The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-22 00:00:00

LITERATURE.
THE DEBUTANTE; or, the London Season.

A Novel. 3 Vols. By Mrs. Gore.
Refam is the order of the (lay. No antiquity, how.
ever 'venerable ; no position; however elevated, can se-
e'are our frail and faulty institutions from the innovating
hand of reformation. While politicians are redressing
legislative abuses ; while philanthropists are aspiring to
renovate the penile ; Mrs. Gore has devoted her prolific
pen to attack a power deemed infallible by its votaries,
and hitherto regarded as invincible by its foes. In this,
the second novel she has given us this season, she
is again earnest to expose the faults and follies
that reign in the supreme abodes of fashion ; and
to -show, or rather to endeavour to show, how vice
ll'aurishes and how virtue fades in the withering at-
mosphere that pervades there. The chief object of these
volumes is to portray the evils attending the career of
a debutante, and, indeed, the whole system of " coming
out" so universally established in the beau monde. The
concluding words of the whole work might have been
placed on the; title-page ; they fully express its moral,
and migkt, served for its motto. " The best pos-
sible cn,,ascience-keeper for a woman is her lord
and -master ; and had I a daughter destined
to ;nova in the slippery paths of the great world, it
its only under the protection of a man authorised to
control and defend her, that, as our London season is at
present constituted, I should care to see her—a Debu-
tante !" To illustrate this opinion this book was writ-
ten; to prove its truth is the evident object from the first
page to the last. The history of the Debutante is in-
tended to furnish a picture of the world of fashion, and
a very gloomy picture it certainly presents. It por-
trays to us a sphere in which moral deformity is
reckoned lovely ; a harden where only artificial flowers
are seen ; a con',;ourse of living beings hardly to be
called human, for in all their words and actions there is
no token of a, heart. 'Such at least are the ideas with
which thee-4 volumes inspire us. For example, we may
cite the feelings of a young novice on first entering
the charmed circle. " She had heard for the first time
the jargon of the world ; she bad seen for the first
t' me an exchange of glances invalidate in a dialogue
the words that fell from the lips of the speakers ; she
had seen one feature give the lie to another in the same
countenance, and heard axioms plausibly delivered at
variance with every action of the life of him who
mouthed them ; the hypocrisy of social life was un-
veiled before her." Now, although we may admit
there is some truth in all this, we must also admit
there is more of exaggeration. It is also well known
that there is evil to be found everywhere ; whoever dare
lift the flimsy external veil and pierce beneath the sur-
face, in every place, in every class or circle, will find
much, very much that is bad, but also (and for the
honour of human nature, let us not doubt it !) he will
find more, much more of good and virtuous. If we agree
with Mrs. Gore that sin and shame flourish in high
places, we call upon her to admit that virtue reigns there
also ; that some of the best and purest feelings of our
nature adorn the highest and the proudest, more enno-
bling them than does their rank, their wealth, or their
ancestral dignities. In the " Debutante" we have
only the dark side of the picture, and although we may
own the tale is sufficiently interesting, the style ani-
mated, and the whole brilliant (for which the name of the
authoress is a sufficient guarantee), we must protest
against many of the characters, and much of the plot,
because they are (an unpardonable fault for a novel)
most unnatural. We can pardon any omissions or
commissions, faults or failings, in a fiction, if it but
fulfil the main object of its creation—if it but " hold a
Mirror up to nature," and paint real virtues, or expose
real, 'vices, and show us men and manners as they are.
14.nd in this the work before us is most certainly defi-
blent. Do such revolting situations as the following ever
occur in real life ? Or, if they do, it is only as unnatu-
ral exceptions which (as such) are best left alone. In the
denouement of the tale we find a reformed reue, recently
married, and anxious to enjoy the happiness of domes-
tic life ; filled with horror by the discovery that the
mother of his wife was once his mistress. And, again,
we read of a married woman eloping with a man just
returned from the funeral of his wife's father, and the
day before the birth of his own son ! In any common-
place author, whose works would not be read, such
things would matter little ; but when we find such a
writer as Ms's. Gore devoting her powerful talents to
grace such themes, and, moreover, presenting them as
fictions of London life, we cannot refrain from express-
ing our disapproval; nor from expressing also a hope, a
strong hope, that she may in future select some happier
subject, and let the theme be as attractive as the writer.

VILLAGE TALES FROM THE BLACK
FOREST. Translated by Meta Taylor.
These little fictions from the German of Berthold
Auerbach acquire for themselves a peculiar attraction
from the circumstances of their portraying the :domes-
tic manners and the national customs of the inhabitants
of the Black Forest. They are simply, but pleasantly,
!written, aiming rather at fluency than elegance, appeal-
ing more to the sympathies than to the heart. The
humorous vein in which some of them are composed is
to us particularly fascinating, inasmuch as it is a species
of comic writing essentially different from that with
which English readers are familiar. It has less of the
shrewdness of Swift, the exuberance of Dickens, and the
propriety of Addison ; but possesses a playfulness
scarcely inferior to any of those famous humourists.
" Ransjorg and his Pipe" is the most provoking piece of
storytelling Auerbach has ever produced ; seeing that it
arouses the attention up to a certain point, and then, as
a friend of ours mostappropriately remarked to us,
. ends in smoke." " Tolpatsch" is readable enough,
but scarcely so agreeable as many of the shorter tales
towards the end of the volume, such as " The May
Tree," or " The Axe." The translator has acted more
judiciously than many of that excellent fraternity,
striving more after the original neatness of the German
than endeavouring to give it any adventitious embellish-
ment. Most translators, in consequence of this latter
failing, should more correctly designate themselves
" Paraphrasers," but Meta Taylor is a truthful transla-
lator. The little book of " Village Tales" would wile
away many an hour which might otherwise hang
tediously ; and we, therefore, commend it especially to
all habitual searchers after amusement.

