The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-13 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

THE NEW STORY.

Zaidee. A Romance.

By Margaret Oliphant.

3 vols. Blackwood and Sons.

MARGARET OLIPHANT must henceforth take high
rank among our female novelists. Her exquisite
romance of Zaidee is the corner-stone of her re-
putation. It is to her what "Mary Barton" was
to Mrs. Gaskell, what " Emilia Wyndham " was
to Mrs. Marsh, what " The Head of the Family"
was to Dinah Mulock, what "Jane Eyre" was to
peer Charlotte Bronte—her undoubted master-
piece. Zaidee, we take it, is, after all, even more
than this. It is as essentially a picture of the
times we live in, as formerly was that which, some
ten or fifteen years ago, Mrs. Charles Gore pre-
sented to view through the wit and sparkle of her
"Mrs. Armitage," or as clever, vigorous Mrs.
Trollope revealed, in her way, through her famous
" Widow Barnaby," the vulgar, bouuceable, and
self-sufficient. Nay—we might even venture to
observe of 'Zaidee that it is no less distinctly the
opening of a new vein in the literature of imagi-
nation, that is quite as much the' commencement
of a novel school in prose fiction as shone forth
once upon a time in the " Florence M`Carthy" of
Sydney Morgan, or more obviously still in the " Eve-
lina" of Fanny Burney, or yet again, in a stranger
region of romance, in the "Mysteries of Udolpho,"
conjured up by the grimly genius of Anne Rad-
cliffe. " Zaidee," however, romance though it
avows itself to be, is at the same time so true, so
fresh, so sweet from first to last as a representa-
tion of the world about us nowadays—so per-
fectly, so accurately, so distinctly does it portray
the various phases of the social state in England
during this feverish core of the nineteenth cen-
tury—central point in an age of steam engines
and electric telegraphs—that we conceive it to be
altogether, as such, beyond the reach of imita-
tion. The delightful genius of the writer wo our-
selves were among the first to recognise. We can
recal to mind with pleasure the cordial greeting
accorded by us to her earlier contributions to the
pages of our glorious Blackwood, the magazine of
magazines. Having tried her "'prentice hand"
so deftly in the minor stories of "Katie
Stewart," of " John Rintoul," and of " The
Quiet Heart," our authoress at length adventured
upon the more daring project of producing a
three-volumed romance to appear originally under
the shadow of the perennial thistle-branch, em-
bowering in its thicket of coral berries and eme-
rald leaves the hooded effigy of rare old Geordie
Buchanan. A hazardous enterprise enough,
coming before the world, as "Zaidee" was thus
compelled to do, in formidable association with
some of the most remarkable and brilliant serial-
tales of the present generation. " Zaidee" fol-
lowed, in other words, to speak more plainly, im-
mediately in the track of that memorable proces-
sion which had swept by, month after month, in
the motley creations constituting the glory of
such consummate works of art as " The Caxtons"
and " Ten Thousand a Year." Especially must
the danger of all such contrasts be admitted when
it is borne in recollection how very recently what
must be regarded as in many respects the most
extraordinary fiction of our times, the master-
work of a master-genius, "THE Novel," par ex-
celle ace, of Sir Bulwer Lytton, had but just com-
pleted in Maga the revelation of so much wisdom,
and wit, and pathos, and humour, and poetry,
and imagination.
Yet, coming as it did almost immediately after
"My Novel," Mrs. Oliphant's charming romance
of "Zaidee" is so much of a success, is so far
from a failure, that we do not hesitate to proclaim
it at once a new triumph for Blackwood' s Maya-
and (so far as our author's writings have
yet proceeded) the crown of her reputation. Mrs.
Oliphant wo have for seine length of time re-
garded as altogether unapproachable as a
painter of scenery fresh and sparkling with the
dews of heaven. Under her hands a little bit of
hedgerow glittering with raindrops grows forth
from the page, a "thing of beauty" to be lingered
over by the reader and studied microscopically, as
it were, with a loving and wondering admiration.
The pencil of the artist brings out every detail
with such a wondrous witchery of verisimilitude
—every freak and stain of the lichen scrawled
about the gnarled old root of the hawthorn iu the
thicket, every emerald feather of the moss among
the grass blades, every water-bead twinkling from
the point of a twig into a bulbous raindrop—
hero and there may be a cowslip budding out
among the mouldering leaves of the last autumn,
or a glimpse caught of the deep, delicious,
odorous blue of some rath eialet half hidden
among the gloom of the overshadowing bramble.
Descriptive fragments like those we allude to, as
abounding in the effusions of our authoress, fall
from her pen as wonderfully true to the natural
prototypes therein represented, as the magic pig-
ments fall from the brush of Mr. Hunt the water-
colourist in depicting, say for the nonce, every
thin silken straw in a bird's nest, or every deli-
cate splotch and speckle on the warm, smooth,
oval eggs within it ! Apart, however, from these
subordinate merits of accuracy in her descriptions,
Margaret Oliphant possesses a combination of rare
and enviable faculties, faculties rare and enviable as
those of a teller of new tales, or as those of a
creator of new characters. How admirably, for
example, has she not already revealed these high
capacities as a writer of fiction in those three
charming minor tales of hers already enumerated.
In " Katie Stewart," in " John Rintoul," in
"The Quiet Heart." Best of all, howbeit, in her
latest work, in this exquisite romance of hers,
very recently brought to so happy and effective
a conclusion. How she realises to us all the am-
ple and varied scenery amidst which the enthral-
ling incidents of the romance of "Zaidee" are seen
to transpire. Whether this may chance to be
upon the windy welds of Cheshire, or among the
dingy area-railings or dingier house fronts of
Bloomsbury—among the quaint old streets of
Ulm, under the midiieval shadow of its cathe-
dral, or among the gravel paths and flowery
lawns of pleasant suburban Twickenham. How
ingeniously, too, does she not weave together the
complicated threads of the plot, making up the
weft and the woof of its varied and picturesque
embroidery ! The plot, whose ample range may
perhaps be here most clearly indicated by the
enumeration of what might be aptly termed its
salient epochs—the discovery of the scorched and
tobacco-scented will of ghostly old grandfather
Vivian—the flight of Zaidee—her residence in
London—her removal to the continent—her do-
mestication once more upon the banks of the
Thames—and her ultimate journey northwards
to Yivian Castle, followed, after so many
troubles, by the cheering, crowning, culminating
revelation. Admirable no less in the delineation
of her scenes than in the arrangement of the dra-
matic incidents of her narrative, Mrs. Oliphant
wins from us, as we read, many a golden opinion,
by reason of the exquisite skill with whichshe brings vividly before the mind's eye, on the
instant, whatever lOcality she undertakes to por-
tray. What life, for example, she throws into
her sketch of the Squire's house up yonder,
variously spoken of throughout the story as the
Grange, as the Uplands, or as Briarford A
familiar scene to us as we close the book, to be
classed somewhat (though not quite, after all) in
the same category with the " dear old Yatton" of
"Ten Thousand a Year." How magically, too, our
authoress vivifies, so to speak, when she so pleases
—a drawing-room say, with a mirror reflecting
all the colour and movement of those who chance
to be in the apartment—or a grass-plot with the
milk-white blossoms drifting down upon it every
now and then from the waving boughs of an au-
tumnal acacia ! As to the characters introduced
in " Zaidee," what a gallery of portraits they
present to our contemplation ! How life-like
most of them ! What living, breathing, speak-
ing realities ! The heroine herself changing so
strangely iu those seven distressful years of conceal-
ment, from the little brown Zaidee Vivian to the
lovely and stately Elizabeth Cumberland. Grouped
around her at intervals the numerous contrasting
families depicted in the progressive advance of
her adventures—the Vivians, the Powises, the
Greens, the Disbrowes, the Cumberlands. Deli-
cate, proud, gentle Mrs. Vivian, the fairy god-
mot] eirs with her cluster of Dome cliii.4•l4._

