The Sun.
London, England, 1855-05-17 00:00:00

LITERATURE•

The Newcomes. No. X. By W. M. Thackeray.
Such changes as there have leen in the fortunes
of the Nov. comes—such fluctuctions in the motley
arabesque of Mr. Thackeray's teW literary kaleidos-
cope ! Clive married to Risy—Clara, divorced
from Sir Barnes and united ro Lord Highgate—
iMn-ilassw7aend rricclicisecsopnotueszeltd
debywtihtte
al
Rev. Charles Honey-
man. The Colonel happy, yet liscontented—happy
in his attendance upon his petty little daughter-
sou is, somehow or other, tie Yictlifmsthlose
fdetjheacttihoins
and disappointment. Ethel, in like manner, both
improved and deteriorated—sorrowful with a name-
less grief, yet gladdened at the same time by the
consciousness of living to mole purpose than When
carried away. in the giddy .whirl of Mayfair-frivoli-
ties : caring for her adopted children, and between
whiles carrying consolation' to surrounding un-
fortunates. Besides these a variety of other
scarcely less remarkable, alterations. The B.
B. C. is considerable peril--J. J. advancing stea-
dily on the way to artistic fame and fortune—
F. B. " comit; out" more gloriously than ever, as
one of the more humorous and original among our
author's many humorous and original characters.
Added to which we may here reccrd that poor old
James Binnie has died off at Edinburgh—and that
his very delightful sister, Mrs. Mackenzie the Old
Campaigner, has at last revealed both to Clive and
the Colonel the latent In-vs, and blurs, and general
demerits of her veneered disposition and lacquered
temperament. Another circumstance, moreover,
is worthy of note in the present serial, now that it
is rapidly approaching the appointed period of its
completion. Both the heroines of the story become
wealthy—Ethel as the heiress of old Lady Kew,
Rosey as the heiress of old Mr. Binnie. Miss
Newcome has her 60,0001., and Mrs. Clive, besides
moneys in bank, and B. B. C. shares, shares in the
of
fsi aocmSi
tetyoyc
mok
u—enntgo
hsuuscbha and
beexctoemn te,s ind,
inad e
tehd
e,
et
tai
t
eamarst East
alnnn
quite .a personage of import-
ance. Insomuch that there are projects set on foot
for the nomination of the Old Colonel as a Director
in Leadenhall-street, and atalk even of his beloved
Clive aspiring to the dignity of a member of Par-
liament. How charmingly all these developments
of his narrative are related by Mr. Thackeray it is
needless to intimate. With the graces of his idio-
matic and ripened style the readers of the " New-
comes" have become long since delightfully fami-
liarised—blandishments of composition to the pos-
session of which neither " Vanity Fair," nor yet
" Pendennis," can make any pretensions what-
soever. Let us acknowledge at once, however,
that we are grievously disappointed with
the course taken by our great novelist in the un-
ravelment of the tangled thread of this his ela-
borate and ingenious plot of "The Newcomes."
We cannot become reconciled to the notion of
Clive the debonnair being married to Rosey the
contemptible—instead of to Ethel the magnificent.
We have never yet forgiven Sir Edward Lytton for
uniting Pisistratus Caxton to his cousin Blanche in-
stead of to his first love, the beautiful, tender, gentle
FannyTrevanion—ultimately spouse of that middle-
aged Marquis—once the gallant gay Lothario Sir
Sedley Beaudesert. Nay, we don't yet half like
the perverse defiance of all our hopes and wishes
in regard to the most loveable of his heroes with
which Mr. Dickens united David Copperfield to
Agnes—only aftei having conducted him through all
the incongruous discomforts and the crowning sad-
ness of his married life with poor, dear, little, s'lly,
delightful Dora—redeemed though that strange epi-
' sode in the incomparable story is by the exquisite
pathos with which the genius of the great writer
surrounds the memory of the child-wife's death-
bed. And so, in the like manner, we are more
than half angry with Mr. Thackeray for coupling
our brave, noble, gallant, handsome Clive with that
pretty, empty-headed, empty-hearted, selfish, in-
tolerable Rosy—leaving both Clive and Ethel to
pine in secret over the evil fate by which their des-
tinies have become, apparently, for ever separated.
We are more curious, if possible, than ever as to
what will be the end of this " strange, eventful
history" of " The Newcomes." Mr. Thackeray
has fairly bewildered us as to his ulterior object.
We cannot for the life of us even dimly conjecture it.
Is he goir,; to resort to the old hackneyed resource
of novel- upon such emergencies, namely,
by killing off Rosy, so that he may unite Clive to
Ethel Newcome, thus giving',the hero, after all, his
first and best beloved, in spite of all the impedi-
ments which, up to the very close of the narrative,
may have seemed, to the unsuspecting reader, alto
gether insurmountable ? This were scarcely judi-
cious, we fancy, so soon after David Copperfield.
And yet, to end the work before us otherwise, we
cannot but imagine would be wonderfully distaste-
ful to its readers, leaving them with a painful sense
of a disappointment never to be alleviated, that
of the hero's and heroine's permanent separation,
and interminable estrangement. Wherefor, all
one
these things considered, again we say, our curiosity
is peyhaps greater than ever as to, Mr. Thackeray:s
~
design for bringing the story of The Newcomes"
to a
aboutclo
lots
we
e
we probably
doubt
not written,
many
and
thou-
sand; as well as ourselves) must continue now, for
—a
some time, strangely solicitous.
sewhich