ALGERIA AND TUNIS IN 1845. 2 Vols. By
Captain Kennedy.
In reading a volume of vogages or travels, the judi-
cious reader will never anticipate any solid disquisition
upon governments, or any psychological historiette of a
People ; the principal charm, indeed, of such a produc-
tion would be that it should sparkle with the animation
of novelty, and that its pervading tone should be one of
naturalness. It were, in fact, outrageous to imagine
that, at the very moment when the imagination of the
writer is in a turmoil, from the multitude of new
images and unexpected ideas which it has recently im-
bibed during his perigrinations, there should remain
sufficient precision or premeditation to facilitate the
concoction of some solid and symmetrical work. Nay,
supposing that this were possible, we would willingly
Wager that the satisfaction of the reader would be con-
siderably diminished. There would be wanting that
agreeable con amore character which renders a book of
this description so proverbially palatable. No matter,
indeed, what may be the country depicted, or who may
be the narrator, our minds always enter upon a work of
travels with that gusto with which we alt of us revert
to the hours of childhood ; and we look upon the author
or the authoress, as the case may be, with some such
a wonder, though, of course, modulated by experience,
as we gazed upon the weather-beaten visage of Uncle
Barnaby, when he returned from sea, after a long voy-
age somewhere, with a remarkably husky voice, and a
remarkably rough pea-jacket. Just as soon, moreover,
would we have our present travel-writers bind them-
selves in all the formalities of composition, as we would
then have wished Uncle Barnaby to deliver the history
of his adventures in prim paragraphs and pragmatical
sentences. In either case, the more spontaneous, the
more rambling, the more fragmentary the narrative
the greater becomes our satisfaction—and this un-
doubtedly, not from any partiality for the neglect of all
literary formulas, but solely because that very spon-
taneous, rambling and fragmentary character is as it
were an assurance to us that we are receiving the de-
scriptions from the lips of one who has actually visited
the scenes, and in wilt se memory the impression they had
caused is still vivid and gratifying. We feel ourselves
compelled in very fairness to preface our notice of the two
volumes before us, relating to Algeria and Tunis, with
these explanatory observations because we are com-
pelled to confess that they are altogether unembellished
by the charms of rhetoric, and yet that they are agreeable
nevertheless. Our previous remarks will at once in-
dicate that this pleasing effect is produced by the gos-
sipping tone of the writer, who seems rather to tell you
all about the occurrences of his journey than to
write you a description of his roamings. We
would consequently wish to imply, that
while this work has no pretensions to high
literary merit, it performs its part, notwith-
standing, " excellent well ;" it is amusing if it is unsub-
stantial. Accompanied by Viscount Fielding, Captain
Kennedy appears to have enjoyed a most delightful
tour through the two regencies, doing precisely " when
at Rome as the Romans do," handling the chibouka
with an air of long practice, and pretending the most
extraordinary relish for the no-less extraordinary cookery
of the Arab tribes. By such means alone can any tra-
veller expect to render himself familiar with the do•
mcstic economy of a foreign race and capacitate him-
self for the office of estimating their merits or their de-
merits as a nation. It would be superfluoush in us to
indicate by any expression the phases of northern
African society ; every one has already acquired such an
literary
intimate acquaintance with them
telescopes like the present ; and, since the invasion
the French troops, Algeria has been depicted perhaps
nosf
more repeatedly, than any other tropical region. ershtailf
as those different descriptions are simply nothing mot.ir::ee,
than the individual views taken of a country by
writers, it becomes a matter of curiosity to be-
hold, as it were, the same spectacle through
a different coloured glass. In other words, the
perusal of several authors upon one nation is tantamount
to hearing arguments upon all sides of a question ; they
enable us to arrive at more accurate conclusions both
upon the nation and the question. And the more trans-
parent the tone (either of the description or the argu-
ment), the more untinged by prejudice, the greater like-
lihood have we of obtaining a clear view upon the
matter. These are the principal advantages of the
travels in Algeria and Tunis by Captain Kennedy. The
survey taken by him of those interesting regions is sin-
gularly keen and searching ; his attention is equally
alive in the city, the tent, or the wilderness ; and, with
the assistance of an excellent memory, he contrives to
convey to the reader almost as accurate a notion of the
landscapes, and incidents, and individuals, as though they
had been witnessed by himself. The work is certain to
command attention both from its own remarkable merits
and Irmo the puiuicat totnancte which Is cast over the
principalities it describes, by the protracted campaigns
between the Gallic army and the wild troops of Abd-el•
Bader. Captain Kennedy is nothing whatever as 'sift