The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-25 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Guilty, or Not Guilty. A Novel. By Mrs Gordon
Smythies, author of " Cousin Geoffrey." Three
Vols. Hurst and Blackett.
It would be somewhat akin to the famous ims
possibility of " breaking a butterfly upon a wheel,"
to subject a work of this class to the ordinary rules
of criticism. As the gay orange binding which forms
the external decoration of its cover is only calcue
lated to please the eye and edorn the bendoiresabie,
so in like manner the highly extravagant and alto-
gether impossible marvels which it contains, told as
they are in Mrs Gordon Snaythies' gay and lively
manner, are only intenthd to amuse and entertain
the reader. "Guilty, or Not Guilty" is just the
book for the seaside and the circulating library.
Fall of adventure and vicissitude, the story never
fisgs ; the author never seems to grow weary; the
reader is constantly amused—although occasionally
the smile is raised at the expense of the fair autho-
ress when some over-extravagant incident or
description taxes the credulity of the most
credulous seneatioualist. The first volume
opens with a Countess of Reckalpine seated
in her dressing-room. "The large oval mirror
is draped with lace and muslin, and looped up with
pink ribbons," &s. Mrs. Smythies is a little too
land of such minutia. She not only describes a
banquet but enumerates the dishes; she not only
conducts us to the ball room but eeplains to us all
the mysteries of the toilette of the danseuse. It ia
true she excels in such descriptions, as, for example,
when the fair heroine makes her debut at a'hall in
Paris. We are told that the Empress's milliner and
dressmaker, "the great Mdme. Beget," was consul ted.
With the enthusiasm of genius she threw her whole
heart and soul into Edith's ball dress"—" for Edith
she was inspired." The result, of course, is mare
vellous. "Nothing in such exquisite taste, so
fairy-like, so aerial, so becoming, so costly, so light,
so chaste, and yet so rich, had ever been seen, even
in Pares No wonder that Edith, thus apparelled,
is the admired of ail. Even her own mother, the
haughty Lady 11a.utevi)le, who had not seen her
for some years, having sent her abroad with- a
chaperone for her health, does not recognise her.
This amiable and noble lady and her elder daughters
are accustomed, in the elegant language of Bel-
gravie, to speak of the fair and delicate Edith as
" the carrotty cripple !"—no wonder they fail to
recognise her in the ball-dress of Madame Roget !
But we are talking of balls and ball-dresses,
when in the volumes now beside us
there is matter far more attractive. What will
the novel-readers soy for the treat is store for
them, when we tell them that we have here no less
than two murders—two real murders—one in the
first volume and one in the second ; in both of
which the victims are actual lords, and for each of
which an innocent man is arrested ! We have
three elopements—in one instance two sisters_going
off together. We have four different incarcerations
of different people in a madhouse, in two of which
the victims •arc perfectly in their senses, and the
heroine is three times rescued from death by the
hero at the peril of his life. In feet, it is
almost impossible to enumerate all the marvels to
he met with in these pages ; and comedy is so in-
termingled
with the tragedies that, when Mrs.
Smythies calls upon us to sympathise with a tender
love scene, in which a most euphoniously-named
lover whispers to his beloved, "Doesn't she see how
her pour Tight-Blower loves the ground she treads
on P" &e., we must confess that we feel bewildered
as to whether we are expected to regard the scene
as belonging to the sublime or the ridiculous! We
will not spoil the mystery of the tale by any fur-
ther revelation of its secrets. The three brilliant
volumes—brilliant without and animated within—
will wile away many an idle hour and afford no
little entertainment, and let the amused reader, on
concluding a perusal of the whole work, pronounce
whether, in our estimate of its contents, we our.
selves are "Guilty, or Not Guilty."