The Sun.
London, England, 1854-05-08 00:00:00

The Great • Highway : A Story of the World's
Struggles. By P. W. Fullom, author of the
Marvels of Science." Second Edition. 3 vols.
gman.
The motto of this work is very symbolical of its
contents—" There are more things in heaven and
earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philoso-
phy." It is very evident that to many this reve-
lation of social mysteries will be a complete novelty,
and will betray the meretricious splendour of many
literary and scientific stars. Yet it is not only the
subterfuges and deceits, the snares and pitfalls laid
for the uninitiated, the craft and cruelty of the
practised votary of the inner circles of the profes-
sion, that are selected for description and discussion
here. The reader is not indeed confined to one
country, far less to one phase of society or one con-
dition of life. The first volume is entirely occupied
with rural scenes in England, in which the com-
plicated plot of the after events is foreshadowed.
In the second, the hero is induced to try his for-
tunes in the New World, and in that mighty and
magnificent theatre for the display of neglected
talents, in that opportune sphere for powers useless 11
in their native land, a long time is passed by the
young aspirant. The last volume is that referring
to literature, as it appears to the inexperienced
and unfriended when taken up for a livelihood.
The least pleasing portion of the story is unques-
tionably that which refers to the Mormons, who
are traced from their wanderings in England to
their native strongholds in, the Land of the West.
It must be confessed that great skill is displayed
in all the details, and especially in the crisis when
the people of the New World rise up against the base
sect. The accounts of America are very graphic
and forcible. On first arriving the emigrants are
delighted, as they think they have reached the
land of promise in their life of toil. " What an
opening, what a prospect; our own language still,
but a new form of government, a new people, a new
hemisphere. Here, for ages to come, all Europe
may throw in its surplus population, and there
will still be room. Here flesh and blood in their
naked strength are wealth, life, energy, and power."
Such are the dreams of the newly landed, which,
however, do not always meet with realisation.
Ernest Glynn set out on a long and dangerous jour-
ney, with some fellow-adventurers, in the wilds of
America; but it is mentioned that a thousand miles,
with swamps, forests, &c., in the way, are nothing
out there. It is a relief and a privilege, after the
whirl and confusion of the bustling city and its
go-ahead inhabitants, to pass away into the still
depths and calm majesty of the eternal forests.
To the impassioned and enthusiastic hero such
scenes and such sights were full of strange enchant-
ment and magic interest. As his eye beheld the
primeval prairies there, so deserted and gloomy,
"his imagination again peopled it with its ancient
lords, and gave them back their usurped hunting
grounds." Again, from the past he turned to the
future ; all around him would change—was chang-
ing ; " the frightful morass would one day be a
garden—the gaunt staring rocks would be mantled
with vegetation—the ocean river be choked up.
How could Ernest look on these things, and think
on his own tiny, fleeting, miserable griefs? What
was he, poor helpless worm, in the mighty pre-
sence of nature and her God? Where would his
thoughts be when the everlasting rocks had
perished ? " Clara Meredith is a character very
successfully dealt with ; her strong partiality to her
native land, her overweening prejudices in favour of
its customs, good and bad, u ere rooted sentiments
in her heart ; and of these feelings her wily cousin
knew how to take advantage. Too late she found
out her mistake ; and Ernest, when losing her
favour, was more fortunate than Wilmore, only
accepted from spite and vanity. Ernest's next step
on the " great highway" of life was not more en-
couraging. He returned home, but fate smiled
not more propitiously upon him in the struggle for
renown than in the search for happiness. Rejected
in love, he was not chosen by Fame ; and to crown
all miseries and mischances, he became what is
aptly here styled " a negro of literature"—one who
works for others in every sense of the word, with.
out pleasure or profit—who gives up for their paltry
triumph the treasures of his fancy and the stores of
his intellect. Not for gain is the sacrifice of glory
made, however, as the profits, small or large, never
descend to the depths where its originator is buried.
It is an unspeakable relief to turn from these mys-
teries of literature to the sunny sphere of Emily de
Burgh's circle. The concluding passages are almost
dramatic in their startling events and rapid suc-
cession. The cousin of Ernest is well described in
his selfishness and cunning ; his end is quite sad
enough to satisfy any lover of justice. Altogether,
the " Great Highway" offers a forcible instance of
what has to be borne and what must be sur-
mounted by the unfriended in the journey of life.
It success at last crowns their labours, those labours
have been often useless ; and when the admiring
crowd applaud the final effort, none consider by
how many agonising failures it has been preceded.
The following passage exemplifies the sufferings en-
dured by Ernest in consequence of injustice and
selfishness being employed to extinguish his first
essay in the lottery of literature :
" But the favour with which Ernest's tale was re-
ceived, notwithstanding the neglect of the usual appli-
ances, now became a subject of real concern to Edge,
who not only had before him the disagreeable prospect
of having to make a payment to an author, but also the
possibility that success might even tempt Ernest to re-
sign his engagement, when, as he well knew, he would
infallibly lose the services of his most efficient fag. But
the means of preventing such a catastrophe were in his
own hands. One of his decoy-books, the production of
a deservedly popular authoress, was just ready, and this
was immediately brought out, blazoned, paraded, and
pushed in every direction, fully answering the pur-
pose contemplated. Ernest's novel was irrecoverably
swamped.
"He is sitting alone in his dark chamber —with the
dark past and the darker future, as there is but too much
ground to consider it, vividly present to his eye. Where
now are the weary hours he stole from sleep ?—where all
the hopes, dreams, expectations, that guided and sus-
tained his useless efforts? The bold, manly heart, which,
undaunted by adversity, had so long maintained its up-
standing fight with the world—even the strong frame, is
bowed and crushed : not by failure, no 1 but by injus-
tice, trickery, and fraud.
" A. strange sensation seized upon him, as if his whole
system, struck down by the sufferings of the mind, had
received a simultaneous shock, paralysing and prostrat-
ing it ; and, with an instinctive foreboding, he put his
handkerchief to his mouth : it was full of blood.
" That blood cried to Heaven against some one, as
surely as Abel's against Cain. Not for all your gains,
Mr. Edge ! would we have a drop of it on our souls 1

