The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-14 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

BENTLEY'S STANDARD NOVELS, No. CII.
Belford Regis; or, Sketches of a Country Town. By
Miss Mitford.
The series of re-publications of what are termed
" standard" novels, is a valuable addition to Our lite-
rature, furnishing, as it does, a collection of the best
works of modern fiction, in a convenient and uttr2c-
, five form, end at a very moderate price. It is valua-
ble, moreover, as tending to place such works within
reach of the generality of r'eaders. The volume be-
fore us contains Miss Mitford's " Belford Regis," a
work peculiarly adapted for such a series, 1-ecause it
is calculated, both as regards manner and ni.;tter,
afford interest and entertainment. to the fx
audience to which its reduced price will noN
introduction. These '1
form a companion wor
work entitled " Our
characteristic and gr
treme truthfulness an

rive it

Sketc

of a

I

to t

Cii~t 1

who:e appears not a ss,_
of facts, narrated in the mob.:
manner possible. In the preface, the
emphatically assures us that she has av&deu .
vidual portrait painting, and that not one word of her
;ketches must be believed from beginning to
end. Such an assertion was indeec.
for so life-like are all the char.:
to probable till the incidents, that vs
readily believe the whole volume to. be
rect description of the men and manner,
"country-town." Yet if Miss Mit:
orrect, if her book contain nothii.
at least vraisenzblab le—if its heroes "cxst cnlv
pages," they are characters such as :nost certainly
;night have existed; if they are not portrai,, they
might have been ; and herein lies their great attrac-
ion. For instance, when we regard with wondering
admiration the master-pieces of art where .the figures
seem to live and breathe upon the canvas, What is it
that elicits that wonder and. admiration ? Ts it the
beauty of the features, the grace of the figure, the
magnificence of the apparelling ?—No, but the ex-
pression which beams upon those features, the motion
visible in that figure, the folds in which the drapery
falls.—iLis-not-gae-symmetry -of the tiarm but the 10 -7--
which animates it: Real living beings ere before 119,
yet we are told the painting is purely imaginative—
granted, yet it is true 'noertheless.. The picture
itself maybe ideal, but its component parts are real,
and even in the combination, reality has been studied.
Individuals may not have been copied, but nature has
been followed—portraits have been taken, "nat of
the man, but of mankind." So it is with works of
fiction (so called) their adherence to nature is their
greatest merit, and it is this adherence to nature for
which Miss Mitford's works are chiefly conspicuous.
The heroes and heroines of her " sketches, taken
separately, have -each.. an individual character,
clearly defined; while in portraying the various
groups in which they are mingled, or in chronicling
the adventures in which they take part, by a careful
attention to trifling minutiae, by the introduction of
numerous descriptions, short anecdotes, and appar-
ently irrelevant particulars, an air of probability is
given to the whole, a general impression of trut!
conveyed—in the same way as the feithrul delin,
Lion of every trifling object in the back-ground inves
the pictures of Wilkie with such an air of reality
The sketches contained in this volume are of varieu
character—varied as regards matter, for the same easy
natural manner pervades them all, We have descrip-
tions of the town itself, and of its principle inhabi-
tants from the " Belles of the ball-room," "the
absent member," down to "Mrs. Tankins, the
Chessemonger," and Stephen Lane, the butcher," the
most interesting individual in the whole book.
Stephen Lane is a conspicuous character in Belford,
conspicuous by his gigantic appearance, good heart,
and love of Radicalism and Reform " all the
Tories hated -Mr. Lane."
"With that vast breadth of chest red lino-
So oft to men who subjugate O.
Ie " pushed broad-ht,
iead of the Reformers
- municipal

or herr

rbest

i ii:d

necc's:_zary

an:l

a cor-

of her own

'd's rs.,_ertion b.

it) its

,i 1 is

asziLned,

ldered on

of Belford,
abuse, and

t the
lenoune •

.nter-