The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-30 00:00:00

TEE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, aim: 30, 1864.

have long ere this have come forward and explained
the state of the case, introducing, at the same time,
a bill which would effectively put a stop to the re-
currence of sach au evil as that of an injured party
being precluded from restitution. To .take
advantage of a solecism in the law, that
it is a disgrace to all concerned to have allowed to
creep into its statutes, to get rid of unfortunate
claimants, or perhaps entirely crush down those
who it was their desire to get out of the way, is not
the course which becomes the rulers of our country
and the administrators of its justice. All honest
and honourable men must surely see the full work-
ings of such a system, and earnestly advocate its
immediate cancelling. It is a contradiction in terms
to allow such a course to prevail when the crimes
and offences are to be punished, no matter how long
a time has elapsed since their commission. To make
things consistent, this edict should be changed,
because now the inconsistency is marked and
glaring. The whole principle of the question is in
fault, because it seems to infer that wrong is seldom
or ever done to those who come under the arbitra-
tion of the law, and are compelled to submit to its
decrees. This is a very false notion, because it has
been proved oft and again that incalculable injuries
are inflicted on innocent persons, and those hardly
to be called guilty, in consequence of the confusing
elements which too often prevail at trials and legal
investigations. So many conflicting circumstances
occur, and the skilled worker of iniquity so often
makes his case appear the beat, or again the accused
may be of so timorous a nature that his hesitation
and uncertainty may appear a case against him in
itself. Also, from mistaken motives, people
become so excited and exasperated that
they do themselves and their cause great
injury, and by their own officiousness create a
prejudice ag-.inet them in the minds of their judges.
Mr. BEwicKL was incontestably much to blame for
his conduct of affairs, and Mr. IRwiN appears by
his vehemence and violence to have rendered him-
self conspicuous. Still it is a monstrous thing that
these mistakes and mischances of temperament or
judgment are to be turned against a man, and the
present Government will reap Ho renown if they
thus abuse and pervert the sacred principles of jus•
Lice. If they attempt to subvert the foundations
of the laws of England, which rest upon the basis
of fair dealings to all men, they will incur a lasting
infamy, and bring down upon themselves and their
confederates the scorn and indignation of all who
witness the scandal.

LITERATURE,

RECENT NOVELS.

Sybilla Lockwood. By Noell Radecliffe, man of
" Alice Wentworth." Three Vols. Horst and

Blaokett.

It might have been wished that the author of
" Sybilla Lockwood" had chosen a pleasanter theme
for his or her new novel. As the pre•Raphaelites
seem, in their wish to adhere to nature, to select for
their pencil the most unattractive objects, so some
among our fiction writers appear to take especial
delight in dwelling upon the most repulsive themes.
Noell Radecliffe would have us suppose (and we are
willing to give him or her credit for the intention)
that" Sybilla Lockwood" was intended for a highly
moral and instructive tale. Oa the title-page is
the following forcible and truthful assertion
from Lord Bacon—" The predominant passion of
the mind throws itself, like the ivy, round all
human actions, entwines all our resointione, and
perpetually adheres to—and mixes itself among—
or even overtops them." In the preface (a some-
what unusual feature in a novel) the author dilates
upon the evil consequences that inevitably follow
upon, not our sins alone, but our faults—" the links
of cause and effect do bind one event to another in a
way that the easy-going portion of the world will
not see or believe." "I, at least," continues the
author of " Sybilla Lockwood," " will frame no
such fables, and will not turn this chronicle of real
life—these results of my own 'bservatione—into a
tale in which the actors shall be dealt with as spoilt
children are by foolish Barents; that is, shielded
from the consequences of their own actions. It is
only from the fitful representation of life that
real instruction can be drawn, for it is in such a
picture only t.nat we may be given to see how the
faults of or..e person (or set of persons) bring about
the misfirtune of another, pc:haps the utter ruin
of a tb.ird." Such is the moral lesson conveyed by
the story of Sybilla, and dismal indeed are the
results of her shortcomings. We first make her ac-
quaintance on the eve of her unlucky and ill.chosen
marriage. Sybilla is an heiress and not a beauty.
Her self-consciousness, her morbid conviction
that no one will love her, and, at the same, time her
inordinate craving for love and admiration, render
her chances of happiness but small. The author of
" Coningsby" has spoken of " vanity" as " that
divine gift which makes women charming." That
conscious power of being able to confer pleasure of
itself attracts the very admiration that it demands,
and equally potent in its repellant influence is the
hopeless determination of those sensitive mortals
who are self-doomed to indifference and neglect.
" I will be drowned and nobody shall save me I"
It is like the different effects of the opposite
ends of the loadstone. So it is with
poor Sybilla; and unhappy at home, and
convinced that no one will ever love her, she
accepts the first eligible offer, with the belief that
her husband is seeking her fortune, and with the
knowledge that his antecedents are not of the most
highly moral character. The results of such a union
may be easily surmised, and the fatal effect upon
Sybilla's character, when.the hour of temptation
arrives, of course justifies the author's preliminary
assurance that our faults and frailties bring upon
us an inevitable doom. While admitting the
justice of the lesson conveyed, we must at the same
time express our extreme repugnance to the theme
and the details which the author has here seen fit
to introduce, The picture of Sybilla's unhappy
married life, no less than the cool mention of her
husband's stated visits to his mistress, as a general
topic of conversation, while Sybilla's young sister
and cousin are on a visit beneath her
roof, is repulsive in the extreme, and the after
episode of Sybilla's fatal love-story, although fol-
lowed by long penitence, is altogether out of the
pale of our sympathies or' interest. The book is
cleverly written and the characters are well dis-
criminated, bat we could wish the author of Sybilla
Lockwood to select a subject more worthy of the
writer's pen.

