The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-10 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Respectable Sinners. By Mrs. Brotherton. 3 vols.
Hurst and Blackett.
Notwithstanding its not very attractive title,
Mrs. Brotherton has here given us a ver, attrac-
tive novel, in which sonic of the Tartuffis and
Pharisees of modern days are both skilfully and se-
verely depicted. The discrimination of character
is singularly happy, and the story is very naturally
and pleasantly told. The two heroines, Louisa
Danhaye and her daughter, Helen Ashton, are
beautiful portraits, beautifully portrayed. Both of
them full of faults of very different kinds, and both
of them so richly endowed with natural goodness,
that the discipline of life, which comes to all,
leaves them chastened by sorrow and ennobled by
suffering. At the opening of the tale Louisa is a
widow of one-and-twenty, and Helen an orphan of
three years old. The widow, it appears, had married
without her father's consent, and she is now left
almost penniless. But, fortunately for her youth
and inexperience, her husband's brother arrives from
abroad, and for the time provides for her. An
amusing chapter " On Daily Breai and Daily
Cake," deserves to be studied by the sentimental
young ladies who sigh for love in a cottage. Louisa
Danhaye, the only child of a wealthy father, had,
it should be remembered, up to the time of her
marriage, existed in blissful ignorance of worldly
affairs.

Louisa held the precious metals in sublime contempt,
and always called them " dross." So do a vast number of
romantic. young women, whose parents happen to be well off.
And oh I ye younger brothers, it is always some
dainty creature brought up on cake, that is so innocently
eager to share your crust I Louisa, for instance, bad an
excellent appetite for her Gaily cake, liked it as •rich as it
could be made, and munched it gracefully—sighing senti
mentally the while for dry bread.
This brief passage gives a glimpse of Mrs. Brother-
ton's lively, pleasant style. Her manner of narrat-
ing her story is very charming ; and the story itself
is sufficiently interesting to make us reluctant to
spoil its interest by any premature disclosure of its
plot. Widow Louisa selects a second husband—
" a respectable sinner"—and little Helen, an affec-
tionate, impulsive child, skrinks from him instinc-
tively, as little David Copperfield shrank lrom Mr.
Murdetone. But widow Louisa is not meek and.
malleable like poor Clara, and Mr. Hartley, of
Hartley Hall, finds his match. Another "respect-
able sinner" is Mrs. NPttlefold, Louisa's aunt, who,
from avaricious motives, keeps up and augments the
estrangement between Louisa and her father. The
character of this irreproachable lady, with her
rustling silks avid her benignant smile, is very
effectively described. Edward Hartley, the hypocri-
tical son of a tyrannical father, is another character
drawn with skilful discrimination. The fatal effects.
upon a weak nature of such early training as fell to
his lot at the hands of those " respectable sinners,"
his worldly father and his austere grandmother, are
most effectively shown. The happy influence ulti-
mately obtained by the loving but too impetuous
Helen will be a matter of satisfaction to all who take
an interest in her story. The character of the mother
is, however, the happiest in the book. The one
strong feeling of her life, her devotion to her
daughter, while it subjects her for a time to much
anxiety and distress, ultimately proves, like every
unselfish emotion, the source of Lenefit and blessing,
at once to gifer and recipient. Other " sinners" ap-
pear in these volumes, less " respectable," but more to
be respected. Mrs. Brotherton will find favour with
many readers, who, it is to be hoped, may derive
from her teaching as much profit as.pleasure.

An Errand to the South in the Summer of 1862.
By the Rev. W. Wyndham Malet. One vol. pp.
312. Bentley.
A pleasant, gossipping book enough—but one
that unhappily comes before us according to the over-
frank first page of a most ingenuous Preface as
literally published at the " request of friends." The
acknowled.fment is evidently made, of course, by the
author, with a view to propitiate the reader's
leciency, and to attract attention to the narrative
which follows thereupon. Mr. Malet not having the
faintest notion in the world, apparently, that if the
f,ct is as he states (and we cannot in courtesy but
credit his statement) that same fact is dead against
him, to begin with. Nay, in addition to the gaucherie
of rills announcement of his, that his lucubrations do
now actually make their appearance before us in
deference to that melancholy circumstance " the
request of friends" betore mentioned—the
writer
positively goes on at once to make,
matters still worse by " humbly apologising
tor " presuming to offer such desultory'' jottings by
the way—by " throwing himself upon the generosity"
of those who may "honour his reminiscences with
perusal"—and by trusting that the many imperfec-
tions, repetitions, and so forth, that will be found
in his pages " will meet with leniency, leading t'3
forgiveness." Nobody, we undertake to say, cares
one snap of the fingers for any book that comes under
consideration prefaced by such meekly propitiatory
sentences as these. Bad as impertinently self-suffi-
cient prefaces are, beyond a doubt, they are far more
likely to be tolerated than a pensive, little, stam-
mering, blushing, introductory page or two like the
couple here only too modestly penned by the bearer
(and writer) of the "Errand to the South." And
the volume, when it comes to be looked into, turns
out to be precisely what might have been pretty
confidently predicated it would prove to be, from the
tone and manner of this most mistaken avant courier.
As a specimen of the author's style of writing
throughout, we subjoin his sketch (if it really can be
so called) of the Southern President :
JEFFERSON DAVIS..

