The Sun.
London, England, 1846-03-19 00:00:00

PEERS AND PART ENUS. 3 Vols.
By Mrs. Gore.

Among all descriptions of light literature, fashionable
novels are proverbially the most monotonous, the most
unanimated, and the most flimsy. For these very rea-
sons, it is something peculiarly worthy of commend. a-
tion, when a fiction of this description, though bearing
about it all the general characteristics of its class, car-
ries with it a prominence of conception, and force of
imagination, sufficient to form for itself a certain pro-
portion of individuality. To this commendation the
three volumes before us are fully entitled ; they c(eist!-
Lute a tale of no inconsiderable interest—they sp,rkte
with much vivacity of observation—they contain en
agreeable and ingenious diversity of character. In
awarding these laudatory expressions, however, to
" Peers and Parvenus," we are compelled to compro-
mise their full application. A perception of the clever.
ness which glitters over the surface of each chapter
cannot blind our eyes to the numerous blemishes, over-
sights, and discrepancies which militate very powerfully
against the merits of an otherwise excellent production.
In one particular (no unimportant one, be it observed)—
namely, in the diction with which Mrs. Gore has clothed
her imaginings—there is a most intolerable carelessness,
or a most egregious indifference to elegance ; a failieg
not only derogatory to authorcraft, but liable to deterio-
rate the very ideas which the language embodies. Thus
the pages are swarming with such superfluous and un-
musical coinages as the following :—" Indispensability,"
" inseparability, " justifiability," " aggrandization,"
" custOmerless," " irreproachability," " artificiality," all
of which, though literary foibles only in themselves, are
surely better avoided. Occasionally, also, Mrs. Gore
employs expressions of singular coarseness, the more
singular, perhaps, from the usual refinement of her
imagery ; thus, for example (vol. iii p. 91), we hear of
" Herbert Davenport hitting upon a new raw, through
which it was easy to inflict tortures upon his rival."
Turning, however, from these lesser tarnishes, let us
particularise the more successful features of the novel.
ItT has some piquant touches of sarcasm, as when Lady
L rsula Wainwright exclaims, " What man's consiitency
is to be relied upon! The creatures have enough to do to
beep their word to their constituents." Many of the minor
personages in the story are sketched, likewise, with ge-
nuine humour, mgr. the subjoined mention of Peter
Parmenter :—" P. P. was sitting at an ancient bureau,
covered with ragged, rusty, black leather, and sur-
mounted by a rusty black teaboard, sipping small tea,
also purporting to be black, and dipping into it sippits
of bread and butter, purporting to be brown." The
pen-and-ink portrait of Sir Robert Dashwood is no less
happy :—" An exceedingly narrative old gentleman,
who would lend his ears to the longest story, to have the
satisfaction of repeating it in his turn. Circumstantial
as a legal conveyance, as an auditor he was full of ques-
tions as, when a narrator, of expletives." Or again, Sir
Robert's nephew :—" Young Dashwood was as rash
ani rapid as old Dashwood was deliberate. He had been
up in a balloon, down in a diving-bell, and was the ori-
ginal deviser of the aerial carriage. Everything he did,
said, wore, ate, or drank, was done, said, worn, eaten,
and drunk on the newest and most approved principle.
The most minute action of his life might have afforded
matter for a patent." Of main characters we can speak
in terms of still more decided praise : some of these are
admirably delineated. The Hillingdons—callous,
worldly, selfish, and unprincipled ; the Clutterbucks—
showy, ambitious, and extravagant upstarts ; the Cor-
bets, quiet and homely in their simplicity—are each re-
presentatives of a genus familiar to hundreds of readers.
