The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-26 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

o t,

I Yrue `e Last. A Novel. By Mrs. Gordon
Smythies. 3 vols. Hurst and Blackett.
The accomplished lady who is the authoress of
this sparking novel, " True to the Last"—and of
how many other popular works of imagination !
must certainly be allowed to have long since taken
herplace among the meet voluminous of those writers
whose aim it is to eater to the innocent amusement
of our age. Since the anonymous appearance of
what was literally her maiden work"—Cousin
Geoffrey having won its fair young author's first
fame while she was yet in her girlhood (as Fanny,
Burney had done towards the end of the last cen-
tury by her maiden work Erelina)—the writer of
" Cousin Geoffrey" has been as indefatigable as she
is apparently inexhaustible. By this time, we
take it, she must have written a pretty tolerable
library. Fashionable novels, love stories, romances,
Christmas tales, serials issued weekly in illustrated
periodicals sold by tens of thousands ! Fictions
like the present in the old legitimate three volumes
octave—less elaborated plots in two volumes—
others of a more compact and simple character in
one, complete in itself ! Season after season Mrs.
Gordon Smythies has been ready with her contr.-
butioe, more frequently with her contributions, to
the circulating libraries. Season after season at
intervals—more particularly of late years—she has
poured forth her serial imaginings through the
medium of those provincial newsmen who are to
the English multitude what the colporteurs are to
the French. Ono of the most successful productions
in this way--diffused far and wide throughout the
United Kingdom as, for a long while, the chief
attraction of one of the most widely circulated of our
penny illustrated periodicals—was it not " Hope
Evermore" in Cassell's Journal ?—won for itself
(before its completion) the distinguished honour of
being commended in a speech delivered by Lord
Brougham! Without doubt, poor Theodore Book
—had he survived until now—would have been
proud of his fair young protegee. For it was under

