The Press.
London, England, 1857-04-18 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

We think that this confusion and want of
unity seriously detracts from the merit of
these fictions, and will most likely prevent
them from attaining permanent popularity.
Their chief merit lies in the development of
character, and in showing the influence exer-
cised over it by circumstances. The favourite
of the author in this production is Lord Fitz-
jocelyn. He is represented as of an amiable
disposition, very sensitive and facile, but with
great natural ability. The writer's invention
is displayed to the highest advantage in the
relation of incidents which bring out all the
fantastic hues of this character. He is Louis
le Debounaire, at once careless and feeling,
sad and sprightly, idle and active, foolish and
sensible. It is impossible not to admire the
instinctive skill with which his peculiar quali-
ties are manifested. When he totally forgets
some commissions with which he has been
charged, he has a gay answer ready :
Indeed, Mr. Holdsworth, I can say no more than that I
was a wretch not to remember. Next time I will write it
all down in the top of my hat, with a pathetic entreaty that
if my hat be stolen the thief shall fulfil the commiasicns,
and punctually send in the bill to the Rev. W. B.
Holdaworth.
This gay flightiness is admirably sustained,
and, being mingled with genuine feeling, and
great quickness of perception, makes the
character one of the most attractive the writer
has ever drawn.
He is contrasted with his cousin, James
Frost, who is east in a sterner mould. His
pride is uncompromising, and he is the cause
of much disaster throug setting up indepen-
dence as an idol to be worshipped. It does
not, however, appear natural that he should
relapse into something so near brutality or fail
so signally as he is represented to have done.
Still less was it necessary that the lovely and
poetic Isabel should decline with him.
Narrow circumstances are represented as de-
a 0 rading their natures :
Isabel sighed, partly at the memory of the imaginary
being for whom she had taken James, and partly at the
future prospect, the narrow sphere, the choice between
solitude and dull society, the homely toils that must in-
crease, worn-out garments, perpetual alphabets, children
always whining, and James always irritated, thinking her
remiss, and coming in with that furrow on Lis forehead,
and his hair standing up wildly.
The young couple have several children,
and are visited in their poverty by Lord Fitz-
jocelyn
Dinner was announced by Charlotte, as usual, all neat
grace and simplicity, in her black dress and white apron,
but flushed and heated by exertions beyond her strength.
All that depended on her had been well done; but it
would nut seem to have occurred to her mistress that
three people ate more than two ; and to Louis, who had
been too busy to take any luncheon, the two dishes
seemed alarmingly small. One was of haricot mutton, the
other of potatoes ; and Charlotte might be seen to blush as
she carried Lord Fitzjocelyn the plate containing a chop
resembling India rubber, decorated with grease and with
two balls of nearly raw carrot, and followed it up with
potatoes apparently all bruises.
Louis talked vigorously of Virginia and Louisa—se-
cretly marvelling how his hosts hal brought themselves
down to such fare. Isabel was dining without apparently
seeing anything amiss, and James attempted nothing but
a despairing toss of his chin as he pronounced the carrots
underdone. After the first course there was a long inter.
vat, during which Isabel and Louis composedly talked
about the public meeting which he had been attending, and
James fidgetted in the nervousness of hardly-restrained
displeasure; but suddenly a frightful shrieking arose, and
he indignantly cried, " That girl !"
fi," Poor Charlotte in her hysterics again," said Isabel,
moving off, quickly for her, with the purple scent-bottle
at her ,hatelaine.
" Isabel makes her twice as bad," exclaimed James ;
"to pet her with eau-de-Cologne is mere nonsense. Some
day I shall throw a bucket of cold water over her."
Isabel had left the door open, and they heard her softly
comforting Charlotte with " Never mini," and " Lord
Fitzjocelyn would not care," till the storm lulled. Char-
lott.e crept off to her room, and Isabel returned to the
dinner-table.
" Well, what's the matter now ?" said James.
" Poor Charlotte !" said Isabel, smiling ; it seems that
she trusted to making a grand appearance with the remains
of yesterday's pudding, and that she was quite overact by
the discovery that Ellen and Miss Catharine had been
marauding on them."
" You don't mean that Kitty has been eating that heavy
pudding at this time of night ?" cried James.
" Kitty eats everything," was the placid answer; " and
I do not think we can blame Ellen, for she often comes
down after our dinner to find something for the nursery
supper."
" Things go on in the most extraordinarymanner," mut-
tered James.
" I suppose Charlotte misses Jane," said Louis. " She
looks ill."
" No wonder," said James, " she is not strong enough
for such work. She has no method, and yet she is the

