The Press.
London, England, 1858-08-28 00:00:00

T. H E PRESS, AUGUST 28, 1858.

successes in novel-writing. Season after season a
new crowd of writers come forward, ill-prepared
and ill-trained; their books are printed with
sonic trouble and expense ; they fail decisively,
and they have not courage to repeat the attempt
again. Ilere and there a few succeed, and on the
fitith of an accidental triumph they repeat them-
selves again and again, exhausting themselves
and their readers. Thus the manufacture of
novels falls after all into a few hands, and there
is less of variety in English current fiction than
could be anticipated. Idle men and idle women
have the leisure to compose novels, while artists,
and journalists, and musicians have not the quiet
hours at their command for describing their views
of life, or giving utterance to their social convic-
tions. When the careless young novelists find
that their works arc not successful, they never
care to study harder, or strive to make their pro-
ductions better. In short they never consider
themselves as literary apprentices, and they
expect to become masters of the art of writing all
at once. If they would write under the idea of
pupilage, they would finally do more, and might
achieve a permanent success.
1. In " Laighton Manor" we have a striking
instance of the truth of the foregoing observa-
tions. It is a tale in which cleverness and care-
lessness are equally blended, and in which much
spirited drawing froni real life is spoiled by the
scandalously ungrammatical language of the
writers. It seems to be the production of two
sisters, one of them taking the English, and the
other the German scenes; and it is a pity that
they did not obtain the aid of a professional
" reader" to correct their letterpress. They
have vivacity of conception, and they can quickly
appreciate character, but they have neglected the
arGilin-ry rules of syntax, and the odd mixture
resulting from their natural liveliness and inco-
herent grammar is extremely queer. For ex-
ample, Lord Mamby is sketched as follows :

Lord Mamby was one of those gentlemen who know very
well indeed how to take care of themselves. He was an
eminent " coddle." A tit of severe illness had at one time
Drought him to the verge of tho grave, and he did not
make his escape from doctors' pill-boxes and cod-liver oil,
till his confidence in his constitution was shaken, and an
imaginary valetudinarianism had given him an almost
effeminate address, which with the nervous fear he had of
catching cold, rendered him occasionally an object of ridi-
cule among his more athletic companions. With an un-
pardonable weakness and want of trust, he suffered that
terrible nigh, mare a dread of consumption ever to haunt
him, like the skeleton at a banquet to be concealed in the
background of every scene, and to drive the little manliness
the doctors had lett out of him.
In the last sentence, the metaphor " like the
" skeleton at a banquet to be concealed in the
" background of every scene," is incoherent.
The writers heard of " the skeleton in the closet,"
and they had read of apparitions at banquet
scenes, and they jumbled the two together ; but
the use of the future tense, " to be concealed,"
and the "background of every scene at a banquet,"
makes a most incongruous metaphor. The cha-
racter is thus continued :
Some of his lungs were always wrong, and his head and
his hesrt never seemed able to agree as to the precise
number of beats the latter might to give a moment. He
never left the house without all accumulation of great coats,
under which another man would have fainted, and was a
perfect connoisseur in respirators, cheat preservers, and
wollen 'unifiers. Night air was his abhorrence, a shower
of rain sudden death, and the accidental leaving open of
the church door on Sundays effectually destroyed his devo-
tion and his equanimity for a week. As he would almost
as soon have thrown himself downstairs and broken his
neck, as endangerAl it by hunting, and was partial neither
to guns nor greyhounds, lie never engaged in field sports,
and found his principal amusements in reading green-
covered novels of questionable morality and bad taste, and
in loitering about pastry cooks' shops, buying kisses and
bonbons, the papers of which he opened, and having read,
I sorted into packets to throw across the table to the young
ladies of his acquaintance.
" Some of his lungs" may have been intended
as a touch of humour ; but several grammatical
blemishes occur in the remainder of the passages ;
" as"-es are scattered with forgetfulness of their
absent friends "so " and " since," and pronouns
arc " cut" altogether. The Misses Melrose are
thus described :
They were the best dressers, best coquettes, best pianists
and polka dancers in the neighbourhood in which they
lived ; handsome, larly-like girls, distinguished fur an ease
and gaiety of manners, and a talent for animated though
common-place conversation. 111-natured maiden ladies
and gentlemen, who were innocent enough to think that a
pretty, lively girl ought to bare wore than two ideas iu her
head, i. e. herself and her conquests.
What about those " ill-natured maiden ladies
and gentlemen "? Did they my anything parli•