The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-15 00:00:00

reserved for an enormously wealthy and spiritually
handsome country squire turned poetaster,one Roland

Lansdell—a sort of cross between Lara and the
Heir of Redclyffe ! With this difference, however,
that he has no such maddening reasons for remorse as
the former, and certainly no such justifying sense
of religious truth as the latter. Isabel, it must be
understood, however, at once, is neither a bigamist
nor yet an adulteress. She is so far true to her un-
congenial spouse, the surgeon of Graybridge I
But—with incorrigible naughtiness (there is
evidently no severer term for it in the
novelist's imagination)—she carries on a kind of
a :half intellectual, half emotional flirtation with
Roland Lensdell, of Mordred, in Midlandshire. Is
comes to nothing,after all—this flirtation,in the wee.
of a guilty liaison. Isabel falls not complete'y under
the glamour of Roland's fascination. She preserves
(save only in her secret heart) her conjugal purity.
Roland, failing to persuade her to elope
with him from her husband, while dogging
her footsteps, gets murdered by Isabel's re-
turned-convict father. The violent death of
Roland Lansdell, occurring at the close of the book,
just immediately after the death in his bed (from a
fever caught in his professional practice) of George
Gilbert, cf whom, by the way, we are really glad
to get rid at the last by any means ►he novelist might
have cared to contrive for that merest nonentity of
character—one that is from first to last insufferably
dull and tedious. Jeffson, the gardener, may grieve
for " Master Serge" if he likes, and as
it befits him ; but, for the life of us,
we can't. The moral of the story seems to be little
short of high treason, on the:part of Miss Braddon,
to her own craft,t hat is,—the craftoftheNovelist,the
Romancist, the Fictionist. The lady spoken of in
one of Mr Disraeli's now almost forgotten political
stories as having guano'd her mind with French
novels could hardly have more seriously
imperilled her character than Isabel Sleaford,
afterwards Isabel Gilbert, is here represented
as having done—by her excessive addition as a
reader to our own by no means intrinsically dele-
terious masterpieces of imaginative literature,
world-famous fictions, let ns say, like those of
Mr Charles Dickens or of Sir Edward Lytton. If
Edith Dombey is mentioned once in " The Doctor's
Wife" as having haunted the memory of Isabel to
a great extent prejudicially—she is mentioned
scores upon scores of times until we become abso-
lutely fatigued by the continually recurring reference
Otherwise than in minor particulars such as these,
the work before us is almost uninterruptedly en,
tertaining. Upou its successful completion as a
work Miss Braddon is here entitled to—what we
would now venture to offer to her—meaning our
very, earnest and cordial congratulations.

Can you Forgive Iler? By Anthony Trollope
No. XI. Chapman and Hall.
Although Phiz's name is retained upon the cover
of this popular serial as its avowed illustrator,
another than Phiz has evidently contributed to the
current instalment its two very clever and ins
geniously pencilled embellishments. "Great Jove"
—one of the two—is especially good, as a glimpse
of a House of Commons Interior, with Great Jove
himself (meaning Lord Palmerston) smiling
complacently as he reclines in an easy attitude,
with his hat pulled down over his eyes, on the
Treasury bench. Before the number closes we learn
—without one particle of interest or satisfaction—
that that horrid, worldly-minded, selfish, horsey
,vulgarian, George Vavasor, has been returned as
M.P. for the metropolitan constituency of the
Chelsea Districts. Happily, we count upon his
being either summarily unseated upon the charge of
gross bribery and pot-house corruption, or by the still
more sweeping announcement of a dissolution. Alice
is not yet out of the thralls of her sordid Betrothed,
Let her bat once more extricate herself from them
and we may Forgive Her. Certainly not before
then ! Lady Glencora seems to be still going,
going—though she is not yet gone as the unfaithful
wife of the high and mighty Mr Palliser. Of the
divinely handsome scapegrace Burgo Fitzgerald,
who is wickedly tempting her to an adulterous
elopement, we hear inure than once, in these open-
ing chapters of Volume Two, though we see
nothing of him. The situation attained in this de.
velopment of the plot is such that Two Heroines,
ae d. not one, simply, must in the end apparently
claim the reader's forgivenness,

