The Press.
London, England, 1858-05-29 00:00:00

THE PRESS, MA! 29, 1858.

some remarkable improvement, and, finding that
this was beyond his reach, gave up his project of
establishing his home there, and has returned to
England once more, not exactly in despair of Pied-
mont in general, but feeling unable to cope with the
obstacles his single-handed efforts encountered.
Whatever may have been the result of his expe-
riment, we are indebted to it for a very interest-
ing book, and one which, even if it requires, as
we think, some grains of allowance, affords in-
formation which all who are speculating on the
part which Sardinia is destined to play in the
future of Italy will consider highly valuable and
instructive.

For and Against; or, Queen Margaret's Badge.
By Frances M. Wilbraham. Two Vols.
London : J. W. Parker and Son.
This is a graceful work of fiction, purporting to
be a " domestic chronicle of the fifteenth cen-
tury." It embraces the period of the wars of the
Roses; and the style is pleasing, with the fresh-
ness of first composition. Its effect is that of
what might be called literary tapestry. 'We see
design and colours, and pictorial contrast, and
considerable dexterity, though of a kind rather
mechanical. The groupings are spirited, and
there is a certain general resemblance to the
manners and features of the age described. It
would be, perhaps, too much to expect creation
of character in a young authoress; and if an
author has the rare talent of inventing types of
human nature, we should always recommend a
choice of subject for narrative fiction not so re-
mote from our time as the fifteenth century. In
dramatic composition, it is necessary to remove
the scene to a distant time in order to give ele-
vation to the language ; but in a novel affecting
to paint the domestic life of bygone ages, a sense
of unreality is apt to creep over the reader's
mind when he finds commonplace sentiments and
ordinary people using an antique phraseology.
We have had many works of this kind before
us from time to time, and we observe that they
generally are produced by female pens. Miss
Wilbraham gives promise of considerable success,
and in literary attainments she is superior to the
great crowd of candidates for success in fiction.
But she must not depend too much on knowledge
of hooks, and she should rather study the art of
finding out and copying characters, and endowing
them with lite. Novels of manners and costume
are not stimulating, and the passions of the fif-
teenth
century, with its ire and bloodshed, are
not the most suitable for a lady's pen.
The general effect of this tale is that which
might be produced by Mr. G. I'. R. James if he
turned sentimentalist. The first sentences re-
minded us of that novelist :
Towards the close of a bleak January day, in the year of
grace 1435, a small party of horsemen rode slowly across
the brow of a high bill, one of the range which divides
Staffordshire from Cheshire. They were but three in
number, and two of them. a grey-haired man-at-arms and
a stripling in a tight fitting snit with no ornament save a
" greyhound passant " embroidered front and back, on
his dark dress, lingered some paces behind, as if afraid of
breaking in upon the meditation 0 their master.
And again, in the middle of the second volume,
we read
Late in the afternoon of St. Denys's-lay (Oct. 9, 1439)
and somewhat more than a fortnight after the bloody fight
of Blore, a little knot of horsemen might be seen spurring
up the steep ascent t) Ludlow. This town, which with
its castle was then the property of the Duke of York, was
in every respect well fitted to be a princely residence. It
stood on a height near the function of the Cone and Teme,
and was in its turn commanded by the castle, whose im-
posing remains may yet be seen, perched on a tall grey
rock overhanging the first-mentioned river. The whole
place was strongly walled and fortified, but the castle
especially, which occupied the north-west angle of the town,
wore an aspect of imposing strength. Its north front pre-
sented a chain, of massive square towers, connected by a
lofty wall; on the west, the ground sank to a chasm,
through which the Teme worked its way, swollen at thrt
time by autumn rains; a rocky height, not inferior to that
on which the castle stood, rose opposite to it on the further
bank of the stream; the trees which crowned its ridge were
clothed in the brightest reds and yellows, and stood out
sharply against masses of glowing slate-coloured cloud,
such as otten veil an autumn sky. Into these the blue
Mlle of Wales melted imperceptibly. The nearer land-
scape, being richly timbered, wes clothed in brilliant tints ;
it was, besides, studded with cottages and farmsteads, rude
but p:ctnresque in form. Thin lint•si of smoke issued from
holes in their roofs, which supplied, though imperfectly,
the place of chimneys ; for our ancestors, so far from con-
-1 sidering smoke a nuisance, esteemed it " the best hardening
for the timber of their houses, and the best medecine that
could be gut fur keeping the good man and his familte
from rheum, catarrhs, and quakes F'

To add to the animation of the scene, the Duke of York army, reinforced by a formidable band newly brought over
from Calais by the Earl of Warwick, was encamped in
Ludlow and the adjoining village of Ludford. Men-at-
arms, esquires, and here and there knights, mounted or
afoot, were hastening to and fro. Burnish ng of armour,
trials of skill in archery, and other martial a osittions were
being pursued on all sides; and in all, exceit perhaps the
use of the bow, the grim veterans brought by Sir Andrew
Trollope and Sir John Blount from France, took the lead.
And so on. The descriptive powers of the writer
are considerable, and there is a spirit of poetry
in several passages. But the fault of the tale is
that we scarcely know whether we are reading
history or fiction. Yet there is so much ability
in parts of the work that we hope again to meet
with the writer; and, as a first attempt, this
" chronicle" is certainly meritorious.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.-34T 27.

BOOKS.

Doctor Thorne. A Novel. Anthony Trollope. Three
Vols. Chapman and Hall.
Maud Skillicorne's Penance. A Tale in Two I'arts. Mary
Catherine Jackson. Two Vols. Smith and Elder.
The Voice of the Last Prophet. A Practical Interpretation
of the Apocalypse. The Rev. Ed. Huntingford. D.C.L.
Skellington.
Lord George Bentinck. A Political Biography. The Right
Hon. B. Disraeli, M.P. New Edition. Rontledge.
Friends at their Own Fireside. Mra. Ellis. Two Vols.
Bentley.
Recolketions of Syria and Palestine. The Rev. Ed. James
Jones. Mash rs.
The World and Ilia Wife: or, a Person of Consequence. A
Photographic Novel. Lady Bulwer Lytton. Three
Vola. Skeet.
Tales from Blackwood. Vol. J. /31ackwoods.

Banking and other Joint-Stock Companies. E. \Allgoo—
d Consecration Sermon. Raingtone—llemoral of W. Tayler
from the Coramissionership of Patna. Thacker and Co—
The Politics and the Political Economy of Weak Goren.
melds. By F. C. Hardwicke.