President Davis's house is situated on the brink of one
of the Richmond hills, looking to the north, a small stream
running at its foot, and the rail to Gordonsville winding
through the valley. There are two porticoes ; the en-
trance one to the north, and the lawn and garden one to
the south. The house is granted by the State. The negro
servant ushered me into a lofty and cool dining-room, and
in a few minutes in walked his Excellency; his height
about 6 ft. 10 in., and shoulders board, as they need to be
to bear his awful responsibilities ; calm his eye, smooth his
voice, measured his words ; his whole demeanour making
you feel at once at home : his dress of the plainest, being
a suit of blue Virginia manufacture, a sort wf light flannel-
cloth. We sat down tete-a-fete, and I enjoyed a cup of
excellent tea. Mrs. Davis and the children were at Raleigh
in North Carolina.
Could anything be more vapid or colourless than
this pencilling of President Davis ? It affords one
not the faintest notion of what the man is really
like. And precisely in that way is the book
before us written throughout. It is as if
we were scanning a succession of outlines
drawn very lightly with an ill-pointed slate-pencil
upon a rather dull slate—the wnole being (as we
have alrelr'y described the above as being) utterly
and completely colourless. As a narrative of an
Excursion into the South, it is perfectly conscien-
tious, but—it is colourless. And these penciliings
are in another way precisely like pencillings upon a
slate, they are so easy of obliteration. Gosing
the book, we remember little or nothing of its
contents.

The War in Poland, 1830-1831. By Sir Archi-
bald Alison, Bart., D.C.L. Bvo., pp. 79.
Blackwood and Sons.
A chapter from Sir Archibald Alison's world-
famous History of Europe has here been most
opportunely republished in a separate form. So
republished, it constitutes the most rtivopos little
namphlet well imaginable. For, anyone who
watches (and who does not ?) with profound interest
the course of events in this new insurrectionary
movement in Poland, can hardly appreciate the
import of it, as a national rising, with the smallest
approach to accuracy, without having first of all
recalled to mind the character of the last war in
Poland, the war of 1830-31, the war here succinctly
but also, it may be said without any real contradic-
tion of terms, most comprehensively, described by
the Historian of Europe. As one of the most re-
markable episodes of his
great work, the incident
recorded in this memorable chapter upon Poland is
one of the most mournfully enthralling.

!eeton's Dictionary of Universal Biography. One
vol. Pp. 1,117. S. 0 Beeton.
The compiler of this really marvellous volume of
curiously condensed and well compacted knowledge
has, in the very best meaning that can possibly be
attached to the words, fairly out-Maundered

Maunder. Within little more than a thousand
closely but clearly printed double-columned pages,
be has given us the pith and marrow of the volu-
minous Biographze Universelle. Altogether, the
book is as nearly perfect and complete, as s repertory
of biographical information, as such a book well
could be. Its general accuracy is surprising,
if it be only borne in mind how many countries,
and languages, and centuries are comprised within
the range taken by the compilation. More parti-
cularly, is this remarkable, if the multiplicity of
dates and localities, requiring to be here accurately
specified, is borne for an instant in recollection.
Row so much could by any possibility come to be
compressed within so moderately-sized avolume,
bewildered us to conjecture upon first taking up this
same volume and turning over the leaves of it. The
mystery, however, we soon enough learned to
recognise and to appreciate, when the preface had
been read and the body of the work itself
consulted. The selection made by the compiler has
been most carefully made throughout. Names of
no appreciable value have been cautiously and sys-
tematically excluded. No commentary or criticism
whatever has been indulged in. Yet is the result
by no means a mere record of names, end dates, and
a few illustrative particulars. On the contrary,
while the space has been most sedulously economised,
" life-like touches of conduct and character" have
been intended to be imparted—and that good inten-
tion on the part of the compiler will be found to
have been moat cleverl carried out. Another fea-
.
ture of the work, not yet alluded to, is especially
deserving of mention, and not only of mention but
of commendation. In every instance where there
could be a chance of doubt upon the matter, the pro-
nunciation of the name hes been scrupulously de-
fined. Besides which it should be observed, in
reference to the mere arrangement of the work—an
arrangement made of course throughout. as in
every dictionary, alphabetically—persons bearing
the same name have been arranged in due sequence,
chronologically. Lastly, as in the National
Cyclorwdia" of - Mr. Knight, and again in the
" Men of the Times" of Mr. Walford, in addition;
to the renowned dead, the illustrious living are in-
troduced into the collection. So that the range of
the work is really and truly one of the very widest
amplitude. Improvements will probably be made
in the work in subs( quent editions, but as yet we
have failed in our efforts to conjecture even wha
possibly those improvements can be.