The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-12 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Barbara's History. By Amelia B. Edwaris, author
of " My Brother's Wife," izo. Three Vole. Hurst

and Blackett,

When the interest of a story is concentrated upon
one or two individuals, it generally gains in inten-
sity. " Barbara's History" belongs to the class that
Mr. Disraeli has called Psychological novels, novels
in which the emotions of one heart and. the develop-
ment of one individuality, occapy the chief atten-
tion of both writer and reader. In portraying to us
the development of her own character and the vivid
emotions of her excitable nature, Barbara has been
very successful, but the story of which she is the
heroine is singularly improbable, and the hero of
the tale, llugh Farquhar—Farqahar of Broomhill
—is one of those paragons of perfection, an impos•
sibility, such as assuredly never stopped out of the
pages of a romance. He takes a rifle from the
hands of one of the German free-shooters, " the best
rifit-men in the world except those of the Tyrol,"
and fires two bullets in succession into the centre of
the target until the amazed marksmen exclaim "He
is Tell come hack again!" He borrows a guitar
from a wandering musician, and sings a ballad of
his own composition to the delighted wonder of all
hearers. He gives six thousand pounds for a Paul
Veronese. He travels through •Europe with black
Tippoo as his avant courier, engaging in advance the
best rooms at every hotel, and ordering in advance
recherché dishes to suit the fastidious palate of this
fashionable Crichton. Added to which our wonder-
fully romantic hero has "a mystery in his house"—
an Italian lady secreted behind a secret panel, to the
dismay and distraction of the hero's wife, who is
herself notwithstanding the object of her husband's
idolatrous affection ! We have said enough, and
more than enough, to corroborate our assertion that
" Barbara's History" is, to say the least of it, some-
what improbable, and the character of her lover in
our matter-ot-fact opinion somewhat (almost) im-
possible ! Barbara herself very simply and tenderly
reveals to us the trials and troubles of her young
heart. In the opening chapter she exclaims—
When I was young They are but four words ; anl
yet, at the very commencement of what must prove a
labour of many months, they have power to arrest my
pen, and blind my eyes with unaccustomed tears. Tears
partaking both of joy and sorrow ; sucb tears as those
through which we all look back to childhood and its half-
forgotten
waters
of story,
memory; oh ' happy time so islanded in the still
yet so familiar Come back once more—come back,
so remote, and yet so near; so strange,
though never so briefly, and light these my pages with the
pale sunshine of a fade.l spring.
lam answered. A pleasant calm steals upon me; and,
as one might step aside from the troubled streets, to linger
awhile in the quite sanctuary of a wayside church, so I
now turn from:the eager present, tread the dim aisles of the
past, sigh over the inscriptions graven on one or two dusky
tablets, and begin with the recollections of infancy this
narrative of my life.

Barbara's childhood is lonely and isolated, Her
first happy experience is her visit to her great-aunt
Mrs..Sandyshaft, a strong-minded country lady,
who delights in agriculture and farming, and more
especially in pigs ! Here is Barbara's introduction
to these new acquaintances—

" There they are I"
.said she, with grira satisfaction.
" There they are I"
There they were, indeed pigs of all sizes, ages,
and tempers. Black pigs, white pigs, spotted pigs,
little pigs, big pigs, fat pigs, lean pigs, pigs with
curly tails, and pigs with no tails at all. Quiet
enough till we came into the yard, they no sooner'
beheld my aunt's green bonnet than they broke into
the most appalling chorus imaginable, and came rushing
up to us with an alacrity that soon brought the whip into
service, and sent some of them shrieking away. But to
see them fed was the great sight—to watch the perpe-
tual replenishment of the great round troughs—the circles
of tails, uplifted and quivering with excitement—the play-
ful disturbances that broke out now and then among the
younger members of the company, and the friendly bites,
flights, and scuffles that diversified the graver interests of
the performance.

Meanwhile, my aunt stalked about with her whip in
her hand; inspected the condition of the sties, and the
quality of the food; rated the farm-servants ; discussed the
question of bean-meal and pea-meal; gave orders that one
youthful family should have their noses ringed ; con-
demned two haples, porkers of middle growth to solitary
confinement—and ended by taking me round to visit a
very fierce dowager in an adjoining yard, who had the
evening before presented society with no less than fifteen
little ones, as black as jet, and not much bigger than
kittens.

