The Press.
London, England, 1857-05-16 00:00:00

MAY 16, 1857.

attempts at their removal. Sir Charles him-
self, too, who begins to find his youth return-
ing to him under the genial influence of his
companions, makes but a very feeble protest ;
and things go on in a very gay and rollicking
sort of fashion for some time, until a sudden
discovery about Lord Walter estranges Lavinia
from him, and brings about the departure of
himself and Camilla from the hall. Of course
Sir Charles has been in love with Lavinia
from the first ; but the invincible conviction
that he is an old man prevents him from doing
justice to his pretensions. It is only by an
accident at last that he discovers the state of
her feelings towards himself—and then the
story terminates in the usual way.
The action, from the first page to the last,
continues in one place, and is confined almost
entirely to four people. We have no " acci-
dents and offences" of any sort, and the whole
interest is centered on the denouement of the
situation of two young ladies and two gentle-
men in a country-house, who are all playing at
cross-purposes through the greater part of the
story. We do not think, as we have before
said, that this will find favour with the Eng-
lish public ; but the few who prefer delicate
characterisation and a playful exposure of the
foibles and infirmities of the female sex, will
find in " Dark and Fair" a most capital enter-
tainment. The incidents occur
,just as they
would do in real life, and the whole tale wears
a wonderfully natural and human aspect. The
two young ladies are drawn with equal spirit
and exactness. Camilla is a refined romp ;
Lavinia is pensively passionate ; both are
thorough women. Their little piques, jea•
lousies, and sulkiness are drawn to the life.
Lavinia, perhaps, shows the closest observa.
tion of women, but Camilla is our favourite ;
her unflagging spirits, her dash, and her
sauciness are irresistible, and we must say
that we think our friend " Calcraft " made a
mistake in his choice.

" Caleraft " himself is an admirable portrait of
a cultivated, kindly, but somewhat melancholy
character, who looks at the worst side of
things in general and always at the worst side
of himself. It is in painting such characters
as these that this author excels, though Sir
Charles Rockingham is the best he has yet
done. The worst of it is, however, that it by
no means follows because a character is na-
tural that he may not therefore be a bore. Sir
Charles is not quite that, but still his eternal
diffidence does become rather tedious at last,
and his perpetual good advice rather prosy.
He should have married the gay and practical
Camilla, for, as the latter once remarked, he
and Lavinia are too much alike to live coin.
Portably together.
Lord Walter undoubtedly displays real
humorous power. His quaint and exagge-
rated affectation provokes laughter. But we
laugh as at a caricature, rather than a living
original. We question whether his extreme
sangfroid in the case of Miss Selina Brown be
not greatly overlone, though we may observe
in passing that the conduct of the young
ladies on that occasion is exhibited with re-
markable truthfulness, and evinces that close
and fruitful study of female manners which
only the genuine man of the world is enabled
to exercise.

The moral of this story is not particularly
good, for it inculcates disobedience to parents
and contempt of guardians. The diction is
rather stiff, but the style is simple, and is that
of a gentleman, if not a perfect English
Writer.

Essays awl Sketches. By the late William
Pitt Seargill, Author of " Truckleborough
Hall," " The Usureis Daughter," &e.
London : Hardwielce.

THE late Mr. Scargill possessed talents with-
out genius, and had a capacity for observing
common things. But he wanted originality,
grace, and fancy ; and he was prone to apply
his pen to themes requiring vivid sympathy
and springs of deep emotion. The best part
of this volume is its table of contents, which
would have taxed the powers of Charles Lamb
or Washington Irving. We quote part of it.—

.. ... -
The Decline of Poetry—The Public—The Minor Aris-
tocracy—Common Novel Readers—Better Days—The Old
Place—Fact and Fiction—Readers and Writers--Per•

THE PRESS.

aonalities of Literature—The Disappointed Man —Courage
and Cowardice—My Schoolmaster's Daughter—Profundity
—Civilisation—Confessions of a Tond•Eater—My Two
Aunts—The Lad of Crenius—The Wise and Good—
Chivalry—The Rage.
- -

But when we come to examine the way in
which these topics arc treated, we are made to
think of the tantalising sufferings of the fre-
quenters of a " popular ' foreign hotel at the
West•end, where the carte is worthy of Soyer,
but where the cookery reminds ono of the
swindle of the Royal B►itish Bank.

