The Press.
London, England, 1854-03-18 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

happiness that filled Agues's simple heart? tier dear
mother felt and enjoyed every beauty so keenly—to feel
and enjoy them with her, to see the look of inspired admi•
ration and ecstasy in her mild, holy eyes, and listen to her
speaking, so softly, so beautifully—it was heaven to Agnes
—perfect heaven.

As the writer grows older this propensity to
the rapturous will gradually diminish, and the
pen that has written so enthusiastically about
" Agnes Valmar " may be taught, perhaps, to
describe reality more closely. Vivid, but in-
cohereut,—inartistic, yet spontaneous in its
intensity,—its present performance can only
be praised for the promise which it gives of
future efforts.

" Walter Hurst" is a painful tale of the
miseries of human life. It is the history of a
character traced from boyhood to mature age,
and its incidents are of the harrowing kind.
Its want of sunlight to relieve its sombre sha-
dows makes the work very gloomy in the
perusal; and, in composing its dark pages, the
author seems to have forgotten that, as in
other descriptions of art, fiction must please,
else it will not he successful. " Walter Hurst,"
besides, has the great fault of being composed
with a reference, conscious or unconscious, to two
distinguished works of fiction. Every chapter
suggests that the writer was most ambitious of
imitating the opposite merits of " Oliver Twist"
and " Ten Thousand a Year." But Mr. Dickens
gave us abundant comicality to relieve the
painful details about his parish boy, and the
vivid style of Mr. Warren triumphantly sus
tained a painful plot. In this work we have
too much of imitation. Mr. Warren told
us about Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap,
and in " Walter Hurst" we are introduced to
Fligg, Bluster, and Sneak. Then we have
" the distinguished practitioner, Mr. Fair-
twister;" the sheriff of the county, " Mr. High-
tytighty ;" "Old Sligger," " Satchum," " Mr.
Clutcher," and a nomenclature indicative of
the habits and characters of the dramatis per
some—a practice which, as tending to dissolve
the illusion, ought to be avoided by novelists.
Under the name of " Mr. Hardheart " this
writer (whose politics appear to be ambiguous)
designates the late Sir Robert Peel ; and,
though the Conservative members of Parlia-
ment appear not to be favourites with him, we
find him writing in the following strain :

They took their seats. After a few minutes Mr. Hard-
heart rose in his usual cold, haughty, and commanding
manner, and without introduction said, that before he
spoke of himself and his colleagues he wished to give the
house an opportunity of reconsidering the extraordinary
vote to which it had come on a former night. To do
this he proposed a course which, in point of fact, though
not in form, was the adoption of the measure previously
rejected, adding that his further retention of office must
depend upon the manner in which this proposition was re-
ceived.

Walter listened with surprise. He deemed it impossible
that any man could be found, even in the humblest walk
of life, who would be willing to degrade himself to such an
extent as the minister now proposed that some members of
that house should do. He had voted against the measure
himself, and he felt the present proposition as a sort of
personal insult. But he judged of others by himself, and
was about to learn a lesson of what honourable stuff
British statesmen are sometimes made.

The minister had hardly sat down when one of the more
violent of the late speakers rose, and unblushingly told
the house that he had changed his opinions, and that he
should vote for the present proposition.
Walter listened in an agony of surprise He could not
credit his ears. He fancied there must be some delu-
sion in the sounds that reached him, since he could not
believe it possible that any member of the house could act
as this man had done. But another and another succeeded,
all admitting the same change of opinion, and openly
avowing their determination to support the minister.
Walter's feelings became so excited that he could endure
them no longer. He arose and left the house, that he
might endeavour to calm himself by a few minutes' re-
flection in solitude. He walked into the open sir, and
took his way to the banks of the Thames. It was a beau-
tiful starlight night. The dark waters of the river rolled
swiftly along in whirling eddies, as they had rolled from
the dawn of Time. He gazed into the vaulted concave of
heaven, and there saw the glories of nature unchanged in
their brightness. Thoughts of past ages and past events
crowded on his memory, and he seemed to commune with
the spirits of the departed. He then thought of the as-
sembly he had just left, and of the degradation of those
hitherto honourable and unspotted names which he had
witnessed. A spirit, as of inspiration, seemed to seize
him, and, with the holy fire of a pure patriotism enkindled
and burning within him, he returned to his place.

The hero then makes his maiden speech in
Parliament ; and if it were of the kind de-
scribed in the novel it would have been
received with laughter. But several passages
of this work indicate that the writer is not
accurate in his descriptions. In recounting a

SATURDAY,

terrible boxing match at a public school,
which ended in the death of one of the com-
batants, the author makes "Jones gather up
" all his remaining strength, and strike Glover
" a tremendous blow in the centre of the sto-
" mach," which is coolly narrated, without the
least indication of the bystanders crying out
" Foul ! " or the author suspecting it. On the
whole, however, "Walter Hurst " is superior
to some others of the novels contained in
Messrs. Routled?e's "Seven-shilling Series
of Original Fiction " (to which it belongs),
though it is decidedly below "Alderman
Ralph," the best of them. With all its draw -
backs, we have no doubt but that it will find
many readers who will peruse its varied inci-
dents with pleasure.