The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-17 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

THE FIRST ANGEL. A Novel in Two Vo-
lumes Saunders and Otley.
Whoever may have written this agreeable fiction
hes, in it, displayed abilities deserving of every ea-
courTernent. To pretend that the work is altogether
unblemished by evidences of immaturity would be a
mere affectation of compliment. Nevertheless, these
very tokens of immaturity are the precise features
which win for the effusion the reader's interest, and
extort, however unwillingly, the reviewer's sym-
pathy. For they indicate rather clearly the absence
of that skill in composition which is alone capable of
acquisition by practice in authorcraft, that adroitness
in style which, in many instances, practice degene-
rates into mannerism, but which, when that practice
is accompanied by critical judgment, becomes ripened
to the perfection visible in the masterpieces of our
literature. Had we taken up one of the volumes hap-
hazlrd, and glanced through a single chapter, we
should have recognized with facility the hand of a
student-novelist, an adventurer upon the career of
Letters, an aspirant for those intellectual honours
which in their highest manifestation crown the scho-

lar with bay-garlands in the capitol. Without as-
piring to compete thus literally with the fame of
Petrarch, the writer of now-a-days, be he poet, or
romanciet, or playwright, or historian, aims at
achieving for himself a success quite equivalent to
that most illustrious of all coronations—the success
of a wide and genuine popularity. Ambition has
been called a " glorious fault," but an ambition
like this, so peculiarly innocuous of its kind, can
scarcely be regarded as a fault at all, partaking,
on the contrary, as it does, rather of the character-
istics of a virtue. Whenever; therefore, we perceive
any indication of hopes having
this particular ten-
dency, our regard is enlisted at once in the cause of
the aspirant. When coupled with these yearnings for
popularity we detect, through the unavoidable flaws
and weaknesses of a first work, the ardent spirit and
crude powers of a youthful imagination, that interest
is in a manner redoubled. But when added to all this
we find the tyro exercising his partially developed
abilities for the inculcation of a pure and evangelic
morality we instinctively turn towards him and his
efforts that, genial warmth of welcome which of all
things is the best calculated to incite him to arouse
his dormant energies. Such adolescence of intellect,
such generosity of ambition, such depth and sweet-
ness of morality, we recognise in the author of the
volumes before us, the half-grown but still blooming
fruits of a mind capable, we conceive, of better and
loftier achievements. " The First Angel," taken as a
first work, is removed from the iron and inexorable
grasp of ordinary criticism. It appeals to the gentler
feelings of the reviewer, demanding at his bands for
every merit the applause which leads to larger
excellences, for every blemish the hint best
tending to prevent the possibility of their recurrence.
Fortunately not only
for the writer of the story,
but for ourselves in like manner, there are of these
merits not a few in the course of the narrative. For-
tunately we say for ourselves, seeing that of all the
ta,ks imposed upon us in our capacity as critics that
of tomahawking a young and ambitious writer is the
most uncongenial and repulsive.
" To sit and laugh in Rabellais' easy chair,"
is delightful enough when the subject of our annota-
tions happens to be acme ,mature and callous book-
maker, whose sensibilities to ridicule have been
blunted by frequent disappointments, and whose self-
esteem is defended, so to speak, by an epidermis vs
impenetrable as the scales of an armadillo, or the skin
of a hippopotamus. With regard to a young writer,
such as we believe the anonymous author of "The
First Angel" to be, our sentiments are altogether dif-
ferent. In his instance we acknowledge at once that
our principal anxiety is to discover, if possible—not
blots, but beauties. We open the volumes vigilant
for all that can extort our admiration. Respecting
the novel at our elbow we may say that our solici-
tude in this particular has been not unfrequently gra-
tified. We have found the tale simple in purpose,
and for the nonce sufficiently unaffected. What ap-
pears to us to be the principal merit of the production
is the structure of its machinery. The plot is
at once ingeniously complicated and naturally
elucidated. Here the romancist has shown himself to
our thinking to be especially successful. Shifting
his scenes from Africa to Europe, from a provincial
village to the great metropolis, from a dewy lawn at
daybreak to a London ball-room in the height of the
season, and at midnight—he has contrived to diversify
the interest, and to bring out in broad lights and sha-
dows the principal personages introduced, by suge
gesting appropriate yet contrasting backgrounds.
His dialogue, moreover, generally speaking is na-
tural enough, whether it ,be articulated in the heart
of a desert, or in the bosom of a domestic circle. Se-
veral of the imaginary characters are especially good,
as the creations of a beginner. The villain of the
book, above them all, is entitled to commendation as
a study from the Varney of Sir Bulwer Lytton.
Like the profligate in " Lucretia," Roger Conway is
an artist, but, unlike his extraordinary prototype,