The Man in Chains. By C. J. Collins, author of

" Sackville Chase." 3 vols. Maxwell and Co.

•
In a room that looks out upon the tops of the
great trees that are in Gray's-inn-square, we are
introduced to Silverton Langdale, a young barrister
of twenty-three, just called to the bar. He is the
Man in Chains, whose denomination has already
excited our curiosity, and the meaning of the appel-
lation is thus revealed :
It is he who is to be our Man in Chains—those chains
that no man can ever see, but which aro clanking in every
thoroughfare and in every crowd ; clanking with a sound
that none can hear, although it can be felt; clanking in the
senate, on the judgment-seat, amidst the scenes of revelry
and mirth, beneath the surplice of the high ecclesiastic, and
the coronet of the great patrician; clanking amidst the jingle
of tinselled fashion ; everywhere clanking with a sound that
none can hear, and yet which vibrates to the very heart,
and sometimes blights it.

These chains remind us somewhat of the
dreadful links of cash boxes and ledgers that
surrounded Jacob Marley in his midnight visit to
Ebenezer Scrooge, and which chain, it may be re-
membered, he occasionally rattled with a dismal
wail ! The early incidents of the young barrister's
career, the accident of his first brief, and its Elle.'
cessful issue, are very vividly and very happily
detailed. Success begins to dawn upon the friendless
Azul penniless man, but Alas! with the hope of sue-

cess comes also the danger of temptation. Here is
the beginning of the end :

THE FIRST RIVET.

" You think that I shall get plenty of business, don'
you ?" Silvester Langdale asked.

"I am convinced of it."
"Yell, then, in November I may reasonably calculate
upon being in ample funds ?"
" I think you may."
" Under these circumstances, then, it will scarcely be
considered unreasonable or extravagant that I should re-
quire three hundred pounds."
As he said this Silvester Langdale looked eagerly into
the countenance of Marl Baskerville, to see if he could dis-
cover what impression the statement of his requirements
had made. But much older men than he in the ways of lhe
world had failed to read impressions in Marl Baskerville's
countenance, even when the light was shining accidentally
fully upon it, which it was not doing now.
"I think you may, considering your prospects, reason-
ably borrow that sum," said Marl Baskerville, in a
measured tone, and in a voice that seemed impervious to
emotion.

* * *

"Till November, you say ?"
" Till November, when you know the courts at West-
minster will commence their sittings."
"It is now July ; —that is three months, then," said
Baskerville.
Silvester Langdale did not trouble himself to make the
calculation, but at once answered,—

" Yes."
"You have not got a bi:l stamp, I suppose ?"
" No, I have not," said Silvester Langdale, laughing.
" I never had such a thing in my life."
"And I don't think 1 have got one," said Marl Basker•
ville, unconcernedly, and looking into his pocket-book,
Oh, here is one : shall I draw the bill P"
" Do so, if you please."
And Marl Baskerville drew up the binding document;
saying,—

fdraw it, you know, for £3so,"—at the same time tak
ing notes to the extent of £3OO out of the book.

It was that morning that, while lying in bed, Silvester
Langdale had congratulated himself upon not being reck-
less as to the future, and yet he signed this document with-
out thought, and by his signature struck a blow that
clenched the binding link of the first chain that was to coil
round him.