his editorship (as announced upon its first title

page) that " Cousin Geoffrey" was originally
published. While that vivacious narrative
was the Alpha, the work now lying before
us for our notice—as the new Novel of the
Season " True to the Last" (as the authoress
is to her own calling !)—is the Omega (as
yet) of Mrs. Gordon Smythies' productions. For
the sake of the " Alpha" alone, this " Omega"
(for the time being) would have been not
unwelcome. But together with the remembrance
of its claims, comes the recollection of these of all
Vie witnessing letters in this graceful illumination
by Mrs. Smythies ot a very Alphabet of Fiction.
" True to the Last" is true to the time in which it
appears. It is, in some respects, essentially a Sen-
sation Novel. As a story it does not begin so much
ab initio, after the old humdrum fashion (so long
since become questionably fashionable), as it plunges
with the true Horatian impetuosity n nzedias res.
The sensational character of the work is indicated
plaiely enough at the very outset. Quite as un-
mistakeably as though it had been by the famous
" header" of the Colleen Dawn, or by the " bridge
scene" of the Savourneen Deelish, or by the " ghost
scene" and the apparition in the Corsican Brothers
Scarcely has the reader got fairly into the first
chapter when he becomes aware of events as sur
prising as—let u:.- say—the following : a Terrific
Railway Accident that has swept cut of existence
" at one fell swoop" the whole of the elder branch
of a noble house (Lord Cumbercourt), his lordship's,
brother-in-law, Wilfred de Mowbray, and his two
promising young sons, the elder of them of
course heir to the title and estates ! By reason
of which wholesale catastrophe the head of the
younger branch of the house, a common-place
Government clerk, is as suddenly transformed
into the Earl of Cumbercourt, with an income
—not of a few hundred a-year but—of £30,000
sterling ! Having a town mansion in Park-lane—
an exquisite little villa on the banks of the Thames
at Twiekenham—a Hall in Berkshire,—a Park in
'Wales—and a Castle in Scotland ! Pretty well
—all this—to be shunted into by a railway casu-
alty. A glimmering notion of the plot that grows
out of this initiatory clash may be afforded by e
very few weds of explanation. Immediately price
to the Accident we have just mentioned, the only
child (a daughter) of the then Government clerk
while staying in the country with an aunt (Mrs.
Mervyn) at a pretty little sea-beaten village (Rock
ness),falls in love with, and not only falls in love with,
but becomes summarily affianced to ayoung ensign in
a marching regiment. Shortly before that same Rail
way Collision has metamorphosed Mr. De Mowbray,
of her Majesty's Civil Service, into the Right Hon.
the Earl of Cumbercourt, he himself being e
widower, has not only become inopportunely affi
anted, to like his daughter, but has actually taken to
wife, the fat, and intensely vulgar widow of a well-
to-do fish salesman, one Mrs Chubb, nee Lobskin,
a stout middle-aged person with £4OO a-year, and
no H's! The Fish Salesman's Widow, Mrs. Chubb
that was, Miss Lobskin that had been, upon rising
from the comparative dignity of Mrs. De Mowbray
to the superlative dignity of the Countess of Cum-
, bercourt—furnishes, together with her whole family
' of the Lobskins, Pere etfils, oncle et nerue, the " low
comedy" of the plot. " The Countess" is an exag
gerated specimen of the parvenu peeress, as repre-
sented in " Countess —" (the milliner that had
been), whose patronising manners so tickled the
sense of humour of the fastidious Pelham—how
many years ago ? Exactly one whole generation
ago, fire-and thirty years ago, at the Ball in the
Assembly Rooms at Cheltenham. Whatever
Moliere's " Medecin malgre
.lui," that comical
vagabond Sganarelle may have done with our
human anatomy—transposing the liver and heart,
placing the cceur at the droit and the foie at the
gauche, in the deportment of the parvenu as seen ir.
1827, and again in 1862, one can recognise no yell
appreciable difference. We can scarcely venture,
at any rate, to assert with the mock-physician's
sublime confidence " nous avons change tout cela r
As either of these countesses—Pelham, by the
wickedly calls his the " counter-countess" (and
the phrase is applicable to both these stout
ladies)—as either of these countesses might
say of themselves, though separated from each
other by the distance of a whole genera-
tion, they were really "much of a muchness."
Turning, however, from the low-comedy characters
to the romantic lover-class of characters in " True
to the Last"—what might we not say of that by
comparison ? 'Why that it is when contrasted with
the set just particularised as the creme de la creme
might be to the sky blue ! Fancy the loveliest of
heroines, with the name of Adele de Mowbray—et
the Lady Adele de Mowbray ! Loving and beloved
by a delightful dark-eyed young hero—an officer in
the English army—one Claude Temple ! The Lady
Adele has a charming little blue-eyed blonde as her
confidante, a "sister con," christened Isabella,
but
familiarly known as Bluebell. She, in her turn,
loves, but at the outset is not beloved
by
dazzling colonel of Claude's regiment, Coloneyl li.liee-
velyan, the Hon. Jasper Trevelyan t
Than all this
what could any one reasonably wish as the "raw
material" to be worked uaccording t Ms.
Gordon Smythies' known skilllove story of now-a-dayst Or
at any in the
aatrte,,o
iifnatnorya
thing should be thought to be
still
wantingr
towards
that end—voici ! It is here in the villain of the
tale--a malignant, scoundr'elly, one-eyed attorney,
Vipont Crawley by name—a creature with a hor-
ribly mutilated right hand, a lean brown hand, '
from which (long before the story opens) the first
and second fingers have been cut off at the roots by
a dinner knife ! Vipont Crawley—the very name
for such a wretch ! It being an odd circumstance,
however, by the way, that Crawley seems so much ot
a pet name for the villains with our novelists. Who
does not remember the Crawleys of Vanity Fair,
as traced out upon his enduring tablets by Mr.
Thackeray—with the point of a scalpel, and then
deliberatively- bit into the metal with aquafortis?
Who again that has ever read the "Florence Maear-
thy"of Lady Morgan will ever lose the recollection
of the " Crawley" in that powerful narrative. Here
is the latest son of the race—Vipont Crawley,
1 unmistakeably of the same stock, and not a
degenerate specimen in his way ! A viper-like
crawling way, it is, as his very name seems to indi-
cate. As to the intricacies of the plot of the story, as
first of all ingeniously and apparently inextri-

