The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-18 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Story of Elizabeth. Smith, Elder, and Co.
One of the heroes of ancient Greece, when his
friends were lamenting round his death-bed that he
left no children to preserve his lineage, exclaimed
triumphantly, " Two fair daughters have I,"
naming two of his victories, " who will bear my
name to the latest posterity," and the prophecy
has been realised to this day. Happier, than the
warrior of Greece, the author of " Vanity Fair "
can boast not only a goodly offspring among the
e,reations of his fancy, but " fair daughters" also,
who bear his name and inherit his genius. " The
Story of Elizabeth" bears no author's name upon
the title-page, but rumour, we believe correctly,
ascribes it to Miss Thackeray. Such an author-
ship would make any volume welcome, but
this work would be welcome ware the author's
name unknown. Again and again it has been our
happy office in these columns to award our genial
tribute to the author of " Pendennis," and with
yet greater pleasure we now congratulate him on
his daughter's auspicious entrance into the world
of literature. "The Story of Elizabeth" is a
charming little romance, fresh in its style, original
in its treatment, and conspicuous throughout for its
entire freedom from any appearance of effort, or
affectation, or striving for effect. It is simple, and
natural, and 'truthful. As the microscope reveals
greater marvels than even Lord Rosse's telescope,
so does the attentive student of one human heart
discover more matter for amazement, and interest,
and instruction, than can be obtained by a more
superficial survey of all mankind, even "from China
to Peru." The narrator of Elizabeth's history is
aware of this, she concentrates all our attention
upon her heroine, and for the time being we feel for
her, and we feel with her, albeit we do not always
have good reason to approve of her. Poor Elly is
no ideal perfection, but just such a one as Words•
worth might have pictured—
"A creature not too bright and good
For human nature's daily food, &c.
" This is the story (so begins the history of Eliza-
beth) of a foolish woman, who, through her own
folly learnt wisdom at last; whose troubles—they
werenot very great, they might have made the happi-
ness of some less eager spirit—were more than she
knew how to bear. The lesson of life was a hard lesson
to her. She would not learn, she revolted agains
the wholesome doctrine." Here is a picture of
ELIZABETH.

"Elizabeth had great soft eyes and pretty yellow hair,
and a sweet flitting smile, which came out like sunlight
over her face, and lit up yours and mine, and any other it
might chance to fall upon. She used to smile at herself in
the glass, as many a girl has done before her ; she used to
dance about the room, and think, " Come life, come life,
mine is going to be a happy one."
Such is the buoyant and impetuous being to whom
the lesson of life is so severe. At one time over-
come by sorrow, and heart-weary with hope de-
ferred, she exclaims, " To-day lam twenty, and I
feel a hundred. Oh, what a sin and shame to con-
demn me to this hateful life. Oh, what wicked
people these good people are. Oh, how dull ; oh,
how stupid ; oh, how prosy ; oh, how I wish I was
dead, and they were dead, and it was all over !" At
another time her sorrowful Mt ditations take a better
direction. She is wandering out in the busy city
alone—
"As she passed by the columns of St. Philips's Church,
somebody came out, and the curtain swung back, and Elly,
looking up, saw a dim, quiet interior, full of silent rays of
light falling from the yellow windows and chequering the
marble. She st pped, and went in with a sudden impulse.
One old woman was kneeling on the threshold, and Elly
felt as if she, too, wanted to fall upon her knees. What
tranquil gloom, and silence, and repose I Her own church
was only open at certain hours. Did it always happen that
precisely at eleven o'clock on Sunday mornings she was in
the exact frame of mind in which she most longed for
spiritual communion and consolation ? To be tightly wedged
in between two other devotees, plied with chauferettes by
the pew-opener, forced to follow the extempore supplica-
tions of the preacher—did all this suffice to her wants ?
litre was silence, coolness, a faint, half-forgotten smell of
incense, there were long, empty rows of chairs, one or two
pcople kneeling at the little altars, five or six little pious
candles burning in compliment to the various saints and
deities to whom they were dedicated. The rays of the little
I candles glimmer€d in the darkness, and the foct-falls fell
quietly along the aisle. I, for my part, do not blame this
poor foolish heart, if it offered up a humble supplication
here in the shrine of the stranger. Poor Elly was not very
eloquent ; she only prayed to be made a good girl end to be
happy. But, after all, eloquence and long words do not
mean any more."
