The Sun.
London, England, 1855-02-12 00:00:00

55

LITERATURE.

The Martins of Cro' Martin. Nos. 1., 11., and
111. By Charles Lever.
As welcome to us as flowers in May, or ices in
Angust, or humming ale in December, are the two
pink leaves put forth at stated intervals by the
monthly rose of our old, trusty, and right pleasant
friend Harry Lorrequer. There would really seem
to be an inexhaustible fecundity in his imagination.
For scarcely has the double number, xix. and
xx., made its Siamese-like entrée into the world
of letters—bringing Mr. Lever's last new work to
a merry conclusion (for they all end merrily by a
sort of right prescriptive)—when the prospectus of
some blithe successor is sure, within a very brief
interval, indeed, to make its accustomed appear-
ance. It has been thus with our novelist from the
commencement—from the commencement of his
career—as the most roystering and rollicking of the
periodical contributors to light literature. Nay,
‘ve remember well enough, in illnstratien of his
prolific capacity as a fictionist, how once upon a
time one of the liveliest of his stories rose out of its
ashes after the manner of that paragon of poultry,
the phcenix—the chief portion of the tale in question
having been consumed accidentally in MS., while
the .earlier instalments were in actual course of
publication. Whereupon Mr. Lever needed only
the aid for a couple of fortnights of his ready friend,
and yet readier writer, •Mr. G. P. R. James, to fill
up the gap of a single issue by some aptly-told
tale of conflagration—while the real Simon Pure of
the seri 1 reproduced chapter after chapter (out of
the magical blending, we may presume, of fancy
and of memory), the incidents which had
been originally recounted by him in the ill-
fated manuscript, destroyed while its hierogly-
phics were being translated into the verna-
cular of legible typography. Ex uno disce
omnes, or rather—ex pede Herculem. The
occurrence here reverted
.to is, we take it, suffi-
ciently significant of Mr. Lever's fruitfulness of in-
vention and energy of penmanship, being, as it is,
one among the more notable events in his literary
progress since the period of his advent amongst us
through the pages afterwards so agreeably edited
under his own auspices, the pages we mean of the
gay and scholarly Dublin University Magazine.
An advent, it may be well remembered, how an-
nounced. Not by any timorous or winning words
of propitiation, but by the boisterous hilarity and
the devil-me-care swagger of that unconscionable
scapegrace " Harry Lorrequer," a subaltern in a
marching regiment. Hardly had We recovered
from the laughter provoked, peal after peal, by the
equivoques and contretemps, by the mingled blarney
and badinage of that wild outburst of Irish animal
spirits, than our risibility was yet further taxed by
our author with an unscrupulousness as glaring as
might be expected from the Comic Chancellor of the
Exchequer in the Realms of Nonsense, under the
premiership of Rigdum Funnidos, and the sway of
the burlesque sceptre of some high and mighty
Crononhotonthologos. For forth came the second
and what we cannot but still regard as incompar-
ably the. best, the wittiest, the liveliest, the most
genuinely and spontaneously humorous of all
Charles Lever's effusions--to wit, his namesake
"Charles O'Malley," of the famous 14th LightDra-
groons. Afterwards appeared what promised to be a
collective publication of story after story from the
hand of our novelist—a work generically entitled
" Our Mess," but one which, notwithstanding all
its early promise and intrinsic merit, ceased as pre-
maturely and proved to be altogether as much a
failure as the yet more renowned @ma'am
gatherum of Harry Lorrequer's illustrious con-
temporary Boz viz., " Master Humphrey's
Clock." Precisely, however, as the last-mentioned
serial gave birth to the " Old Curiosity Shop" and
to " Barnaby Rudge," so also did Mr. Lever's
magnum opus amuse the multitude of his readers
with the twin fictions of "Jack Hinton, the Guards-
man," and " Tom Burke, of Ours' "—bringing
us acquainted with the Dublin carmen who tossed
up for their " faro" directly he set foot on the
shores of the emerald isle at Kingston; as later on
with the whims and oddities of cross old Corney
Delaney, or still better even with the fortunes of
the steeplechase dependinc, on the wilful temper of
the high-mottled racer Aroderideroo. Besides nu-
merous off-ventures in his literary career—such,
for example, as the little national story about " St.
Patrick's Eve" (written upon the model of the
Christmas narratives rendered popular by Boz's
immortal " Carol"), or such again, for instance, as
the lengthier memorial of the haps and mishaps of
queer, stout, old blundering " Arthur O'Leary"—
our novelist has advanced steadily and untiringly
with serial novel after novel, duly illustrated in
monthly numbers by the equally inexhaustible
Phiz—nom de crayon of Hablot Knight Browne.
Introducing us after this fashion, now to "The
O'Donoghue," now to the "Knight of Gwynne"
Lis gallant, friend Daly, now to " Roland
Cashel," now to " The Daltons," n )w to the "Dodd
Family" at Home and Abroad, and now again, as
we are just beginning to be so delightfully aware
in instalment after instalment to the latest groupc
in thiS numerous family of fictions, " The Martins
of Cro' Martin." It would be difficult, not
to say injudicious, to express any decided
opinion as to the general merits and demerits of
the narrative . hero commenced by Mr. Lover,
without waiting yet awliilo for its somewhat further
development. Eueugh if we venture to observe as
yet, that the work promises almost as largely as the
majority of its predecessors. Already we have
learnt to recognise, if not quite yet to admit into
the inner circle of our affections, the strange wild
Irish girl—Mary Martin—in character having
something analogous to that of Mr. Layer's own
" Baby Blake," and something reminding us too of
Sir Walter's "Di' Vernon," the brave and beau-
tiful. Martin himself, the lord of Cro' Martin, is
well depicted ; as also may be said of his lady wife,
the elegant, haughty, and insouciance. Maurice
Scanlan, moreover, is already a veritable creation
—the dapper attorney driving his tandem, to the
herror of his proud patron of Cro' Martin Castle.
Though the latest instalment of the fiction, the num-
ber (III.) for the present month of February, we have
become rather more interested in the intermingling
fortunes of the low-born genius Joe Nelligan,
and of the high-born man of the world Jack Mas-
singbred—as well as in those of the wayward Mary
Martin, and of the gentle Catty Henderson. We
can almost foresee even now how Catty will, before
the end of the book, marry Joe Nelligan, and
Mary, perhaps, in like manner, become the spouse
of Jack Massingbred. About the most humorous
character already sketched upon the canvas
by the hand of our eminently pictorial fiction-
writer is that of Mrs. Nelligan, a sort of Irish Mrs.
Nickleby, who thus comments, at page 75, over
the dearness of provisions, when Joe calls the said
dearness a fact beyond denial :—" A very melan-
choly fact, my, dear ; and so I said to Betty Gar-
gan yesterday. It's well for you,' said I, and
the likes of you, that use nothing but potatoes ;
but think of us that have to pay sixpence a pound
for mutton, six-and-a-half for the prime pieces, and
veal not to be had under eightpence.' They talk
of the poor, indeed ! but sure they never suffer
from a rise in butchers' meat, and care nothing at
all what tea costs. I assure you I made the tears
come into her eyes with the way I described our
hardships." Besides the personages already men-
tioned as taking part in this story of " The Mar-
tins of Cro' Martin," there are already sundry
others worthy of mention, conspicuous among
them, Simmy Crow, the obscure, impoverished,
and threadbare artist enthusiast. Enough, how-
ever, yet awhile as to the incidents and characters
of the new serial story by Harry Lorrequer. Com-
menced as agreeably as these have been in the
three numbers already published, we shall watch
with interest the course of their gradual inter-
mixture and development.