MASKED ROBBERS.—Three young men were ap•
prehended on Sunday at Wadsley, a Yillage near
Sheffield, on the charge of committing a very daring rob-
bery in that neighbourhood. The prisoners are named re-
spectively Hutchinson, Chapman, and Bramhall, and the
circumstances out:of which the charges arose are briefly
these :—On Saturday night while a woman named Bibbs,
who lives at Wadsley, was in the house during the absence
of her husband. a man with his face concealed by a mask
suddenly entered at the open &or. He seized her by the
throat, threw her into a chair, and stood menacingly over
her, and two other men, also masked, entered the house and
went up into the bedrooms. Mrs Bibbs, who was dread-
fully alarmed on account of her children, who were in bed,
attempted to get up, but the ruffian drew a clasp-knife and
threatened to murder her if she made the slightest noise.
The affrighted woman asked what the men wanted, and
the fellow repliei, " We want your money," and he then
inquired for her husband's wags. She told the men, who
were now together, that her husband had not drawn any
wages, and earnestly entreated to be allowed to go upstairs
to her children, but the men refused, and the one who had
the knife said ha would cut her throat if she made any noise.
He appeals were cautinued for some time, and one of the
fellows remarked that if the eldest child awoke it would not
scream twice, as he would cut its head off. This scene con-
tinued minutes, when the men made off with all the money
(a few pounds) there had been in the house, and a large
quantity of wearing apparel, to obtain which they had ran-
sacked all the drawers and boxes. The men compelled Mrs
Bibbs, upon pain of violence, to say that she would not
leave the house for half an hour after they had gone. The
robbery created a great sensation in the village and the ad•
jacent town of Sheffield. They were brought up and re-
manded yesterday,

M. BERRYER SKETCHED BY M. CORVRENIN.—
M. Timon, in his book " Les Orateurs," thus de
scribes the oratory of M. Berryer :—Yes, since Nirabeau
nobody has come up to Berryer—neither Gen. Foy, who
recited rather than improvised, and who did not unite close
reasoning to the powerful voice and the velt eloquence of
Berryer ; nor Laine, who had only harmonious and pathetic
accents ; nor De Serre, who, heavy and embarrassed in his
exordium, only at intervals uttered the cry of oratorical
passion; nor Casimir Perier, who was vehement only in
apostrophising; nor Benjamin Constant, whose talent had
more flexibility than movement and energy ; nor Manuel,
whose judgment was sure and bold, but who was more of
a reasoner than an orator, and who never could, like Ber-
ryer, produce an involuntary thrill of wonder and delight.
Nature has been favourable to Baryon His stature is not
tall, but his fine and expressive features reflact all the pas•
sions of his soul. He fascinates you by his glance and
by his gesture, marvellously noble, like his language.
He is eloquent in his whole person. He takes
possession of the tribune as if he were its mas-
ter—l should say its despot, But what he has beyond
all other speakers in the Chamber is his incomparable
voice—the first of beauties for actors as for orators. It is
not, however, to his external qualities that he owes his pre-
eminence. He is a master in the art of o-atory. The gene-
rality of speakers abandon themselves to the vivacity of
their inspirations; and in their digression& they have now
and then some fine bursts, but they are deficient in method.
We do not always see, and they themselves do not know,
whence they come and whither they go. They halt on the
journey as if to reconnoitre the road. But what makes
Berryer superior to them all is, that from the very begin-
ning of his discourse he marks from an elevated point the
object he aims at. He does not abruptly attack his adver-
sary—he begins by tracing round him many lines of cir-
cumvallation ; he dislodges him from all his positions; he
deceives him by skilful marches; he approaches him gra•
dally; he follows him up; he presses him, lays hold of
him, and binds him round and round in the coils of his
arguments. This method is the one employed by groat
minds. It would, however, soon weary an auditory so
inattentive as a French Chamber, if M. Berryer did not
keep their interest awake by the charm of his voice, the
animation of his gesture, and the nobleness of his diction.
The Hon. Lloyd Kenyon is recovering from his
recent severe illness.
THE HANDEL FESTIVAL is due at the Crystal
Palace in 1865 ; the date of it, however, is not yet fixed.
HERR JOACHIM will revisit England next
season.
The Pattie asserts that England intends calling
upon the Powers to protest collectively against the capture
of the Florida, and to support the claims of Brazil.
CRYSTAL PALACE..—ONE SHILLING DAY, MON.
;lAA, Nov, 14.—Admissions on payment, G 76 ; ditto by
season tickets, 868 ; total visitors, 1,544.
About 124,000 in. gold was taken into the Bank
yesterday, but 80,000 sovereigns were withdrawn
for Alexandria.