The Sun.
London, England, 1848-05-02 00:00:00

tLONDON,

r 7,,0r • '!"

second, the insufficiency of the constituency ; third,
the system of registration. Of the franchise it was
only necessary to say that it was ambiguous ; and of
all the curses attending a political system he believed
the greatest was ambiguity. As to the Irish franchise,
the greatest lawyers of the day were divided in opinion
as to its character; revising barristers were rarely agreed
as to it; and of course the peasantry under such cit.-
curnstances could not be expected to understand it.
With regard to the constituency, it was capable of proof
that the number of voters throughout Ireland was
gradually dwindling away, and that at no distant period,
if the Legislature did not interfere, the system of election
in Ireland would become a perfect farce. The Bill it
was proposed to introduce had for its object, first of all,
strictly to define the franchise, and for this purpose he
intended to fall back upon the rating under the poor
law.—(liear, hear.) All the existing franchises requir-
ing occupation would be at ono° abolished, and in lieu
thereof, a simple rating to the poor, of the net annual '
value of 81. and upwards, would be substituted. He
did not propose any change in the franchises
which did not require occupation ; but he pro-
posed that the 8/. franchise should extend in cases
of joint occupancy. provided rating of the property when
divided proved sufficient to qualify the parties. He also
proposed to give the franchise to owners of fees simple
of the value of 5/. He believed this alteration would
give an immense increase to the constituency of Ireland,
though by no means an increase which, looking at the
circumstances of the country, could be considered unfair
by England. Now as to the registration. He proposed
that clerks of poor•law unions should transmit to clerks
of the peace annually complete lists of the parties rated
within the respectise baronies. The clerk of the peace
having added the names of owners, the list, upon publi-
cation, would be the list of voters. With regard to
towns, it was not proposed that any change should take
place in the qualification; but great complaints having
been made as to the disqualifications arising from non-
payment of local rates, he proposed to abolish all such
qualifications except with respect to non-payment of
poor-rates. He should lay the Bill on the table in
order that its provisions might be considered, and when
he proposed the second reading he should be prepared
to go further into the subject, and to justify the Bill, if
necessary, in its principle and different details.
Mr. FREWEN asked if he understood aright that te-
nants at will rated at 81. per annum were to have a vote?
Sir W. SOMERVILLE replied in the affirmative.
Mr. C. E. LAW asked, was an occupier for six months
to have a vote, supposing he paid a single rate? A
party might have been in another part of the parish for
a lone time and not have paid. Would he thereby be
disqualified?
Sir W. SOMERVILLE said the practice most pro-
bably would be that all arrears should be carried on.
Mr. HUME hoped the non payment of rates would
not be mixed up with the question of franchise in any
way whatever. There were proper modes of recovering
rates without disqualifying the voter. He should be glad
to know what was the Right Hon. Baronet's estimate of
the increase of the Irish constituency under this Bill.
Sir W. SOMERVILLE supposed the number of elec-
tors would be at least quadrupled.
Mr. lIUME (sotto voce)—Oh! that's nothing.
Sir I). NORREYS expressed his great satisfaction at
the increase, and his conviction that it would be of the
greatest benefit to Ireland. He expressed his regret
that the Government had left the town franchise in Ire-
land untouched.

Leave was then given to bring in the Bill.
POLLING-PLACES (IRELAND).
Sir W. SOMZRVILLE then obtained leave to bring
in a Bill for the establishment of additional pulling-
places, for the purpose of Parliamentary elections in
Ireland, the object of the Bill being to limit the dura-
tion of county elections to two days, and to enable the
electors in towns to give their votes by wards.