Three months later the second link is attaohed to
the deadly coil—
The chain that he had forged in Gray's-inn three months
before was beginning to chafe him—at the very moment,
indeed, when he made the discovery that it was fixed upon
him. It chafed him no longer now, and yet ho had not
removed it; ho had simply ballad it tighter round him in
such a manner as not to feel it for the present. He had
simply, ao to speak, doubled its strength, or was about to
do so; but the binding links hung lightly on him, even
as though they were fleecy in their texture and were
soft.

A brilliant career opens before Silvester, and his
story is related with much spirit and apparent truth'
but mingled with it are a variety of melodrama-
tic incidents, improbabilities, and horrors, that
our novelists now•a-days seem to consider
essential condiments in their bill of fare. Here,
also, again, we meet, ts we have already done in
more than one modern story of fashionable life, with
that fair and anonymous equestrian of Hyde Park,
whose presence is anything but desirable in polite
society. Among the improbable incidents of the
book, occurs the following ridiculous scene, some-
what analogous to the indignant meeting between
Box and Cox, when each tells the other to go to Ms
attic. Silvester has in his difficulties affixed the name
of his father.in.law, Lord Montalban, to.a bill, with.
out thinking it necessary to obtain that nobleman's
concurrence. Lord Montalban, who is equally
" hard up," has taken a similar liberty with Saves..
ter—hint illce lachrymce—

it remembered, he did, in common with his countrymen, so
bitterly despise the lew-born, dollar loving, unchivalreus
race, whose narrow•Arejudices would, as he was well aware,
lead them to outrage emery pure and womanly feeling of the
delicately-reared Southern maiden.

There yet remained, nevertheless, a change of escape,
and at that, the anxious man, as he hastened onward,
eagerly caught. It might be—he did not think it probable
—but still it was on the cards that the fact of Zoe's birth
might not have become patent to that bigoted assemblage.
The gas shone brilliantly, it is true, from a hundred jets,
but by some singular piece of good fortune it might be that
no betraying flash had fallen on her low white forehead, or
on the taper fingers, which, Frenchwoman like, Were, in
Zoe'a case, usually covered with the most unexceptionable
of gloves.

"If so, I am all right," thought Gordon, as for a mo-
ment he placed himseit in the doorway and took a general
survey of the guests. "If so, lam all right, and perhaps
my best course would be to let things take their course, and
go somewhere else for my dinner.' He was turning away,
when Zoe, whose eyes had never for many minutes toge-
ther been removed from the entrance-door, caught a glimpse
of his face,

"Ah !" she exclaimed in joyful accents to a neighbour
of the male sex who had, by a series of embarrassing ques•
Lions, shown himself to bo more inquisitive than polite;
" Ah 1 there is my father at last"—and, acting on the im
pulse of the moment, she sprang from her seat to greet
him•

She did not notice the looks which at sight of Mr. Gordon
and on hearing her hasty exclamation, were exchanged be-
tween the occupants of the end of the table where she had
been seated. Very ominous looks they were, and more
than one man (her right-hand and previously most assidu-
ous neighbour was the first to move) ross from their chairs
with a kind of angry start, and a simultaneous movement,
which the bland hotel-keeper strove in vain to arrest.
Astonished, and half-frightened by the consequences
of her impulsive act, Zoe passed towards the now crowded
doorway to her father, who still remained where she had
first Caught sight of him—his face pale with passion, but
with an air of indomitable resolution on his brow. To re-
join him, short as was the distance by which they were
separated, was no easy matter; for he was beginning to be
pressed againstby several excited and gesticulating Yankees,
whose wrath that they, and above all, their "ladies," had
broken bread with one of the negro race, was not to be
easily appeased.

" Well, sir," said one free-born citizen, walking close up
to the offender, and speaking with a nasal twang which at
once betrays the Northern American—" well, sir, I expect
you've made a pretty considerable mistake in bringing that
there girl hero to-day. You'd beet keep your smuts in your
own place, and don't think to force gentlemen to keep com-
pany with them, or you'll get something you don't expect,
I calculate."

A scene of indescribable tumuli follows, bat the un-
happy offenders are extricated by the landlord, who,
however, inflicts another stab upon the awakening
Zoe :--

"There, now, you keep quiet," said the landlord when
they reached the door of their private apartments; "you
keep quiet a spell ; though of course it's direct against my
interest to say so, the sooner you and that 'ere gal leave
York the better. Lin not over fond myself of having
coloured things o' that sort about, and my best rooms isn't
for such-like company, I expect."
He was closing the door as he finished speaking, and
Zoo's heart wadi faint and trembling within her; for no
word that he had uttered had fallen to the ground unheard,
and the poor girl stood before her father mute and tearless,
but with anguish indescribable in her heart.