Jervis Cleve, however, is the most delicately-conceived
and elaborately-drawn character in the work—Jervis
Cleve, in short, is the hero—Jervis Cleve, to
speak plainly, is an original and beautiful creation,
and in his fortunes is centred the principal charm
of the fiction. The child of a day-labourer, the protege
of a fine lady, the inmate of a chanty-school, Jervis
gradually elevates himself by his genius and his fascina-
tion of form and manner, into the very beau ideal of a
hero of romance ; and, nevertheless, the gradation is
managed most artistically—nothing is strained in the
portraiture of his elevation. Of course there is, ther.
the approved fashion of novel and melo-dramatic writers,
a villain ; the one, in this instance, is a Colonel Cleve-
land, the most improbable and ill-conceived personage
in the book. And as if to consummate the absurdity of
the character, this man, who is introduced to 'he reader
r as a most elegant and accomplished roué, at the denoue-
ment changes abruptly into a swaggering, cut-and- thrust
bully, larding his conversation with cant phrases and
vulgar pronunciation. It is in the conclusion of this
novel that Mrs. Gore's chief failure consists ; the third
volume is miserably disproportioned to its predeces.ors.
Indeed the two first volumes are admirable, the last in-
excusably bad. Poetical justice is put entirely at de
fiance ; the wishes and expectations of the reader are
every way disappointed ; the vicious characters are
crowned with success, the virtuous or amiable consigned
to irreparable woe and despondency. , Vol. 111. should
never have been published ; Mrs. Gore should hare
burnt the manuscriFt, and re-writtenr the termination of
her story as she could have written ft in a moment of
better inspiration. We are thus decided in our con-
demnation from the pleasure we experienced in a perusal
of the first and second volumes, and the utter dissatis-
faction with which we closed their successor. " Peers
and Parvenus" e ill, notwithstanding, become popular
for the many charming pictures which it contains—
descriptions of the creme de la creme in the London
drawing-rooms ; of the alumni amongst the excavations
and eruptions of Vesuvius ; of the Parvenus in the
rustic haunts of England ; and the Peers amidst the
variable society of Naples.

THE OREGON TERRITORY.—Knight's Weekly
Volume. No. LXXXIX.
1! A clear, candid, and comprehensive description of
those territories on the western coast of North America
known by the geographical name of Oregon, was very
greatly wanted, both on account of their growing im-
portance and in consequence of the friendship at pre-
sent subsisting between Great Britain and the United
States being just now at jeopardy solely on the score of
that segment of the Western Hemisphere. This de-
! sired description is fully realised in the little volume
before us, for it possesses a title to those very requisites,
perspicuity, candour, and comprehensiveness. We re-
turn our acknowledgments to the Rev. Mr. Nicolay for
having satisfied a justifiable curiosity ; he has treated
1 the subject in a manner precisely suitable, and without
I any loftier pretensions than that of stating facts with as
much terseness as is compatible with clearness. And
while we can never cease to deprecate that atrocious
spirit of avarice which would plunge nations into war-
tfare for the mere purpose of individual agrandisement,
we cannot, especially after a perusal of this book, but
I acknowledge that a country so fertile in its resources
1 and so advantageously situated for the interests of its
possessors, is no very contemptible or valuless tempta-
tion. To no kingdom, however, could this plea form a
sufficient palliation for the commencement of a gigantic
and sanguinary contest ; and how much the more does
this observation apply to nations so blended together in
all their social, political, and moral relations as England
and America ! No language can be strong enough to
reprobate those who would embroil such countries in !
such a struggle fir such unprincipled and mercenary
motives ! It would be a spectacle of civil war upon a
grand scale ; it would be an antagonism of the same
tongue, of the same religion, of the same political sym-
pathies. Before hostilities, however, are further dreamt
of, let all brawlers for national honour pause and medi-
tate ; there is a moral to be drawn even from the fable
of the two peasants who fought for the mule while a
neighbour availed himself of the opportunity to appro-
priate the animal "to his own uses. It appears thut the
natural productions of Oregon are various—an abund-
ante of furs, profitable whale fisheries, wool, hides, tim-
ber, tallow, and cattle of different descriptions ; to
which must be added wheat, barley, Indian corn, apples,
and minerals, such as iron, lead, tin, and copper. The
herds of wild horses alone, might be rendered a source
of extraordinary wealth, scattered over the plains in
bands of from 3,000 to 4,000. For the exportation of
these the ports are most advantage ously situated ; and,
altogether the Oregon territories, though no El Dorado,
may in future times become the seat of vast commercial
enterprise.