Having dismissed the pigs, we went into the stables ;
aad then round to the bullock yard ; and, after that, went
a long way off to a clover-field lying on the slope of a
hill, where we saw the sheep and the little white lambs
all feeding and gambolling about, to the number of three
hundred and more. And throughout all this ramble, my
aunt's vigilant eyes were on everything and everybody.
Nothing escaped her; and not a servant on all the land
but started into activity at her approach, and seemed to
regard her not only with respect, but with some degree of
terror.

The next scene of onr heroine's history is a German
lady's college, where her education is completed, and
where her taste for painting is developed. Barbara
becomes an artist, and wins the prize-medal from
the hands of the Grand Duke of a German princi-
pality. Many years of Barbara's life are passed
abroad. The authoress portrays the southern
landscape with a
glowing pencil. Here is a glimpse
of some of the heroine's
wanderings in what she
calls her—

HALCYON DAYS.
How like a painting of Turner's it opens before us, this
broad and beautiful valley I Rich sloping vines " combed
out upon the hillsides" skirt the mountains on either, hand ;
sometimes divided from the road by fists of emerald meadow,
and sometimes trailing their ripe fruits within reach of the
passing wayfarer. Behind us, the stupendous precipices of
the Gemmi still tower into sight; and in advance, far as we
can see, the valley is bounded right and left by the Vallaisan
Alps, Which mingle their snow-peaks with the gathering
cumuli, and fade away to air. Midway along the
shadowy vista rise two steep and solitary hills, each
crowned, like a Roman victor, with its mural coronet
of ruins. A glorious landscape, so stately with poplars,
so garlanded with vines, so thoroughly Italian in
its beauty, that it might well be on the other side of the
Alps, for any difference that the eye can see I
Thus, as we go forward through the plain, passing
Villages, and towns, and vineyards where the merry vintage
is at its height, the scene becomes more and more Italian.
In Sierra, through which our postilions rattle at full speed,
the houses are high and dilapidated, with arcades running
along the basement stories, and Italian signs and names"
above the doors. In Sion there are Capuchins at the cor-
ners of the streets; and sullen, handsome women, who
throw up their windows, and lean out to look at us, in true
Italian fashion. Even the farm-houses scattered all about
the valley are stuccoed white, or built of stone ; with loggias
on the roof, and sometimes a trellised vine before the door.
We are now, it would seem, in the very heart of the grape-
district. Here are vineyards in the valley, vineyards on
rho hillsides, vineyards down to the road on either hand I
From some the harvest has Weekly heen gathered—some
are still heavy with white and purple fruit—and some are
filled with gay groups of vintagers, sunburnt as the soil.
By and by we come upon a long procession of carte, all
laden with high wooden cans of grapes ; then upon an open
shed, where some five or six swarthy fellows, armed with
short poles, are mashing the red fruit; then upon a couple
of grave shovel-hatted Abbes, and stalwart friar, who
prints the dusty road with the firm impress of his sandalled
foot at each impatient stride. Then come more farms,
more villages, more
" Wains oxen-drawn,
Laden with grapes, and dropping rosy wine;"
and presently we pars a blind beggar sittting by a roadside
cross, who asks charity in the name of the Blessed Mary.
Thus the day wanes, and, towards afternoon, we reach a
peasant,
sentinels of the legen-
dary at.
famous vineyard of the Muscat grape, where the vignerons
load our carriage with armfuls of the perfumed fruit. Here
the cottages are more than ever Italian, with tiled roofs,
and jutting eaves, and ingots of Indian corn festooned
about the upper casements. Here, also, the wild peaks of
the
D a
Inferno
And now, as the sun sinks westward, we hear the
chiming of the chapel 'bells far away, and see bands of vin-
tagers trudging wearily home; and still the long road lies
lere t s comef
the V into
before us, bordered by tremulous poplars, dusty, direct, in-
terminable as ever

very feelingly
ees of passionate
d Theesc rl iebveeds . of
TBhaerrbea raar
ea nmd
al-113
yu g
she
tenderness which will touch the hearts of the
romantic, but the conduct of both hero and heroine
is so wildly improbable that the story, as a whole,
loses much of its effect, while -
isolated portions
reveal great artistic power.

Memoirs of Jane Cameron, Female Convict. By a
Prison Matron, Author of .‘ Female Life in

I:ll3elsoodfrasnoitna,eags a discourse from the
tale" as a romance, as
lA)rsisiOnnt.e"resltnins Two Volumes. ilurst and Blackett.
picturesque as a
gifted pulpit aosrator, this " ower true
of the life and death-of a Female Convict will,
while it at once enhances and in a manner confirms
the writer's reputation both as
a moralist and as a
hum"ltarion, tend, moreover, Nye
are perfectly well