cably ravelled by the hands of our lady nove.ist,
and as afterwards quite as dexterously, na7l,
far more dexterously, unravelled again—those we
are certainly not here going to epitomise cruelly in
a few cold-blooded sentences! We bear in remem •
brence Mr. Wilkie Collins' appeal to the critics in
his Preface to the .‘ Woman in White." And what
was appropriately uttered in deprecation, in the
weface to that paragon of Sensation Novels,
might be quite as appropriately uttered in
reference to any other novel coming within the
same category as a Sensational Successor. All we
shall venture to add, therefore, is that, in "True to
the Last," Mrs. Gordon Smythies has illustrated
anew how, while in the household words of Shak-
sPere, " the course of true love never did run
smooth," those who are (like characters in this tale
that shall here be nameless) " True to the Last," find
in tho end the long-wished for, and often despaired
of, reward of constancy. As a fashionable love-
story, the work is worthv—we could not say more
of it than this—of the author of " Cousin Geoffrey."

TIM NORTHERN STATES OF AMERICA,

(From the Times' Correspondent.)

NEW YORK, Jury 11.
The President neither shirks the labours nor the
re3r2onsibility of his office. He sniffs danger from
afar, and hastens to every post of peril with as
Inuch zeal and alacrity as if his presence were alone
sufficient to turn the tide of calamity and atone for
all the errors and shortcomings of his Ministers and
Generals. He has just returned from a visit to
General M'Clellan's new camp at Harrison's Land-
ing, whither he went, as he informed the soldiers
who gathered around him, because he could not
sleep from anxiety to know the real state of matters.
He had frequent interviews and consultations with
the General, visited and inspected the intrench-
ments, and addressed the troops from the top of an
earthwork, in a short speech in which he denied
that they had been " whipped," or ever would be ;
and expressed his firm belief that "it was all right
with the Army of the Potomac." He created, of
course, a great excitement wherever he went, but
the soldiers scarcely needed the stimulant. They
have the utmost confidence in their leader,
and nothing that the President could say to
them could make that confidence greater. What the
Army of the Potomac requires is not advice to
the general from one who is no soldier, nor inter-
ference with his plans, but immediate reinforce-
ments, and these the President is not in a position
to bestow. A few regiments from Burnside's
already scanty division in North Carolina are all
that can be spared to M'Clellan in his sorest need.
Beauregard's army is still in existence, in number
quite sufficient to keen Halleck in the South-West
in constant vigilance if not perplexity. General
Pope can spare no men from the Shenandoah, for
the least additional weakness in that quarter would
inevitably invite a new raid of the Confederates
upon Baltimore and Washington ; while the ungal-
lant Butler at New Orleans cannot part with a
single regiment, for the very women would turn
out and fight him with sharper instruments than
their tongues if his grip upon their unfortunate
city were ever so slightly relaxed. So great is the
necessity for reinforcements, and so feeble is the
response to the President's call for volunteers, in
spite of the most active and pertinacious canvassing
and the most liberal offers of bounty money by the
several States and large cities in addition to the
bounty promised by the Federal Government, that
the impression rapidly gains round that the men
cannot be raised without a conscription. It is
eleven days since the proclamation was issued, and
less than 15,000 men have offered themselves. All
these things are well known to the Confederate
leaders. Throughout the whole course of the war,
General M'Clellan and the Federal Government
have not contrived to learn the smallest secrets
of the enemy, while the enemy continues to be
thoroughly informed of all that passes in the
Federal camp or council. The city of Washington
and its doings are almost as palpable and visible to
the Southern President as those of his own city of
Richmond ; and the society of Washington, even
that portion of it which eats the bread of the
Federal Government, scarcely thinks it worth
to conceal its delight whenever the South achieves
a victry or an advantage. The consequence is
that General M'Clellan, powerless to make any
aggressive movement for a month at least, and, per-
haps, until October, is not safe for a day from the
renewal of attacks from Richmond. The Federal
gunboats in the James River have been placed under
the command of Commodore Wilkes, of Trent noto-
riety, and may be of use as a means of defence, but
are not likely to be employed offensively, especially
in any such daring adventure as that of Farragut at
New Orleans. The James River, between Fort
Darling and Richmond, is not a deep stream like the
Mississippi, but abounds in shallows, where vessels
drawing as much as seven feet of water cannot pass.
Add to this, that the obstructions placed across the
river are not confined to the one formidable bar that
stretches from Fort Darling to the opposite bank,
but are crowded close together in the seven or
eight miles between that position and the Con-
federate capital, forming, in fact, a series of all
but impassable obstructions, one at every quar-
ter of a mile, and some idea may be formed of
the difficulties awaiting any flotilla, however
strong in guns or men, that would attempt more
at the present time than the defence and pro-
visionment of the new camp. It, nevertheless, suits
the present purpose of the Government to have it
proclaimed that General M'Clellan meditates an
aggressive movement, in combination with the gun-
boats, and every nerve is strained to make the peo-
ple believe that he will capture Richmond before
the anniversary of the attack on Fort Sumter. But
this is a vain delusion. He cannot do it, with or
without reinforcements, and it will remain with the
Confederates to take the next step. In the mean-
time, the people seem to be losing faith both in
M'Clellan and in the Government, and hold obsti-
nately aloof from the war, until they see more
clearly what turn it is likely to take, and whether
their previous struggles and sacrifices in the cause
have not been wholly useless. The test of their
confidence will be their alacrity in volunteering. A
conscription, if successful, will prove nothing but
the straits of the Government and the lukewarm-
ness or the multitude. Had their zeal been equal
to what it was a twelvemonth ago, after the attack
on Fort Sumter, 150,000 men, instead of 15,000
men, would have responded ere this to the Presi-
dent's war note.

