The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-13 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The New Irish Novelist,

Lloyd Pennant. A Tale of the West. By Ralph

Neville. Two vols. Chapman and Hall.

When William Carleton has (not to say this, of
course,in any way invidiously) become quite as much
; shelved as Maria Edgeworth—when Charles Lever
contents himself with weaving a lite's romance out
of the flimsy materials furnished to him by the ins
cidents of a Day's Ride—when the last scrapings
together of the feeblest fugitive pieces by the sole
surviving scion of the O'Hara Family, are being
issued from the press as a somewhat marvellous
attraction—it is nothing less than absolutely re-
freshing to encounter a new aspirant to an honour-
able position in Irish Literature like the author of
this capital Tale of the West, this thoroughly
original story of " Lloyd Pennant." At once and
unhesitatingly we hold out the right hand of
welcome to Ralph Neville. Not only his story but
he himself we, upon the instant, recogniz,
I as an—original. So completely and unmis
takeably an original, that the English Critic
I may be borne with if he manifests thus abruptly
the cordiality of his greetiug to the Irish Novelist.
Having said which, we would at once premise,
however, that we don't feel in the least inclined to
hold up to the reader's attention, this same rollick-
; ing, vivacious, and, for the most part, really ad-
mirable story of Lloyd Pennant as anything what-
ever of a lusus in literature—as, in the realms of
fiction, anything at all that can be defined as "one
entire and perfect chrysolite." Charmed, though
we have been by the narrative—when once we have
fairly got into it—we have not become, in its re-
gard, in the least, what you would call—infatuated !
Not a blemish in the work as a work of art, but
our eyes have been fully open to, even when we
have got to be the most enthralled. We have had,
I throughout, moreover, a perfect consciousness
of the veriest slips of the pen or of the press as the
case may chance to be, of the merest incidental
defects, here and there, of rhetorical style, even be it
said, hero and there, too, of grammatical construe-
' tion. The harum-scarum, helter-skelter, dash and
vigour of the book, we have seen quite plainly have
led the writer now and then into the oddest
whimsicalities of manner—even in the matter of
his punctuation. Carrying him for example, at p.
290, vol. ii., careering down a very desert waste of
a sentence extending over a length of more than
one hundred and fifty words, words linked together
only by commas and dashes, without even one soli-
tary semicolon ; after the fashion almost of the
long-winded Patriarch's daughter in " Little
Dorrit." Another while, in the same vol. ii., p. 299,
we stumble over a jolt in orthography, like the
reference to " a suppositious (sic) child," meaning
one, of course, that is supposititious: or we are winc-
ing, at p. 97,v01. i., over an unrecognised aspirate like
that evidenced by the mention' made there of " an
hostile population." We are thus captiously minute,
moreover, in particularising these little frivolous,
almost, we might call them, microscopic flaws and
blemishes, because we would have it understood
how thoroughly and searchingly we have scanned
this story of Lloyd Pennent, from beginning to end
before we have undertaken to write one syllable
about it. We don't know where, in truth, we have
anywhere met—for one thing—with a book that
more steadily, and at length (when the second
volume is arrived at) more rapidly improves
upon acquaintance. The interest of it is, it is
true, rather slowly worked up, at the
outset; but, when once the author has fairly
warmed to his work, it increases and increases
as by a regular crescendo. The scene of the story,
it should also be said, is very various ; extending
over many picturesque localities in the West—of
Ireland ! Traversing a good part of Connaught—
often catching bold resounding glimpses of the
wild Atlantic ! Crossing St. George's Channel
the author, wanders at will, as one familiar with
the scenes depicted there, into that Garden of
England, Kent : or again into the streets of Lon-
don, as in another portion of his narrative he has
borne us away with him along the almost equally
well-remembered streets of Dublin. Crossing the
British Cnannel, moreover, at another time, we
are with him upon the trottoirs of Calais. The
backwoods of America, at another interval in
his story, being brilliantly, though rapidly and
lightly pencilled off, namely, where Lloyd
Pennant, the hero of tli.e tale, is hiding his griefs
(under a mistaken sense of shame for his unhappy
but perfectly innocent father, Squire thick)
among the Red Indians and the White Canaaian
population. Varied, however, and cleverly
realised though the chequered scenes and
localities are, over which the incidents of the
plot are scattered with the easy hand of
a master by Ralph Neville—they are as nothing,
either in diversity or in vividness of realisation, to
the characters introduced to the reader's intimate
knowledge in the course of the narrative. Although
Lloyd Pennant is himself, like so many other hand-
some gallant young heroes of romance, little more
than a better sort of a walking gentleman—he is
recognisable throughout as a fine fellow, never-
theless. But, around him are living and moving in
the mimic world of his romantic history, a delight-
ful variety of admirably well-drawn characters !
Many of these, if we mistake not, are from the life.
Take, for instance, that wonderful woman, the wife
of Captain Jack O'Mahony ! Here is the very
silhouette of her :
"Mrs. OIMAHONY stood before the hall door, waiting to
receive, and delighted to see, her visitors ; she was dressed
in a style so simple as to border on slovenliness, although
her personal appearance was by no means so prepossessing
as to counterbalance the deficiency of her toilette. The
good lady piqued herself on the plainness of her face as
well as the simplicity of her costume, and her family pride
led her to suppose that her station in society enabled her to
dispense with the all-improving adjuncts of ornaments and
dress. None of her features were regular or well formed ;
but there was the eye, flashing with natural wit, and ex
pressive of no ordinary capacity, fine teeth, and splendid
hair, which, even at her advanced period of life, still re-
tained its glossy blackness, with a short retrousse' nose,
adding considerably to the drollery of her face when she
indulged in a rather coarse style of humour, which those
who were not its victims always considered as extremely
amusing. Her temper was jealous, and fickle ; she would
go any length to assist a friend in distress, and would
quarrel with the same person in prosperity for tho slightest,
or no cause at all ; her hospitality and generosity made her
generally popular, but the unceasing perseverance with
which she sought out family secrets, and the merciless
manner in which she sometimes made use of her informs-
dun, rendered her the terror of her acquaintances as were I
unfortunate enough to have blots upon their escutcheons,
or rather branches on their genealogical tree."