Philip, last seen as the bronzed bead of the house
—Percy, ultimately known as the great author—.
Elizibeth, the beautiful wife of Captain Morton
—Margaret, in the end, espoused to Sir David
Powis—Sophy, in her turn, the partner of Par-
son Burlington. Besides these, how many othersaro
there permanently photographed, one would almost
fancy, upon the tablets of our recollection. Good-na-
tured, lumbering Sylvo Burtonshaw, dreaming
about his half-savage frield Mansfield, down in
the shrubbery there, where his presence is still
indicated by the faint blue curl of his cigar smoke!
Ridiculous Mr. Cumberland, with his crotchets of
scienc, and his breves of art, and his demisemi-
quavers of philanthropy ! Amiable and debili-
tated Mrs. Cumberland, with her unaccountable
daughter—half frank, half suspicious—Mary,
the pride and pet of excellent, thrifty
Aunt Burtonshaw. Poor lackadaisical An-
gelina Green, with her Edwin of the
manse, the Rev. John, with the accustomed
quarto bulging out his lank black coat-tails I
And so on through the whole ample catalogue.
As to the blemishes of .the book they are, to our
thinking, in style none—in the arrangement of
the plot, or, to speak otherwise, in regard to the
incidents, two. Firstly, we cannot but consider
as a decided flaw the second discovery by Zaidee of
other dying injunctions penned by the evil but re-
pentant hand of old grandfather Vivian—aflaw and
a very huge•one we deem it by reason of its extra-
vagant and, as it happens, altogether unnecessary,
improbability. The writing in question being de-
tected in another old book, encountered this time,
however, at Ulm, instead of, as in the previous
instance, at the Grange in Cheshire--and proving
actually, after all is said and done, to exercise
no influence whatever upon the events of the
story, so that it might really as lief never have
been found by Zaidee in the uncertain keep.
ing of the travelled old Welchwoman num
bered amongst the servitors of the Cum-
berlands. The other incident, more trivial of
its kind than the one just mentioned,
an incident, nevertheless, to our mind constituting
scarcely less of a disfigurement, is the absurd in-
troduction (in the unavoidable absence by death
of Serino) of that queer, odd, unaccountable ap-
parition of a strange greyhound, nobody knows
whene3 or whose, by the needless advent of which
Snarley Yow, or phantom dog of the romance, the
pathos of the final discovery of Zaidee Vivian is
almost entirely frittered away in a sense of the
simply ridiculous. Nevertheless to the narrow
compass of these two faults, flaws, blemishes, or
whatever they may be most aptly designated, tie
shadow of a shade of blame from us is, in regard
to this delightful romance, entirely restricted. A
romance of exceeding beauty and freshness it
.is to
us—this charming three-volumed tale of "Zaidee"
—another rare and most acceptable addition to
the already ample treasures of our imaginative
literature.