The outcry against Mr. Stanton continues un-
abated, but the President, it appears, has resolved
to stand by his subordinate. Mr. Stanton, on his
part, makes no sign. Notwithstanding the unspeak-
able misery inflicted by the war, there is really so
little virulence of feeling exhibited the people, ex-
cept against England and Englishmen, who have
done them no wrong, that the animosity against the
War Secretary will probably fade and die away as
completely as the popularity of Commodore Wilkes
or Parson Brownlow. The Americans aro neither
persistent in their love nor their hate, and Mr. Jeffer-
son Davis himself, were the war at an end, would
perhaps became as popular a man as Mr. Lincoln if
he would show himself in New York to receive the
acclamations of the crowd. The President himself
is scarcely as Popular as he was. The last few days
have wrought a change in the general estimate of his
ability, and many Per
sous, who formerly had no-
thing but admiration to bestow on his character,
aro beginning to assert that he is not equal to his
place—that
zeal and honesty
are of no use in a
perilous crisis without geniusor laigla capacity—that
standby his friends and
a man may associates out
and assumethe
of mere pride,
capable• tea to the serious
subordinates, detriment of the
They manifest a disposition
public service. at the
same time to take the President at his word, and
fix upon him at the bar of public opinion, and In the
estimation of history, the responsibility which he
covets—responsibility that may amount to very little
in fair weather, but that may be more severe than
he anticipates, if the storms of ill fortune that envi-
ron the Republic continue to blow for half-a-year
longer. The leaders of the Abolition party have
begun to declaim against him, for not lendinghim-
self more thoroughly to the advocacy of their prin-
ciples ; while the old Democratic party, scattered
and beaten by his election to the chief magis-
tracy, is fast re-uniting its broken but not dis-
heartened legions, and re-asserting its intention,
however the war may go, to direct the Government
of the country. All things considered, the prospect
before the Government is not cheering, and were
another such a reverse as that before Richmond to
befall the State, a flood of passion would break loose
in the North which might startle even the Ameri-
cans by its depth and fury ; and inaugurate a new
and unfavourable era in the history of the Republic.
The panic in Wall-street does not tend to increase
public confidence. Under the combined influence
of General M'Clell an s mishaps, Mr. Chase's super-
abundant paper, and the demands of European
trade, the premium on gold has in two days leaped
up from 10 to 17 per cent. at one bound, and the
premium on silver to 8 per cent. There was a few
days ago a call on the Government, on the part of
an unfortunately influential journal which seems
no more of the
to know operation of fiscal
any red-skinned
laws than sachem of the
wilderness to stop the evil by Prohibiting the
to Pay the -
exportation of goldforeign creditor ,