It is of her that we read in an earlier page—
" The second marriage of Mrs. O'Mahony was not
a happy one, for her present husband possessed a
very susceptible heart, and had unfortunately made
proposals of marriage, backed by vows of eternal
fidelity, to various ladies in the different English
towns at which he had been quartered, some of whom
hastened, after he had secured the wealthy widow,
to seek consolation for the loss of his love in the
substantial recompense of damages for breach of
promise of marriage ; so that after their union his
astonished wife found herself assailed on all sides
by her less fortunate rivals." Besides Mrs.
O'Mahony and Captain Jack, who do we not have
here in this " ower true" histozy of the Days of
the Irish Insurrection? Besides historical charac-
ters like Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and Roche, and
Grouchy, and other somewhat minor celebrities—
Judge Blatherwell, and Pincher Martin, and Rory
Mahon the fosterer, and Roddy the Idiot, and
Johnson the sailor, and Mr. Sharp the agent, and
Lady Cifton, and her obese butler, Mr. Bush, aLd
Tim Nolan (in his way a fellow lo Mickey Free, or
to Cross Corney), and—best of all—the home group
of those true. born Irish gentlemen and ladies ! As a
specimen of a noble gentleman, indeed, commend
us to Colonel Blake. And as a specimen of a
refined and charming lady, commend us again
to his fair niece, Miss Bingham. Not but
what Master Mike gets nearer to our affections
somehow than either of them ! It is only fair
however, that we should give something
more here, by way of affording our readers
a taste of Ralph Neville's quality as—what
every true Irish novelist ong,ht to be, needs must
be, in truth, to be of any worth at all—a racy
humourist ! As a bit of Cockney Fun, what can
be droller, nay, for that matter, what can be more
irresistibly ludicrous and laughter-provoking, than