RECRUlTlNG.—ltecruiting has been " looking up," in
this sub-division of the northern district for the last six
weeks. The Artillery are carrying all before them, and one
party of " the line," stationed in this town—the 57th—have,
we understand, procured twenty " tight-looking fellows" in
the course of a single month. this success, of late, is at-
tributable to the lowering of the standard height, and divid-
ing the bonus with civilians, who bring forward persons
eligible to be enlisted by military men. We understand that
the 57th have got nearly 1,000 excellent recruits in and about
Belfast, during the last twelve years. The service corn-
panies of this corps embarked for India in January, 1825.
They are now at Fort St. George, Presidency of Madras, and
the depot of Chatham.—Banner of Water.
OPTICAL DELUSION IN A RCEITECTURE.—Mr. J. J.
Scoles, in a paper read at the Institute of British Architects,
on the 23d ultimo, said :—" It is well known to architects,
that if the shafts of columns are made perfectly straight, that
the effect to the eve would be an appearance of curving in-
wards; and this unpleasing effect is remedied by giving an
entasis or swelling to the columns. As Stuart and Bevel
had not shown any entasis to the columns of the Parthenon,
I felt a desire, when I was at Athens, to ascertain it' the
architect of the Parthenon had overlooked this point—if these
columns were really executed without any entasis ; I had the
opportunity of measuring each diameter of the blocks of a
fallen column, which clearly proved that an entasis was
given, but so slightly as not to give any appearance of
swelling out, which is so often seen in the buildings of Italy,
but yet sufficient to correct the defect that would have been
apparent if the shafts had had a straight line. —The Buider.
Railway King's, Queens, and Princesses figure, " not
Wisely, but too well," in Mrs. Gore's amusing novel of
"Peers and Parvenus." What will the nouveaux rules of the
share-holding world say to this? Probably, that they fare
no worse than the fashionable dramatis personm, both Eng.
fish and Foreign, whose mysterious adventures have created I
such universal interest in this work. The character of
George Joddreu
hearted and empty-pocketed chef
d'oeuvre, as a type of the empty-
hearted
overbearing—but not the less
exquisites of the day—selfish—
vues;sth3et darling of fashionable life.
SPLENDID FORTY.'
Highness Prince
'WITH TEM QUEEN'S
Eucir- HOUNDS.—IIis Serene 111
Edward of Saxe Wei-
mar, Lord Paget, Lord Neville, the taeoriere...n.emnen, several et the
officers of the Grenadier Guards, and a
hundred, hunted with the royal etastinuadt,ll,l43°,f upwards of one
taking place at the Golden Ball, Bracknell. The beaountdiafaly'lltthtlee hmineedt.
Madcap, which had been hunted upon three different occasions
during the present season, and afforded excellent sport,
uncartod, close is the place of meeting, took away to tait=til
circling round to Old Bracknell, where it doubled to Southi4teatark:
skirting the park palings, over the plantations to the Prhxce consort's
farm, at Ripley, and thence to Swinley, where it broke away to
Tower-hill, doubling back again to Swlnley, over the boa. to
Chevy-downs, on to Winktield-row, nearly to the church, at a
ratiung pace, thinning the field by a wholesale species of
tailing off. The gallant little Madcap then crossed fur Captain
Forbes's, at Winkfieid-place, into the forest, nearly to iit..Leonerds,
breaking away for the Nag's Head, at Oakiey-irre ea, and thence for
the Thames crossing the river at Pollard'e, and landing on the sp.
posits side, in Bucks. The hounds were broaght through Blowerßlley. and
Windsor, over the bridge, into Eton, and laid on near Boveney.
From the length of the run, up to the deer taking the water, and the
racing pace throughout, only three (independently of the huntsman
and whipper.iii) out of the numerous field at the onset crossed
Windsor-bridge to renew the sport. Upon the pack being again laid
en, liedcap made away through Briganshaw's farm, and was taken
close to Ili' Maidenhead Railway Station, after one of the must splen-
did three hours, plus h 4 sgasen, over at least forty miles of country.
The meet to-day will' take plait. 0 Littleton, and ox Friday at the
crooked Billet, Iver•heatia.