387

only person who ever thinks of doing a thing properly. I
wish your friend Madison would come home and take her
off our hands, for she is always alternating between fits of
novel-reading and of remorse, in which she nearly works
herself to death with running after lost time."
" I should be sorry to part with her," saia Isabel ; " she
is so quiet, and so fond of the children."
" She pill break down some day," said James; " if not
before, certainly when she hears that Madison has a Peru-
vian wife."

" There is no more to come," said Isabel, rising; "shall
we come upstairs?"
James took up the candles and Louis followed, consi-
derably hungry, and for once provoked by Isabel's serene
certainty that nobody cared whether there were anything
to eat.

This episode of domestic poverty, like many
others in the book, answers little purpose.
James's temper is first soured by misfortune,
and then sweetened by it. Both changes are
nailer too sudden to appear very probable.
In this as in her previous works the
authoress plays too much with the sympathies
of her readers. She pathetically describes
dcath-beds which after all turn out to be beds
of recovery. Fitziocelyn is represented as
dangerously ill. When he sinks to sleep ex-
hausted, " they felt what that sleep might
" become !" When his eyes close, and a calm,
pure sweetness settles down upon his face,
the clergyman exclaims:—

We might as well wish to detain a snow•wreath!
Yet, turning over the next page, we find that
all the tears called forth by the pathos of this
painful scene were unnecessary—" That sleep
" was not unto death," and " gradually there
" was a diminution of the dangerous symp-
" toms." The authoress must know the result
of crying " Wolf " when the fold is safe. We
think novelists generally act injudiciously in
exciting sympathies and anticipations which
the result does not justify.
As for the merits of the book, they are pecu-
liarly those which took the public by storm iu
" The Heir of Redclyfle " The personages
have an appearance of actual life, and their
very eccentricities become them. Some of
the reflections, especially those which are
illustrative of character, are exceedingly
shrewd. The moral tone is pure; and against
that total want of artistic aim and skilful
manipulation of material on which we have
dwelt, must be set the animation which
naturally springs from perpetual movement
and the never-ceasing current of some kind of
action.

Kansas ; or, Squatter Life and Border Warfare
in the Far West. By Thomas H. Gladstone.
London: Routledge.

This volume is a reprint of the letters which
appeared in the Times not long since, with
considerable additions, and not a few correc-
tions. The picture given of Kansas is striking,
and abounds with touches that realise the
extraordinary nature of life in that strange
community. The last line of the volume is,
" How the contest will end time only can
" show," which is a platitude of the oracular
kind. But enough is stated even in this work
to prove that the pro-slavery party has far
more tenacity than superficial observers sup-
pose. Mr. T. H. Gladstone, like Mr. Russell
(the Crimean correspondent of the Times), is
an adept in describing external life, though
setting up no pretensions as a writer. His
quick eye, and talent for seizing details,
-enable him to produce remarkable descrip-
tions. But he is not a thinker, and it is
impossible to obtain the highest merit as a
traveller without habits of reflection.

We read these letters with interest at the
time of their publication, and we have again
examined them. There is one cause tending
to keep up slavery which has never received
sufficient attention from the controversialists
on the Abolition side. There is a coarse love
of power, a base desire of class ascendancy, at
the bottom of the political love of slavehold-
ing. To detend slavery for selfish reasons
and for commercial gain is one thing; to
insist on keeping it up as an "institution " is
a different purpose, and the distinction is not
always apprehended. The pages before us
attest that the latter object inspires the border-
ruffianism of Kansas. Some of the most
perverse, and yet powerful, passions of the
human heart are illustrated by the history of
slavery in America during the last fifty years.