A little further on poor Z)e is yet further en
lightened :

ZOE'S " BRAND."

"You quite comprehend, my child, said her father, after
the silent meal had been concluded, "you are to be at ono
end of the car, and I at the other. Na fear if you are alone,
and keep your veil down, of your meeting with rudeness,
and—by the way—now I think of it, don't taktl off your
gloves, there's little enough to be seen on your finger nails ;
but they've such cursed sharp eyes these Yankees, and are
so everlastingly suspicious."

Zoe looked down on the pretty taper fingers which lay
idly on her lap, and then with inquiring eyes into her
father's face.

" Why am Ito hide my hands ?" she asked. " This is
a strange free country surely," she added, with a bitter
laugh, " when in such a trifling matter as a pair gloves a
woman may not please herself 1 is fashion here so very
arbitrary, and-"
"It has nothing to do with fashion," broke in Gordon
pettishly, " unless," but ho checked himself, and added
more kindly, " the truth is, my child, that this absurd pre-
judice makes these Northern men look out sharp for signs
and, unfortunately, you've got ten at the ends of those
pretty digits of yours ;" and taking her hand in his, he
pointed out to her the faint dark tinge upon the finger nails,
which to the initiated is a sign infallible of the race from
which she came. •

"Branded with a mark," thought the unhappy girl, as
she strove to repress the tears of wounded pride, which rose
to her hot eyelashes. " Branded with a mark," which can
never while I live be obliterated or washed away, and
stamped as one whom the world regards, although I know
not why, as infamous."

It was a touching and piteous cry wrung from young
lips, to whom the taste of Mara's waters was yet new, and
bitter as the hateful wormwood. It was a piteous cry, but
the father seemed to heed it not; but only bade her make
good speed, for that the hour of departure was at hand.

We will follow the fortunes of the poor Octoroon no
further. Her story, which is very vividly described,
powerfully enforces the moral lessons it is in-
tended to convey. The picture of Chloe, the mother
of Zoe, is very tender and touching; Her deathbed
anguish as to her daughter's future fate is full of
natural pathos. The main incident in the winding
up will disappoint most novel readers—but never-
theless poor Zoe will remain a favourite to the last.

Tranted—a Home. By the Author of " Morning
Clouds." Three vole. S pith, Eider, and Co.

This is a simple domestic story, being pleasantly
told, and leaving a most agreeable memory behind it.
The crisis of the tale is anything but satisfactory, and
the poor heroine, in her hopeless yearning for a
home, commits a fatal mistake—a crime, indeed,
against all the laws of love and loyalty. Bravely,
however, is the self imposed penalty endured, good
being eventually wrought out of evil by patient perse-
verance. The later portion of the story is admirably
welldescribed,:and the closing effect is like a peaceful
sundown after a day of storms. The first sentence
of the whole history acquires a particular signifi •
canoe when read by the light of the after revela-
tions. Helen Raymond is idly reading the
marriages in the Times, when she suddenly
exclaims, on remarking the marriage of a
Sir Mathew Blinkhorn, " Fancy being called
Lady Blinkhorn ! I wonder any one was found
who would change her name for that!" Poor
Helen is happily ignorant of what the future has in
store for her. All, however, is well that ends well,
end the ungenial home to which her loveliness con.
signs her, brings ultimately to the persevering
Helen better things than she had dreamed of in the
brilliant visions of her youth.

Lost Lenore ; or the Adventures of a Bolling Stone.
By Charles Beach. Edited by Captain Mayne
Reid, 3 vols. C. J. Skeet.

The name of Captain Mayne Reid, as its editor,
ensures a favourable welcome for this book. But, in
his anxiety to advance his friend's interests, the
eloquent author of " The Rifle Rangers" has intro-
duced him to our notice with rather too great a
flourish of trumpets. So highly does the editor
commend this achievement of his protege, the
"Rolling Stone," as "a diamond," "a diamond of
the first water," &0., that we are at the very outset
prepared to be disappointed. The second title of the
book is the more correct one. The three volumes
are chiefly filled with the adventures of one
Rowland Stone, who is really and literally a
" Rolling Stone"—rolling hither and thither by
sea and by land, in Australia, in California, and
other places innumerable. The adventures are
certainly full of vicissitude, while the style of the
narrative is lively and animated. One of the most
original characters is Stormy Jack, a sailor, who
generally goes by the abbreviation of " Stormy,''
and whose constant anxiety and occupation is to
" learn manners" to all who may offend him.
After losing sight of him for some years, Rowland
again meets with " Stormy," under the followin g
circumstances:—