An essayist must either be profound or
light and fascinating. Mr. Scargill wanted
vigour for the first, and subtle eloquence for
the last. He bus no sweet or softly musical
prose when he tries to record emotional sensa-
tions. " The Old Place," for example, ought
to be suggestive of delicate fancies. He
attempts the theme thus :
Who that has lived beyond the middle of life, in the
vicissitudes which belong to humanity, and has been long
and far away from his early home, has not at times had
affectionate yearnings after a sight of the old place ? And
who, after years of absence, turning to visit the old place,
has not felt himself in some measure disappointed?
Who has not found, under such circumstances, his poetry
wither and fade into prose? Life's poetry is like the
rainbow: we can see it only at a distance—we can never
catch it.

These are precisely the thoughts of a prosaic
mind ; but on such a theme we want to see
described the feelings of a common nature
elevated into something poetic by the recollec-
tion of " the days that aro no more," and
powerfully moved at sight of the ancient roof-
tree or neglected garden, hallowed with the
memories of life's early morning. In another
part of the same essay he observes upon a
class of feelings which some of our readers
may have experienced :

The greatest change of all, however, in the old place
and that which affected me most deeply, was the change in
my old friends—the companions of my youth. Some of
them were dead—others worse than dead to me, they were
changed—my old schoolfellows, my former neighbours,
those with whom I was once as intimate as their own
thoughts—the men, the women, the children, of whom I
have frequently dreamed and constantly thought when in
India, all seem to be as completely altered as the Strand at
Charing cross. Judging from the manner in which they
receive me, i should fancy they had never once thought of me
since I left England. Several of them had some difficulty
to recollect me, and made many mistakes about my
name. Surely it lowers a man's sense of his own itnpor•
tance to be taken for another person—it signifies nA
whether the individual for whom he is n i.taken be high
or low, rich or poor : I think it would hurt my sense of
self•love to be mistaken for the wisest, the best, the highest
of mankind When one loses his identity, he loses every-
thing; for there is something in self, which, I know not
how, why, or wherefore, places a man in his own thoughts
above every other individual.
Au ashy sensation is, indeed, communicated
to any sensitive person who seeks to revive an
old friendship, and who finds that the flame of
early affection has burnt out into cinders. But
the susceptible have exquisite pleasures even
if they 'neve proportionate pains. It is for
them, and not for merely prosy beings, to
thrill with the sensations described by the
poet—
Thus memory draws from delight, ere it dies,
An essence that breathes it many a year ;
And dear to my heart as 't was then to my eyes
Is that bower by the side of the calm liendemeer.
The thought in that passage is not a mere
rhetorical conceit But the "delight" could
in the first instance be felt only by the sus•
ceptible, and in coarse or callous natures the
thoughts of " the old place " would not long
remain " dear to the heart." An essayist like
Mr. Scargill wants the glowing instincts which
on such themes inform the mind more fully
than hours of grave reflection.
If a light essayist has not wit or sentiment,
he ought to have rich humour, or joyous
animal spirits. A commonplace bookworm,
the pest of circulating libraries and the ruth-
less tyrant of small tea parties, is thus sketched
by Mr. Scargill

But your true reader, your kelluo librorunt, your per-
secutor of old maids who keep circulating libraries, is an
intelligible and definite character. He sticks to his
business, and follows his pursuit up closely and perse•
veringly. He lets no new book come out without seeing
something about it. He lives upon the literature of the
day ; anti why the literature of the day should not be
quite as good as the literature of yesterday what mortal
can tell? A genuine reader has a kind of instinct, by
which he is directed to reading-rooms, and coffee-houses,
and subscription-rooms, precisely at the moment when the
papers are accessible, and he reads them conscientiously
and pertinaciously. Even so he sticks to magazines and
reviews. and his eyes sxm rivetted to the pages of

quarterly productions. Wishing to mix the utile with the
dulce, and to blend instruction with entertainment, he
reads all that comes in his way, and he that reads every-
thing is sure to read something good. He reads morals,
and metaphysics, and gossip, and sentimentality, and
science: he amalgamates conundrums and mathematics;
he solves problems and guesses riddles; he devours
Magyar poetry and deciphers Chinese characters; and it
is no forced transition if he pus over front the balance of
Europe to the squabbles of Murphy Delaney and Patrick
Mahoney. It is all grist that comes to his mill ; it is
reading, and he that reads does something, while he that
thinks does nothing. Your rending man has not a
stomach that digests that which he devours, but he has a
gizzard like that of a goose which grinds all into one
mass. His eyes are never weary, and his mind is never
full. He resembles Baron Munchausen's horse, who,
when his hind quarters were cut off by a portcullis, stood
at a trough to drink, drink, all day long, never tired and
never full.