The Martins. Nos. V. and VI. By Charles Lever.
Several new characters are.- introduced in the
course of these iwo numbers of " The Martins of
Cro' Martin." A capital specimen of a fine old
Irish Barrister in the person of Counsellor Valen-
tine Repton, an aged gentleman, full of vivacity
and anecdote. A horrid sample of a man who
has fairly gone to the dogs, .in the instance of
a broken-officer of the-9th Foot, Lieutenant Tho-
mas Magennis, a drunken, brawling, fire-eating Pat-
lender. Besides these two more conspicuous per-
sonages—Joan, the herd's daughter, servant and
wife of the last-mentioned, Captain Magennis, of
Barnagheela—and Hosey Lynch, the barber, or
rather Figaro, of the neighbouring borough of
Oughterard. Towards the close of tha number of
" The Martins " for May, the interest of the story
may be said to have really commenced. Massing-
bred has, by that time, become fairly installed as a
guest at Cro' Martin Castle, after having nearly
fought a duel with Counsellor Repton (a flash in
the pan, caused by the prying Figaro Hosey Lynch),
and (a yet more noteworthy incident), after
having given the "cut direct" to honest, unoffend-
ing Joe Nelligan. The tandem-driving attorney,
Maurice Scanlan, re-appears on the scene in the
closing chapter of the instalment just published ;
and a new interest is infused- into the tale by the
circumstance of the newly-appointed Viceroy being
Lady Dorothea's relative, Lord Reckington, the
Chief Secretary coining over with him being no
other than Jack's father, Colonel Massingbred.
The: e are glimpses, too, of possible embarrassments
of a pecuniary kind on the Cro Martin estate, to-
gether with intimations of a proximate election, and
further hints as to some mystery in the Cro' Martin
inheritance, and new phases revealed in the cha-
racters both of Mary Martin and her companion,
Kate Henderson. So that there are prospects of
the plot thickening already, and good promise that
out of materials such as those here enumerated,
Mr. Lever will educe one of those animated and
romantic fictions his hand knows so well, currente
calamo, to conjure up for the popular entertain.
ment.

The Dwarf ; or, Mind and Matter. A novel. By
E. Berwick. 3 vols. Newby.
This is a very interesting story ; the plot is skil-
fully arranged, and a great deal of variety is visible
in the events. The tale consists principally in the
adventures and exploits of Gerald Nugent, the
Dwarf, who certainly evinced an example of mind
over matter. The scene is laid in
triumphing
the time of Maria Theresa ; and Gerald
Nugent
juusmtrplai:isiihingows himself a zealous champion in her
cause at the time when she was menaced by power-
ful enemies from without, and endangered by
secret treason from within. By fore Sight, ability,
and courage he contrived to fathom the secrets of
the conspirators, to circumvent their manceuvreF,
and to deliver them up to well-merited fate. The
character of Maria Theresa is well drawn ; in the
few scenes in which she appears she exhibits that
striking decision and courage which so eminently
distinguished her; and the passage which describes
theattempt to poisonher isvery excitingand interest-
ing. The romance of fiction is joined to thd realities
of history; and Milenka, the niece of the Black Baron
of Erlsfurth, is well qualified to adorn a tale. She
was brought up in disguise by a strolling player,
and it was not until the conclusion of the troubles
and trials here narrated that she received her
rights and became Countess of Reiterberg. Alto-
gether, the reminiscences of tile Dwarf form a
pleasing sketch, and considerable ingenuity is
shown in the manifold mancenvres and complicated
plots and counterplots• of the conspirators, and
their adroit and mile foe. Thoso who are amused
by delineations of 'a
dramatic nature in change and
variety will doubtless appreciate and applaud this
work.

Lives of the Princesses of Engia„d. Dy Mrs.
Everett Green. Vol. VI. Colburn.
This is the sixth and concluding volume of these
useful biographies. They form an admirahle corn-
panion tol\liss Strickland's Lives of the Queens.
accomplished her labor
riMous Green
undertaking, a s
wcehich
f we regret to see has been
retarded by illness. In the present volume,
the concluding chapter of the eventful life. of Eli-
zabeth, the el-lest daughter of James the First and
Qaeen of Bohemia, is given. The remaining me-
moire are those of the daughters of Charles
First, two of whom died in. infancy. Tl,) other