History of Woman. By S. W. Fullom. 2 vols.

Longman.
when
w e
reflect which
woWmahnenhaws eexcearlelisetod
imnindthe influence
history,
e
on the alterations and vicissitudes which have
affected her social position, and the various de_
grees of estimation in wltich she is even now re-
garded in different countries, we shall feel that her
history and " her connection with religion, civilisa-
tion, and- domestic manners, from the earliest
perm
• d ~ is neither an uneventful nor an uninterest-
ing record. To be convinced of this we need but
to recal the names of a few of those heroines of
ancient history who have affected the fate of em-
pires or ruled the destines of nations, or shone in
the paths of learning or literature, or, better still,
have distinguished themselves by the exercise of
their more characteristic qualities by their self-
sacrifice, their devotion, or their endurance. The
darker side of the history, too, presents a no less
striking list. We may all remember some whose
names are remembered but to bo denounced—who
have shown how the fiercest passions, the most in-
human cruelty, the most -violent hatred and mali-
cious revenere, may transform the nature of woman
into a rival of the most ferocious and unrelenting
tyrant. But the opportunity of displaying her
innate virtues was no sooner offered than embraceo.
Women may remember with pride that it was in
them the New Faith, which exposed its disciple s
to every imaginable trouble and difficulty, found
manyof its earliest and most steadfast supporters.
Though through so many ages degraded and slighted,
women soon proved to the world how ill they had.
judged who bad regarded them as an inferior race,
and attested in the flames of martyrdom their devo-
tion, their constancy, and their faith. Whether
we regard these heroines of later days or their
pre-
decessors, Cleopatra, Zenobia, Semiramis,
dicea, or their successors Queen Elizabeth,
Mar-
guerite of -Valois, Maria Theresa and her unfor-