Poor Elly is rescued for the time from her misery
and monotony, and brought home from a sick-bed,
which had nearly proved her death bed, to be
nursed in England by dear old Miss Dampier, quite
a fairy godmother sort of old lady, benevolent, and
sympathetic, and with an old maid's ideal sympa-
thy for love and lovers. Here Elizabeth rejoices in
what no foreigner can appreciate :
THE ENGLISH ATMOSPHERE.
" Here, in England, whither her good friend had brought
her to get well, the air is damp with sea breezes ; the at-
mosphere is not keen and exciting as it is abroad; the sky
is more often gray than blue ; it rarely dazzles and bewilders
you with its brilliance; there is humidity and vegetation,
a certain placidity and denseness, and moisture of which
some people complain. To Elizabeth—nervous, eager, ex-
citable—this quiet green country, these autumn mists, were
new life. Day by day she gained strength, and flesh, and
tone, and health, and good spirits.
We must give a glimpse of some of the other cha-
racters of the story. Here is one of Elly's lovers
indulging in very characteristic speculations :
A LOVER'S MISGIVINGS.
"He wonders whether he and Elly will be happy to-
gether ? He pictures stormy scenes ; he intuitively shrinks
from the idea of her unconventionalities, her eagerness, her
enthusiasm. He is a man who likes a quiet life, who would
appreciate a sober, happy home—a gentle, equable com-
panion, to greet him quietly, to care for his tastes and his
ways, to sympathise, to befriend him. Whereas now it is
he who will have to study his companion all the rest of his
life ; if he thwart her she will fall ill of sorrow, if he satisfy
her she will ask more and more; if he neglect her—being
busy, or weary, or what not—she will die of grief; if he want
sympathy and common sense, she will only adore him. Poor
Elly I it is hard upon her thf.t he should make such a bug-
bear of her poor little love. His courage is oozing out at
his finger -ends."
We have not room left for a portrait of Will Dam-
pier, who, if he occasionally did foolish things" did
them sensibly, which is a very different thing from
doing sensible things foolishly. It seems to me,"
adds the authoress, " that is just the difference be-
tween men and women." The pastor Tourneur is
well described ; he belongs to a high order of
spirituality, and is "humble, holy, and self-deny-
ing." Very different is his second wife, Caroline
Gilmour, the mother of Elizabeth. Her portrait is
only sketched in by a few touches, but it is un-
mistakeable, and is singularly repulsive. We lose
sight of Elly at last as she exclaims that
she "does not want to be the only happy woman
in the world," and she hurries out to the porcheoes
"the fresh rain-scented air," and the dooi:in closes
after after her; and we close the volume, re/o
leave her happy after all, and yet
leave of her and of her Story. reluctant to take

----
Poems and 7ranslations. By Philip Stanhope
ur Blackwood and Sous.
little vol
1 o f them,
NV o r e Igeiyi s.
hptpo
g.
e2tob7e..
original most
„
• hed translator
Homer's
translated Odyssey
The accomplished ... .
.nthe bpencerian stanzl has
verse
1 r in a charming
mo so t
herein into
collectedE
volume,
ory
of them, contributed by him
a few in years past at
uncertain intervals to the pages of
the fugitive pieces',
Ma k c wood. As
a translator Mr. Woraley is at all times felicitous.
From Homer's Iliad he here takes the famous
passage in the sixth Book
artin descriptive of the
pg of Hector and Andromache. Often
as it has before been rendered into English
verse, and that, too,
by scholarly poets no less
gifted than Chapman, and Pope, and Cowper—the
passage comes to us, secure of a fresh and earnest
welcome, penned a:•.' it is with so tender an apprecia-
tion of the exquisite h pat os and majestic beauty of
the incident herein so marvellously depicted by the
Patriarch of Poets, and so echoingly repeated in our
own vernacular by the youngest and, in some respects,
the most variously gifted among all his Translators.
But that we have so recently luxuriated over Sir
Edmund Head's delicious version of Propertius'Elegy
on Cornelia, we should have read Mr. Worsley's
more literal translation with still greater pleasure
than that which it has actually afforded us. Sir Ed-
mund's is more of a paraphrase or amplification, it
is true ; but it is from first to last exquisitely beauti-
ful. Turning, however, from the various translationsai
given in this graceful volume, to the ori g
in
sposed at once
pro-
ductions themselves, we are almost di