The Sun.
London, England, 1834-08-30 00:00:00

FINE ARTS.

MEMORIALS OF OXFORD. No. 22.

Contains a well-executed engraving of that fine, but
somewhat quaint old edifice, St. Michael's Church; toge-
ther with numerous wood-cuts, chiefly in outline, of the
various architectural beauties of the city of Oxford, to
each of which is appended some explanatory notices.

LITERATURE.

STANDARD NOVELS. No. XLIL
BENTLEY, 1534.

We have now come to the forty-second number of
the Standard Novels, and when it is considered that
the publisher has found it expedient to go to the ex-
pense of stereotyping this immense mass of matter, no
other proof will be needed to show that the novel-
readers must be prodigiously on the increase. Nothing
short of an enormous sale could possibly requite the
outlay incident upon so extensive a publication. It is
got up admirably at half the usual cost of far inferior
works ; and though much of it, Nye fear, may be liable
to premature decay, yet there are parts of the collec-
tion which, for years to come, will find a place in
many libraries. If a few only of the authors gain ad-
mission to the Temple of Fame, it is as much from
the want of vacancies as from the want of merit. The
building has long been crowded to excess, and no one
now-a-days need hope for a niche, unless he has vigour
enough to
.eject the ancient gentlemen, who have
already found a place there. Scott, being a broad-
shouldered layman, did, indeed, contrive to make a
place for himself, and that, too, in one of the most
conspicuous parts of Fame's TeMple ; but what was
an easy matter to the author of Waverley and Ivanhoe,
may be a very serious task to the inditers of fashionable
novels, or of those unlucky romances, the only object
of which seems to be to amuse people by making
them wretched. They invariably remind us of a cer-
tain placard, setting forth the merits of a recent penny
book of horrors. This is a huge Saracenical head,
with a pocket-handkerchief of no ordinary dimensions,
the said head spouting torrents from a pair of large
goggle eyes, while below is inscribed, " only read this
work,and you'll weep for a month afterwards." The inge-
nious inventor of this broadside had a very pretty notion of
the taste just now prevailing with our beloved public,
who are never so happy as when they are crying their
eyes out. It is a pity they should be disappointed.
The present volume, though not the best specimen
of Bentley's standard fruit, is pleasant enough to the
palate, and might do very well with wine and walnuts
to beguile the lazy hours after dinner, read partly by
the blaze of the fire, and partly by the twilight that is
dimly mingling with it. The Curate is no bad story
teller ; his tales are seldom deficient in that mystery
and interest which novel-readers so much delight in,
and occasionally his descriptions are exceedingly gra-
phic, the breezes of the country seeming to inspire
him with healthier feelings and raise him above him-
self. There is much quiet beauty in the following pic-
ture of a winter's night, when he has been suddenly
called away from his fireside to visit a ferocious mur-
derer who is equally unwilling to die or to repent.
" We now walked on in silence till, having gained the
brow of the eminence which bears the name of Team Hill,
we found ourselves within a few rods of Bushell's dwelling.
Unwilling to enter the sick man's chamber under the influence
of such an impression as had just been excited, I again halted,
and looked round upen the landscape with the well-grounded
hope, that the contemplation of such a scene would restore,
at least in part, the composure of which our recent conversa-
tion had deprived me. The moon was high in the heavens,
over the face of which not so much as a fleece of grey cloud
floated ; and the stars were out in millions, glittering with the
peculiar brightness which never fails to attach to them in a
serene and frosty night. One sheet of brillit snow covered
the whole surface of the ground ; from which there arose, from
time to time, flashes such as the diamond emits when the flame
of the lamp falls on it. Hill and valley, fallow-field and mea-
dow, all bore the same dazzling livery ; whilst the few build-
ings visible, with the trees about the churchyard wall, the
vicarage, and a cottage or two in the distance, were each of
them arrayed in a garb of exquisite frost-work. 'I he silence,
again, was deep and solemn—so deep, that the breaking of
the sea upon the distant beach alone interrupted it,—for there
was not a breath of air stirring, and the movements and voices
of living things were every where inaudible."

Descriptions like this are not unfrequent with our
Curate, but he seldom shows much of that dramatic
power, which forms the charm of the higher class of novel-
writing ; he has little knowledge of the human heart in
its fearful depths, or if he possess the knowledge, he
has not the happy gift of clothing it with language and
making it sensible to others. Thus, in the tale of the
Miser," founded upon a fact most strikingly illus-
trative of a ruling' passion, we find nothing but the
bare incident, heightened, perhaps, to novel-readers,
by mystery, but without the slightest attempt to de-
velope character, or show the powerful workings of the
sentiment that has led to it. According to the original
anecdote, a gentleman, by name Williams, was de-
prived of a small hereditary estate in Wales, either by
his own follies, or, what is more probable, by the
spendthrift habits of his ancestors. Determined to re-
cover his property,—he cared not how distant the time,
or at what expense of suffering to himself,—he retired
to a cure in Romney Marsh, and at length, after a life
of penury and privation, found a recompense for his
perseverance in the accomplishment of his object. He
went back, took possession, and was found lying a
corpse in his bed the very morning after his arrival.
How would a master hand have displayed the workings
of a mind like this I—the determined singleness of
purpose, which could endure, unmoved for many
years, the strong temptation from within, and the no
less urgent goadings from without—the first, almost
hopeless, feelings, with which the task was com-
menced, when the ohject was removed to a distance
well nigh beyond the sphere of vision—the absorbing
strength of the passion, gradually engrossing to itself
the whole man to the utter exclusion of all other
thoughts and wishes—and finally the sudden breaking
up of the bodily frame, when the single idea, which
had supplied life and energy to its weakness, was at
once lost in success ; such a subject might well have
stimulated a more sluggish fancy than seems to belong to
the author of the Country Curate, and it seems passing
strange he should have done no more nor better with
it. We should much like to see it dramatised, not by
the barren imitators of our old plays, nor by the vam-
pire crew, who gain an ephemeral life to themselves
by sucking the blood of the French writers, but by
some one of the many men of talent who are wasting
their powers on the more ungrateful fields of literature.
But no ; there is little hope of. this ; under the hands
of speculators, the stage has degenerated into a slimy,
sleepy receptacle of mud and filth, stagnant 'as a
Dutch canal, and there the dramatic frogs sit and
croak in a congenial element ; if the bulbul of the
East were to attempt his sweetest notes, the creatures
would outcroak him.

It would be useless to enter into the details of the
other stories that compose this volume. They are all
amusing, so far as mere incidents, not badly told, can
amuse, and they all labour under the same vital defect.
The " Poacher" is perhaps the best of them, as the
Fatalist" is decidedly the worst.

It will be remembered that when Carlile was making
the tour of the West of England, he was anxious to have an
opportunity of instilling his poisonous notions into the minds of
the inhabitants of the manufacturing town of Bradford ; but
that his object was frustrated in consequence of Mrs. Hales, of
the Swan Inn, and another landlady at that place, to whom he
applied, steadily refusing him the use of a room for the purpose
of a Lecture. The conduct of these worthy persons was so
much approved, that a subscription was entered into, for the
purpose of presenting each of them with a handsome silver
snuff-box. Last week the boxes were presented to the parties,
bearing suitable inscriptions. They were of exquisite, work-
manship, and very massive • and were manufactured by Mr.
Tucker, of Trowbridge.—Bath Chronicle.