LITERATURE.
NEW NOVELS.
The Rival Beauties. By Miss Pardoe.
Rose. Blanche, and Violet. By G. H. Lewes, author of
" Ranthorpe."
Savtnaroog ; or the Queen of the Jungle. By Captain
I?ajter.
The Adventures of a Medical Student. Ry H. Douglas.
James the Second. '.Edited by W. H. Ainsworth.
There is a " season" for all things, and hence, of
course, there is a peculiar season for fictitious litera-
ture. The beginning of the year—the Parliamentary
season and the fashionable season— is the harvest
time for the lovers of light literature, when,
they may reap in abundance the fruits of the
yearly labours of the novelist and romancist.
In this particular year there is, perhaps, less than
ordinary occasion for the exercise of the ingenuity,
and the captivating powers of the romance writer:
Truth we know is said to be stranger than fiction,
and if we doubted the accuracy of the aphorism our!
doubts would just now be speedily dispelled. Our
.
own columns, and the columns of our contemporaries,
are daily filled with records of truthful occurrences
now transpiring all over the world of far more
amazing character, and formed of far more enthralling,
interest, than could be devised by a skilful ingenuity,
or pourtrayed by a vivid imagination. Nevertheloss,
however superior the present attractions of truth, the
writers offiction have been by no mean, idle. As usual!
at this period of the year a multitude of three•volumedi
romances solicit the favour of the public and claim
the consideration of the critic. Of those now before
us, for the sake of its attractive appellation and the
merits of its authoress, we must in common courtesy
speak first of the " Rival Beauties" of Miss Pardoe. Miss
Pardoe is unquestionably a brilliant writer. The " City of
the Sultan ' established her celebrity as a writer, a
celebrity which her admirable volumes on " Louis
XIV." tended greatly to enhance. To our thinking,
all her minor compositions are somewhat Investedt
with the colouring of those two great works. There!
is much of the gorgeous and lavish embellishment ofj
the East in her descriptive details of European life.
For example, in one of the chapters of this novel,
there is a picture of the interior of an Italian gaming-
house, which is like a glimpse of the City of" the;
Sultan, and again an English lady's boudoir orna- I
mented for a ball seems to resemble a chamber of ai
harem, or rather, perhaps, a scene in the" Thousand and,
One Nights." These peculiarities are likely to enhance
the attractions of a romance, while they diminish its
pretensions to actuality. But Miss Pardoe's Eastern
predilections are,by no means so conspicuous as is the
affinity of her social characters and scenes to the cha-
racters and scenes of the court of Louis XIV.
Society, as depicted in the " Rival Beauties," is all•
dazzling and delusive, brilliant without and heartles3
within ; and in pourtraying life of this charactet
Miss Pardoe's pen is quite au fait. To this kind of
portraiture we decidedly object. In the first place, it
is not true, and, in the second, it is not pleasing. The
brilliant, hollow-hearted characters that " basked in thej
noon-tide ray" of the sunshine of the Grand Monarque
are possessed of a certain degree of interest, because,
they are historical and, moreover, because, heartless
and selfish as they for the most part were, good was
mingled with evil, some redeeming traits in the most
base claimed for them our interest and perhaps re-1
spect ; even Lauzun, despicable from his brutal treatef
went of the devoted Mademoiselle, is in our minds{
ennobled by his chivalrous conduct to the unfortunato
Queen of J ames 11., in her hour of danger and tribulae
tam. Miss Pardoe's pictures of society are, we:
have said, not true. The colouring is brilliant, but
the grouping is unnatural. Her fashionable ladiesi
and gentlemen are finished with care; all the artifie
cial adjuncts of their position are elaborately dee
picted, but they have not the expressive and easy
bearing of men and women. Sybil, for example, one
of the rival beauties a this tale, has, we dare
vouch for it, no parallel in real life, and happily so;
for were it not for something supine and superficial
in her character her counterpart might, one would
think, be :nore successfully sought for in a lower
region. Sybil bears certainly no resemblance to an
actual woman ; she may seem, as perhaps Miss
Pardue intended her, for an embodiment of selfish-
ness, and vanity, and worldly ambition ; but then an
embodiment of an abstract idea is not a reality, and
it is with realities th it the novel-writer—the novel-
writer who rightly fulfills his mission—has to do.
Therefore, fully appreciating Miss Pardoe's
brilliant talents and vivid powers of deecrips
tion, we must utter our protest against her
portrait of Sybil, and of the state of
society of which Sybil is the heroine and type. The
other heroine, Gertrude, the "rival beauty," is a very
different character. She is of course a contrast to
her irredeemably wicked companion. She is the
good genius of the tale, and her character is invested
with a degree of softness and delicacy which (judging
from her other portraits) we should hardly have sup-
posed Miss Pardue capable of depicting. The hero,
the weak and vacillating Mortimer—betrothed to
Gertrude, but deserting her, captivated by the
superior fascinations of Sybil, married to the latter,