Conway repents before his dissolution. In his in-
stance, the heart's blood of the reader is not curdled
with horror by a description of the earthly hell of
Norfolk Island, where felons are transformed into
devils incarnate by the hopeless prolongation of their
sufferings. Seeing that the fiction opens with the
betrothal of Helen and Harry Fernley, we are led to
imagine fora while at its outset that those are its hero
and heroine. A little progress' in the narrative
assures us to the contrary. We then discover
the heroine in the person of a young girl named
Anna Morville, the daughter of 'a refugee from the
first French Revolution. Her father dying in the
wilderness from inanition and fatigue, Anna is res-
cued from death by Harry Fernley, who has strayed
from the army, in which,
as a junior officer, he bad
proceeded to Egypt under Abercrombie. Upon a
casket of jewels, containing a will, written in sympa-
thetic ink, the fortunes of the chief personages in the
romance are dependent, and this casket is saved to
Anna Merville by her rescuer (ram destruction. The
hero of this story we have
not yet mentioned ; and
this is about the moat elaborately drawn character in
the volumes. His name is
simple and plain enough
in all conscience,,being nothing more euphonious or un-
common than that of Smith. Morris Smith, before we
have followed him long, contrives to secure to himself
at the commencement of the tale has in it some-
thing chief
serenity and completeness, and
the
terrible,
from of
it our u r Sympathies. His happiness
is contrasted horribly with his subsequent calamities.
The rapid demise of poor Jenny, her twin sister Mary,
and their gentle-hearted mother, invests the narrative
with a strange and oppressive melancholy. After-
wards, however, thegloom is relieved by a return of
joy to the hero, though this again is dissipated by the
sudden death of his long-loved and dearly-purchased
bride. What appears to us the prominent blemish in
colouring in the sentiment.
to such a length as to de-
gtshmeoenewer
atoin trekl
eiissnttahois certainmere
is
cs
romrvi over
d a ew
kishness. The badinage
between Jenny and Morris, again, is in the highest
degree unnatural and ridiculocii—brother and sister
never ccquetting in any such absurd manner in real
life, or only doing eo,we should opine, when conspicu-
ous fur frivolity and silliness. Mr. Forland, likewise,
appreciable,
is the veriest stick of a parson, attracting towards
himself not one momentary feeling of interest. Con-
trast him with the Mr. Dale of Bulwer Lytton's novel
of the portraiture
Notwithstanding,
however, this occasional weakness of portraiture, the
od,
production before us is adorned with many agreeable
in
becomes Bc kw
p° faunl ld yt he inadequacy
limnings of character. Anna Mareille especially, the
First Angel, so called from her casual appearance in
childhood, is conceived [with a true and exquisite ap-
preciation of aesthetic beauty. Her temperament
throughout is shown to be ;
reeat womanly, and not
a merely fantastic idealism. Once or twice the charm
of interest surrounding her fortunes rises to the
height of excitement, in particular at that portion of
her history when she apparently becomes the victim of
the licentious artist Roger Conway, Of the novelist's
style of composition we can speak in terms of ap-
proval, seeing that, although unmellowed as yet
by cultivation, it betrays a capacity admitting
of very large development. His diction,
almost always elegant and perspieuous, is at times
even eloquent and picturesque. Here, for example, is
a rich and poetic simile regarding sunset on an Eng-
lish landscape—the writer describing the house
of Helen Fernley as being situated with a westerly
aspect, "so that the setting sunbeams fell full upon it
in summer evenings, turning the windows into fiery
beacons, and pouring rubies upon the large, sluing
lawn in front when the dew begante Subjoined
is a specimen of the authors powers in didactic com-
position. His argument runs to the effect that the
divine commandment " Thou shalt not bear false wit-
ness against thy neighbour," is more frequently
broken than any other law of the Decalogue. He
says :

"You are, perhaps, a Conservative in politics. You
think that authority is the right of the few, and obe-
dience the duty of the many. You have a reverence for
kings, and a contempt for mobA; you see that change is
dangerouz, and public opinion fickle, and you sigh for
golden days that are departed.
" Your neighbour is a Radical. He thinks there is no
rightful authority save the will of the people. He dis-
claims obedience and turns up his lip at kings. Instead
of the danger of change, he can see nothing but its be-
nefits. The past is to him all misery and corruption,
and all his hope is in the good time coming,
" You dislike one another, and avoid one another.
You think him a dangerous fellow; a friend to violence
and commotion. He thinks you a selfish obstacle, a
lover of tyranny and a foe to human improvement.
"You convey these improvements to others while you
act on them yourselves, and the truth meanwhile is pro-
bably this—that you are two very honest and very ill-
informed men; tint you equally desire the good of your
country and of the world, and thatyou eh if fly becauee
education, and taste, end circumstance, have led each of
you to see only one side of a very difficult question.
" You would soon learn this it you took any pains to
do justice to one another, but you do nothing of the
YOg, the Couservetive) read ii2o MOnting Post