but as this is illegal, and contrary to an article '
in the Constitution expressly framed to meet
it, the demand has been withdrawn; and the dis-
covery has been made that the country does not
require gold, and that if it all goes to Europe
nobody will be any the worse so long as Mr. Chase's
green-backs" remain at par. But as silver has
begun to share the fortunes of the more precious
metal, and is becoming so scarce as to render the
minor commerce of great cities all but impracticable,
ande
isven to interfere with locomotion, a new
remedy
proposed for this evil, which has virtu-
ally made the paper dollar worth but 92c., and
will yet depreciate it further. With the view of
preventing every little trader in the street from
printing and issuing his shin plasters—" good for a
shave," or a dinner, or a " drink," or an omnibus
ride, the Government is advised to call in the
whole of the silver currency, and reissue it de-
based by an admixture of 20 per cent. of copper or
zinc, so as to render the coin worthless to the
foreigner, while it remains a legal tender to the
natives. The proposal is seriously urged, and said
to be as seriously entertained in high quarters.
Another remedy proposed is that the banks should
issue notes for quarter dollars, and for ten cents.
Yet, strange to say, the faith of those who believe
in the all-potency of paper dollars continues un-
shaken in their idol, and Mr. Chase is called upon
to issue his specific for all national distress and em-
barrassment as fast as Congress, nothing loth, will
permit him. Those who collect gold and silver
coin, as they would collect tobacco, corn, cotton,
or any other commodity, with the view of making
a profit on its sale or exportation, are held up to
public odium, as robbers and traitors, who love play-
ing into the hands of " Jeff. Davis" or the British
aristocracy, or the Emperor of the French, or all
three combined, to destroy the rising liberties of
of America ; but so many of these small traitors
were yesterday attracted to Wall-street with their
little hoards of coin, that the premium on gold
dropped to 154, in face of the multiplicity of venders.
Silver, that is so much urgently needed in the in-
tercourse of life and business, remains unattain-
able. He who has but paper dollars in his pocket
and wants to ride up sweltering and scorching
Broadway must walk, for the drivers have no
change, and will not give credit to a stranger; and
he who desires to eat or drink in unfamilier hostel-
ries must forego the enjoyment, unless he eat or
drink a dollar's worth. Where this is to end no one
knows, unless the Government, by a large issue of
postage-stamps, shad come to the rescue, in which
case a sensible relief would be afforded. But even
here a difficulty intervenes, for the Government
only sells postage stamps for hard money or for
legal tender notes, which are at a premium.
Yesterday the dry goods business, once so im-
portant in the cities of America, came to a stand-
still. The premium on gold, the consequent high
rate of exchange on Europe, and the retrospective
taxation on stocks in hand, legalised by the amended
tariff, so bewildered the principals of the trade, that
business was entirely suspended. They refused to
execute orders of any kind, resolving to do nothing
until they could see something like a glimmer of
light amid the thick darkness that surrounds them.
Vicksburg, the last stronghold of the Confede-
rates in the Mississippi valley, was taken by the
newspapers and the telegrams last week, but not by
the Federal forces. It still holds out, and is making
a more desperate resistance than Island No. 10 ;
but all the skill and bravery of its defenders will be
unavailing. The city stands on one of the numerous
curves of that mightiest and most capricious of
serpentines, the Mississippi, and gangs of negro
labourers, estimated at from 2,000 to 5,000 are
busily employed, under the direction of Commodore
Farragut, in digging a broad trench through the
swamp, three-quarters of a mile long, to divert
the river into a new channel, by means of which, if
the
,operation be successful“ Vicksburg will be left
three miles inland, and its fortifications rendered
useless. The sinking of stone fleets in the harbour
of Charleston was justly considered a barbarous
act ; but the same epithet can scarcely be applied to
the work before Vicksburg, a work that will be no
impediment to commerce, and will shorten the
navigation of the Mississippi by three or four
miles. Nobody will have a right to complain but
the property owners and people of the stranded
city ; and when the war is at an end, or earlier, if
they see fit, they can remove their stores and pub-
lic buildings to the new " location," and make Vicks-
burg the Second as splendid a city as Vicksburg the
First, reserving the old situation on the high bluff
as a pleasant retreat from the mosquitoes of the
lower level. The place is so evidently doomed that
it is difficult to account for the obstinate resistance
of its defenders on any other supposition than their
ignorance of the backhanded blow which Farragut
has aimed at them.