and by her influence and conduct corrupted and im-
poverished, become a ruined and miserable gambler-L-
-is portrayed with much ability, and, unfortunately, too
much truth. The effect of evil influence (tar more
powerful than evil advice) upon a well-meaning, but
weak and yielding disposition, is without doubt
considerable and most unfortunate. The history
of Mortimer, as a warning, and the cha-
racter of Gertrude, as an example, constitute
the most beneficial and interesting portion of Miss
Pardoe's novel, while the character of Sybil and some
of her fashionable companions are, as we have
already said, deserving of nothing but .censure. To
a less gifted writer we should be more lenient in our
criticism, but Miss Pardoe's abilities are well known,
and therefore it is that we, who now admire her so
much, desire in future to be enabled to admire her
more. " Rose, Blanche,
and Violet " is a novel of a
very different style ; its chief merit lies not, like Miss
Pardoe's, in the brilliancy of its colouring and the
elaboration of its details, but in its vigorous and
"
truthful delineation of character. Mr. Lewes is
undoubtedly a writer of great power, as was evinced
by his former novel, "Ranthorpe. "Rose, Blanche,
and Violet" is dintinguished by the same attractions
and the same demerits as were observable in " Ran-
thorpe." Mr. Lewes's characters are natural, but he
(occasionally) places them in unnatural positions.
l'he main idea of his narrative is truthful, but the
details are sometimes incongruous. So it was in
" Ranthorpe " and so it is in "hose, Blanche, and
Violet." The very name of this latter novel will
suggest to the experienced critic one great difficulty
and defect in the construction of the plot. Rose, and
Blanche, and Violet—three heroines—three centres of
attraction—three stories in one narrative—a pro
ceeding by which the unity of the work is to a certain
extent destroyed, and its interest consequently
diminished. the three heroines are three sisters of
singularly different characters. Rose is vivacious
and spirituelle, Blanche amiable and affectionate,
while Violet, though full of feeling, is possessed of
a' resolute self-cotnmand. A narrative with three
heroines is nocessarily-soinewhat complicated, but with
three such heroines it is also necessarily very interest-
ing. And it is interesting, moreover, from the
truthfulness with which many of its characters
are pourtrayed, and from the natural, actual air
with which some portions of it are invested. Some
portions of it, we have said, for all, the narrative*
certainly does not merit such commendation. There
are characters and scenes which are certainly not
natural, such, as of George Maxwell and the portions in
consequently,
del i
e a ey
and
which he figures; and there are others which are
certainly far from pleasing, and which detract con-
siderably from the merits of the work, such, again, as
the interview of the same George Maxwell and Mrs.
we have no
In this chapter and in some
Np'eyrni
Perils
,0 f andon
one
Night."oespeciallyre
other passages, the manner of the author, which is in
very effective exhibits a vigorous,vrant
of and,
that
general very bold and
indispensable to. a
must consider good novel.
refinement which, without teeing hypercritical, we
In this and. in many minor particulars
, Mr.
doubt, that with a littlehecahrae
s alread Lewes
will greatly
improve. The abilities infTneivtired, lead us
something
to anticipate from
him We have neitherr than
he has yet accomplished.details of the
space to enter into the story, and if we
its '
had we should preferleaving._
theinterest unspoiled
by explanation. Blanche is
and
far most attractive,
because, the most natural
a full womanly, of the three
heroines. Her fortunes are
_of interest, and the
character of Cecil Chamberlayne, the sharer of thosee
use of her great so is
fortunes, andehe ca _ a
'a i admi-
rably depicted, and .conveys warning le,son.
• n the most unhappy Cecil
is • a "genius' 1
with sense of
the word --s one gifted talents, but without
the to exert them, out
the energy necessary
with a
good heart, but no principle -
naturally
s The character of Cecil serve its goodnes • is ie-
tended by the author to exempla
*f
y the effects fatal of
strength of mind and en
a deficiency of ergy—a alents, howev defi-
ciency
for which no waver brilliant,
cbmpensate, but, on the contrary, become.can
In a misfor-
tune to their possessor. Portraying the inertness
and love of reverie which were the cause of all Cecil's
miseries and misdeeds, the writer of his h --is
istor
truthfully remarks—"
, Labour is a sublime necessity •
it is beneficence under a rude aspect.
But'4 1 h - '
so beneficent to man, it is radically antipatheticat °uh
his nature. All men are constrained to to
to
Poverty or ambition are the invariabl work.
e taskmasters,
and it is only by dint of the strong stirriulus of rAI
or the stronger dictates of indomitable •1 want,
human nature, vagabond as are its tendencies, kill, that
made to persevere in the tasks set before it. e, can be
Or
wonder, then, if men under all conditions
e it. What
seize upon every occasion which enables avidly
the
moment to escape from the tyranny ofWork .;:n for a
wonder if this weak, wayward, susceptible Cecil,
necessity, now forgot the sweet delight impulsion of
task, and relapsed kito his 014 1,„ a of his dail
'l5 of
dreaming