Journal of the Statistical Society of Lon,dore.
Parker and Son.

A choice number of this valuable repository of
facts, containing matter of general interest, which
the judicious reader may turn to good account.
From the numerous contributions there may be
selected for notice three, via., " Effect of the War
on Russian Produce," " The Mining Resources of
France, 1841 to 1852," and "On our National
Strength," to which may be added, "Juvenile
Delinquency ; its Principal Causes, and Proposed
Cure, as adopted in the Glasgow Reformatory
Schools." One general conclusion arrived at by
the enlightened governor challenging our all but
entire concurrence—to wit, " that the law of love
and kindness, combined with intellectual and moral
training, never fails in reclaiming youthful offend-
ers, and making them useful members of society."
With respect to the inquiry into " The Effect of
the War on Russia " the following are among the
results :—First, " that since the outbreak of War,
the exports of produce from Russia have dimi-
nished to a greater extent than the general imports
of such articles into England ;" and, secondly, that
while importation from other quarters will prevent
the English consumer from suffering from very
high prices, the injuries to Russia prouced by the
blockade must necessarily be severe. " The
Mining Resources of France" are shown to have
been undergoing a slow but steady development.
" Our National Strength" is, it would appear, in-
creasing faster than our numbers. This startling
result is arrived at by taking into consideration the
number of persons in the middle age of life, and of the
inr'ffectives on account of age, and, contrasting them
with previous periods. What facts for sanitary reforms
tha tin Surrey the average duration of life is 45 years,
while in Manchester and Liverpool it is only 25
years, and that if the full period of existence were
attained by all, that prolongation would be tanta-
mount to doubling the population ! We shall wake
out of our national sleep -,orne day and reflect with
horror on the consequences of our prolonged
lethargy in connection with sanitary matters.
Other facts are worthy of special notice. The po-
pulation, we are told, is now younger than it would
he by the natural standard—younger probably in
England and Scotland than in auy country in
Europe. This is regarded as favourable to pro-
gress. The extremes of density, it Seems, are 18
individuals to a square mile in the district of Bell-
ingham, Northumberland, and 187,751 in ther3-
gistration district of East London. In the rura
districts, strange to tell, there are very few more
living now than in 1801. Finally, not more than
one-third of the population is self-supporting, and
the majority of us live only about two-fifths of the
years others attain to, or two-fifths of our appointed
time !

the Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland. By
Thomas Moore, F.L.S. Bradbury and Evans.
The present, or part, contains illustra-
tions of some exceedingly beautiful specimens of
ferns, including Lastrea dilatata collina, L. dilatata
naua, Lastrea fcenisecii, and Lastrea oreopteris.
With what extreme fidelity these aro rendered by
Mr. Henry Bradbury, by means of the new pro-
cess of nature printing,
it were impossible to con-
vey too flattering an idea. So minutely is the
tracing and so vividly is the colouring of the vari-
ous genera reproduced, that no collection of dried
specimens can vie with the illustrations which
have appeared in effect. The work, in brief, may
be described as a hortus siccus, to which Nature
herself has contributed the type of her handiwork
and Art the impression clothed with an amaranthine
verdure. The editing has been confided to Pro-
fessor Lindley, and the result, we have no hesita-
tion in saying, will be a work of unparalleled ex-
cellence, just the sort of thing we have dreamt of,
but never hoped to witness.