Here we leave our inventory of qualities, but
there is no gleam of fancy beyond the bor-
rowed and hackneyed illustration of Mun-
chausen's horse. Enumeration of points differs
as much from true description as a milliner's
bill from a figure in full dress, or a page of a
catalogue from a row of volumes. " Life "
must be breathed into descriptions. Wanting
animation, they want everything.
The popular essay is a form of writing almost
peculiar to English literature. Its fatal fault is
a tendency to heaviness, as essayists can rarely
take up the exciting subjects of religion or
politics; and they cannot use dramatic forms
to give relief and contrasted variety to their
thoughts. It is a great mistake to suppose
that the essay form has lost its appropriate use.
It gives great play to versatile minds, and
suits the habits of the reading public iu
England.

New Zealand, or Zealandia, the Britain of the
South. By Charles Hursthouse. Two Vols.

Loudon: Stanford.
IT is a suspicious fact that few political
writers upon colonial subjects venture into
print in praise of their colony until they aro
resettled in England. Then—no matter whether
they come from the coasts of Guinea or Guiana,
New Zealand or Northern America— having
made their money, and left their health and
hardships behind them, they sit down delibe-
rately to tell the world that there is no place
in it comparable to their pet colony for a tine
climate, cheap and good land, or high interest
for money ; in a word, that it combines every
possible advantage for accumulating a rapid
fortune, and for enabling the intending emi-
grant in a brief period to return to England a
great capitalist.
New Zealand is an excellent case in point.
For years we have heard of nothing else from
retired colonists but of the fine opening these
islands offered to emigrants ; how they may
get seventy bushels of wheat off their acre ;
how their sheep and cattle will thrive ; how
heir vegetables will grow ; and, in fact, how
with a small capital they might suddenly and
would certainly become prosperous proprietors
and founders of a family which might one day
govern the world, or supply Mr. Macaulay
with his speculative Spirit.
Now, if with this anticipated prospect
there were mixed some such plain matters of
fact as, for instance, that the islands, except
in the immediate neighbourhood of the
settlements, are a vast primeval forest—that if
you buy a farm in a settled district you may
grow your wheat or potatoes, but you can get
no market for them—that as for high interest
for your money you never get back the capital,
and are not often paid the interest—that
your sheep get " hoven " on the " tutu,"
or die of the foot rot or scab, and your
cattle of any other indigenous or imported
disease—that a bush lire may burn down
your homesteads, and that in twenty-four
hours from being prosperous you mg),
become bankrupt and beggared—it would not
only be a more just view of the chances of
colonial sue.ess, but it would be more fair to
the public, and, on the whole, less injurious to
the colony.

In these days, perhaps, few educated men
are really carried away by the bright pictures
retired colonists paint of their deserted homes.
But the uninstructed middle classes who
hourly crowd from our shores leave them full
of false hopes and vain illusions, a few months
after to curse the day that brought them to

MAY 16, 11
attempts at their
self, too, who begit
ing to him under
companions, make:
and things go on is
sort of fashion for
discovery about Lo
from him, and Uri
himself and Camil.
Sir Charles has
from the first ; hr
that he is an old m
justice to his pre
accident at last du
her feelings towa
story terminates it
The action, from
continues in one p
entirely to four pc
dents and offences
interest is centeret
situation of two yo
men in a country-I]
cross-purposes thr(
story. We do not
said, that this will
lish public ; but 1,1
characterisation an
foibles and infirtni
find in "Dark and
tainment. The in]
would do in real lit
a wonderfully natu
two young ladies a
and exactness. C
Lavinia is pensiv(
thorough women.
lousies, and sulkin
Lavinia, perhaps,
tutu of women, but
her unflagging ap
sauciness are irre
that we think our
mistake in his Choi
"Calcraft" 'inns(
a cultivated, kindly
character, who lot
things in general a
of himself. It is it
as these that this
Charles Rockingha
done. The worst
no means follows
tural that he may
Charles is not quit
diffidence does bee
and his perpetual
He should have nu
Camilla, for, as the
and Lavinia are to
Portably tcgether.
Lord Walter t:
humorous power.
rated affectation p
laugh as at a cant
original. We quc
sangfroid in the ca
not greatly overhn
in passing that t
ladies on that occ
markable truthful]
and fruitful study
only the genuine n
to exercise.
The moral of th
good, for it inculca
and contempt of
rather stiff, but th(
of a gentleman,
writer.
Essays and Sketc?
Pitt Seargill,
Hall," " The U
London : Hardt%
THE late Mr. Scan
out genius, and I
common things.
grace, and fancy ;
his pen to them(
and springs of dec
of this volume is
would have taxed I
or Washington Try
The Decline of Poetr
tocracy—Common Kona
Place—Fact and Fict