Sir
Bulwer Lytton in his life never rendered any
political services to Sir It. Peel ; and " The
Crisis" was a clever attack on Sir It. Peel on his
return from Rome in 1834, when he formed his
first Administration. When her Majesty wished
to compliment Science and Literature, Lord
Melbourne recommended the names of Herschel
and Bulwer for baronetcies ; and it was in oppo-
sition to the economic and financial views of Sir
R. Peel that Sir Bulwer Lytton seceded from the
Liberal side, and advocated " Protection " in a
mast able work. It is a most absurd blunder to
assert that Sir R. Peel had aught to do with Sir
B. Lytton's baronetcy. Southey was recom-
mended for such a distinction in 1835 by Sir R.
Peel, but the then Poet Laureate declined it. Mr.
Jeaffresou evidently never read " The Crisis,"
but for many reasons such a mistake is quite
inexcusable.
Again, he makes an absurd blunder in the
sketch of the Chancellor of the Exchequer :
For years he [Mr. Disraelli directed his cruel satire
against those noble houses which he so felicitously nick-
named " The Venetim Aristocracy," and yet it was by the
Venetian Interest that he was mainly raised to his present
elevation. (!!)
This is a most egregious blunder. The Chancellor
of the Exchequer attacked the great Whig
families as a " Venetian Interest," who desired
to reduce the Monarchy of England into the
position of a Doge of Venice. In doing so, Mr.
Disraeli followed the hints of Lord Bolingbroke
and the speeches of the second Pitt, and supplied
original illustrations from his own fertile mind.
Mr. Jeaffreson confounds the aristocracy at large
with the " Venetian clique." how a writer
addressing the public could assert that Mr. Dis-
raeli was " mainly raised" by the Venetian
Interest does pass our comprehension.
Errors of this kind—and they are not isolated
I —greatly detract from the value of this work,
m taking it even as a ere compilation. A great
defect in it is its entire want of original informa-
tion. We should like to have got some new and

751

special knowledge about Jane Austen, but Mr.
Jeaffreson does little more than tell us what was
printed in one of the brief prefaces to Mr. Bent-
ley's standard edition of one of her inimitable
pictures of English genteel life in the country.
He quotes what Sir 'Walter Scott wrote of her,
and he might have added what such eminent critics
as Coleridge and Lord Macaulay have written
of that admirable picture from life. Several of
her characters were portraits of persons in her
neighbourhood, and information about her could
still be obtained. Many people would like to
know " Who is Mrs. Gore ? What was her
"maiden name? Is she Scotch, English, or
" Irish ? and, Where was she educated ?' None
of these questions are answered in the string of
generalities appended in this work to Mrs. Gore's
name, and this want of personal knowledge is
shown throughout the two volumes. It is evident,
also, that Mr. Jeaffreson has a very limited ac-
quaintance with the works of the novelists he
writes about. We suspect that he never read the
writings of Mrs. Radcliffe with anything like due
attention. He does nothing like justice to the
authoress of "The Mysteries of Udolpho." Full
justice has been done her genius by Sir Walter
Scott and by Lord Jeffrey, and we cannot
forget the compliment paid her by Byron,
alluding to Venice, in the fourth canto of
" Childe Ilarold" :
Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart,
And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare" art,
Had stamp'd her image in me.
Even with the facts of his own volumes be-
fore him, Mr. Jeaffreson reasons most incon-
clusively. The authoress of " Jane Eyre " we
are told by him " often erred by applying senti-
" ments she had really heard uttered, and conduct
"she had really witnessed, to individuals in a class
" she knew nothing about. For instance, no
" English ladies of breeding, in the presence of
" men, ever insulted a poor governess, as she re-
" presents Jane Eyre to have been insulted by
"women of aristocratic rank in Mr. Rochester's
" drawing-room at Thornfield, yet such a scene
" would have been perfectly in place in the best
" parlour of an uneducated Yorkshire spinner."
We are afraid that governesses have often been
insulted by women of rank, even in the presence
of men, and Jane Eyre (it must be recollected)
was the governess of an illegitimate daughter of
Mr. Rochester ; and Mr. Jeaffreson forgets the
anecdote that he has himself recounted in the life
of Mary Wolstonecraft:—
On one occasion, in a very large party, Mary entered into
along and animated conversation with a lady of rank, who,
delighted with her companion, at length begged to know
her name and history. " I am Miss —s governess,"
said Mary with a smile. "Oh !" two flirts of her fan,—
a fierce flash of her eyes, and the vulgarian of quality
turned away, mentally imploring the hills to fall upon her,
and the mountains to cover her !
This instance of what " a vulgarian of quality"
could do should not have been forgotten by Mr.
Jeaffreson.
His want of personal research is a great defect.
Thus, with so remarkable a subject as Mary Wol-
stonecraft before him, he omits to inquire into
the history of her two noble pupils. Their
natural lives were as romantic in many particu-
lars as any tales recorded by the novelists. Both
of them, unhappily, contributed to the scandals of
the peerage, and gave practical illustration of the
defects of their teacher's system. The extra-
ordinary story of one of them has often been told
in print, but Mr. Jeaffreson never alludes to it.
When attempting to weigh merits or to esti-
mate character, Mr. Jeaffreson always exagge-
rates. lie does not keep a fair balance in his
praise or censure. Thus he treats us to the
following rant about Daniel De Foe :
The parish register contains the fullest account extant
of his interment :—" 1731, Daniel Defoe, gentleman. To
Tindall's ( Lethargy). April al." Tindall's was the
general burial-otround for Dissenters.
A twinge shakes the nerves as we read that ambiguous
word gentleman. It is such a petty title to give Daniel
De Foe.
The man who, when a beardless youth, saw the truth,
and fearlessly declared it—who risked his life for what he
Belt to be his duty—who fought zealously, and without
fainting, for freedom, and was, without doubt, an instnt-
ment in the hands of Providence for the preservation of
our national religion—for in those days of peril, when the
weight of a feather would at times have turned the
balance in favour of ktomanism, Protestantism was
guarded not by the Anglican priesthood (for they betrayed
her), but by the great champions of spiritual freedom, the
Nonconformists—the man who laboured effectually in con-
solidating the sister countries of England and Scotland ;
who was the cause of innumerable social reforms, amongst