Lon

and " the canoe the travelling carriage." Hence
the title of the volume—hence the " Boy Hunters"
are transformed into the " Young Voyageurs."
Immediately we are again introduced to them, as
they are revealed to us in the second chapter,
grouped together in, their birch bark canoe,
although we find them grown somewhat, they
are still the same for the most part, pre-
cisely as we have known them all along
Basil is still their brave and dashing leader,
their chieftain by right of personal qualifications as
well as by right of primogeniture—Lucien is still
the calm, contemplative naturalist—Francois is still
little better than a merry ne'er-do-weel, a droll, gay,
laughing, light-hearted miniature of a Frenchman.
Basil is still ready at an instant's notice to start
upon any daring enterprise ! Lucien still cherishes
an extravagant contempt for Buffon and Linnaeus,
whom he sneers at as closet naturalists ! Francois
is still prepared to enjoy a laugh in the midst of
difficulties, however seemingly overwhelming !
Conducted by their cousin Norman, who has came
from their uncle's station in the far north, on the
shores of the Arctic waters, and taking with them
their old dog, Marengo, as their ever faithful com-
panion—the Boy Hunters, or Young Voyageurs,
as we have now learnt to call them, enter boldly
upon their long journey or voyage, which is to
conduct them from their flowery home in Louisiana
to the snow-covered regions of the Esquimaux. On
their way thither, be sure of that, they meet with
abundance of hairbreadth 'stapes and exciting ad-
ventures. They encounter perils even in the occa-
sional " portage" from river to river, and dangers
enow while they are floating along thel current of
their long water-course. Travelling with them,
the reader becomes acquainted with an extraor-
dinary variety both of the flora and of the fauna
of the northern part of the great American
Continent. The trumpeter-swan and the bald
eagle, the bison and the marmot, the wapite and
the wolverene, the shrike and the humming-bird,
the moose and the leopard, the polar hare and the
snowy owl, the arctic fox and. the white wolf, the
jumping mouse and the ermine, the lynx, the cari-
bou, and the jerfalcon, with a profusion of other
denizens of those marvellous climates, meet us at
every turn, soaring, burrowing, swimming, flying,
crawling. The vegetation, too—how wonderful
and prolific in its seemingly endless diversity—the
rice plant and the sugar cane, the fan-palm and
the broad-leafed magnolia, the pine, the cedar, the
maple, the spruce, and the hemlock. Everywhere,
moreover, that we come upon a new plant or a new
animal, we are not merely entertained, b ut instructed.
Lucien is generally, of course, the interlocutor.
Yet, though his explanatory words are sometimes
very numerous in his anxiety to impart informa-
tion to his fellow-travellers, he generally so con-
trives matters that he does not become prosy in his
prelections. Several of 'the incidents introduced
in the course of the narrative are startling enough,
and some of them singularly enthralling. As for
example, that one recounted in the chapter entitled
" Cast Away," or, again, as in the record of Basil's
encounter with the bison-bull, during some critical
parts of which his jeopardy seems to be abso-
lutely appalling. It is scarcely possible to pass
by without allusion the brief but beautiful
dedication prefixed to the volume, brief as an
epigram, and beautiful as an utterance of the
heart. It is simply this :
"Kind Father,
Gentle and Affectionate Mother,
Accept this Tribute of
A Son's Gratitude."

There can be little doubt that " The Young
Voyageurs" will command as wide and lasting a
popularity as its predecessors. Those predecessors,
prized, we question not, by many a noble-hearted
boy as among his chief book-favourites—ranged by
him on the same dear old self with "The Boy's
Own Book," and with the charming tale of " Sand-
ford and Merton," and with " Robinson Crusoe,"
the glorious and beloved masterpiece. Captain
Mayne Reid's name has, doubtless, by this time a
pleasant sound in the ears of those young readers
who have pored late and early over the storied
pages of " The Desert Home" and " The Boy
Hunters." And by these assuredly a glad welcome
will be given to his animated account of the travels'
and adventures of " The Young Voyageurs"—
Norman, Basil, Lucien, Francois. Following
them in their movements, from Louisiana onwards,
to their Arctic destination—it is like a remem-
brance of those lovely hexameters of Longfellow,
where he sings, in Evangeline :
" Nearer and ever nearer, among the numberless islands,
Darted a light, swift boat, that sped away o'er the water,
Urged on its course by the sinewy arras of hunters and
trappers :
Northward its prow is turned, to the land of the bison
and beaver."
Closing the book reluctantly, we still seem to be
roving onwards to the North with Norman, Basil,
Lucien, Francois—what though we are perfectly
conscious, from the last chapter, that they have
reached their new home on the shores of the Arctic
Sea in safety, and that Marengo has found, no
doubt, many au agreeable friend and comrade
among the dogs of the Esquimaux.