The employment of negroes in field work, the
efficacy of which is:seen in these proceedings before
Vicksburg, is debated throughout the North with
an acerbity which shows how strong is the social
repugnance of the people to the African race. The
notion of arming the blacks is all but universally
scouted, while the proposal for employing them in
trenches and fortifications is received with marked
disfavour, even in the army, where it might be
supposed the white soldiers would be glad of any
relief from the most unpleasant part of military
duty. But if the present disinclination to vo-
lunteer is permanent, and the Government is com-
pelled in consequence to resort to conscription to
raise the men who are absolutely necessary to save
it from humiliation, the disinclination to employ
the negroes will rapidly diminish. The Northern
people will forget their prejudices in the face of
danger, and the advice of the Abolitionists to make
use of the runaway slaves in every possible man-
ner will be acted upon at last. In the meantime
the Government and its generals are in a difficulty,
and know not what rule to adopt. General Butler,
who is ready enough to assume responsibility in
other matters, declined to assume it in this, and
wrote an official letter to the President, asking him
categorically what he was to do with the runaway
slaves that daily claimed his protection. The
President replied that they could not be sent
back to their owners, as the law of last July for-
bade it ; that they could not be allowed to suffer
for want of food, for humanity forbade it; and
that, therefore, the only course was to employ them
at fair and reasonable wages, at such work as
circumstances rendered most advisable. General
Lewis, Wallace, of Indiana, after a serenade given
to him at Washington the night before last, spoke
out more clearly, and asked, "If a Federal General
found the negro before him as he advanced, planted
there by some accident—placed, as it were, in his
path by Providence for a special purpose—and re-
fused to make the services of the negro available,
whether such a general would not be crazy ?" " If,'
he added, " I can make my soldiers cotafortable by
the services of a negro ; if, by the services of a band
of negroes I can relieve them of onerous duties and
hard work, shall I not do it ? Yes, and I will do
The audience cheered the sentiment, though
some " e called
out "Put no arms in their hands."
And this
intehrruption explains the real state of the
question. T
is disappearing objection to employing the negroes
in full force, ex that against arming them remains
cePt among th small class of Ultra-
Angland bolitionists and the,
tron
g me
inded women of New
E.
Messrs. Holt and Dale %van
who were appointed
commission in March last,
a co to audit and adjust
all contracts, orders, and claims nu the War De-
urs and rendered
their
r
adds a long string of proofs to the
many already elicited in
aven
the course of the war, that
a highly moral and religious people ha t report.enth v
e concluded their labo a
o greater
scruples in cheattn
• g their Government than
a peo-
plet. -
reralty
of barbarians, and that even the direst ex
of national peril cannot make patriots out of scoun-
drels. Claims to the extent of 50,000,000 dols. have
been reduced to 33,000,000 dols. by the scrutiny of
the Commissioners—leaving, the claimants not only
well paid, but well satisfied. The
most flagrant
case exposed in the report is that of a man named
Stevens, who knew that the Government was in
possession of 5,000 carbines which bad been con-
demned as useless and ordered to be sold. Obtain-
ing access to General Fremont in St. Louis, he of-
fered to sell him 5,000 carbines at 22 dols. each.
General Fremont, being in desperate need of arms,
accepted the offer. The very next day Stevens pur-