752

which the removal of the abuses of the sanctuary at White.
friars (Alsatia ), and the Mint, may be mentioned; who
taised his voice against the cruelties of slavery, devised
schemes fur the amelioration of the poor, and continually
urged that woman, so formed by nature to elevate man,
should be raised from the depths of ignorance, which was
her lot in most cases ; the wan who tried so many fields
of literature, and gained distinction in them all ; he who,
honourable, single•hearted, tierce in the day of battle, was
worthy the regard and confidence of England's last great
king, William 111.—was Daniel 1)e Foe, gentleman!
The author of " Robinson Crusoe" was "an
" instrument in the hands of Providence for the
"preservation of our national religion " ! More
could not have been said of King William. " A
" feather would have turned the balance in favour
"of Romanism." Ridiculous ! If the " Noncon-
formists" saved Protestantism (according to Mr.
Jeaffreson), it is singular that an ungrateful
country in a century and a half never discovered
that fact. These " Nonconformists " also
" laboured in consolidating the sister countries."
We do not think that our good Scotch friends
will be likely to • admit that their beloved
Caledonia was " consolidated " by the " Noncon-
formists" of England, and the Protestants of
Ireland are not apt to forget that the conspiracy
of the " United Irishmen," in 1798, was " con-
solidated " with the help of several " Noncon-
formists" in Ulster. Similar extravagances are
to be found throughout.
Thus, in the sketch of Richardson, Mr. Jeaffre-
son writes :

From the age of Shakspeare down to Fielding, how few
writers are there, out of the ranks of Puritanism, we should
mourn for if their works were all destroyed!

We are not sure that we fully comprehend Mr.
Jeaffreson's meaning in this extraordinary para-
graph. If what he meant is that no writer who
did not appreciate women is worth preservation,
that opinion would consign even Milton to obscu-
rity. If he did not mean this, we should be glad
to know what the ground is upon which he con-
siders that Jeremy Taylor, Collier, Barrow,
South, Clarendon, Halifax, Temple, Lovelace,
Suckling, Herrick, Waller, Dryden, Cowley, Pope,
Addison, Steele, Swift—the whole phalanx of the
Augustine age—deserve to be swept from our
shelves? But this cant about "non-appreciation of
women " is, from any point of view, unworthy a man
of Mr. Jeaffreson's sense. Did not Gay, Steele,
and Pope appreciate women ?
It is an author of this order who presumes to
write of Sir Walter Scott in a carping and
contemptuous manner, while he bepraises
Thackeray and Dickens in the most fulsome
style ! Comins from the printing-press of a firm
so identified with novels, the critical character
of such a work as this before us demands
the severest examination ; and if we return to
it, we shall do so from a regard to the impor-
tance, not of these ill-written volumes, but of
the interesting subject of which they so inade-
quately treat.
(To be continued.)

The Scholar and the Trooper; or, Oxford during
the Great Rebellion. By the Rev. W. E.
Heygate, M.A. London : Parkers.
Tins is an entertaining little sketch of the Civil
Wars from the Royalist point of view. Almost
every scene of that great drama has its own
peculiar interest ; on both sides vigour and virtue
abounded, and the characters of men were
stripped of the disguises which they wear in
quiet times by the unprecedented circumstances
in which they were placed. It has been said.
" Happy is the people whose history is dull," and
indeed the safe political principle of standing on
the ancient paths is more justly acceptable to the
statesman than to the novelist. It is more inte-
resting to contemplate men " working something
new," however rash the enterprize may be, than
to watch them patiently treading, with imagina-
tion chastened and judgment matured, in the
footsteps of those who have gone before. Charles
was handsomer and more refined:than Cromwell,
his fortunes excite greater sympathy, but the
racy singularity of Cromwell is more interesting
to the student of human nature. Charles is a
character for Racine ; Shakespeare would have
revelled in the delineation of Cromwell.
Mr. Ileygate, as an artist, bears the stamp of
Racine rather than that of Shakespeare. His
imagination leads him to quiet scenes. Ile runs
no risk of falling into extravagance, but he is
of being betrayed into eon-

sometimes in danger