The Sun.
London, England, 1834-12-11 00:00:00

TALES OF WOMAN'S TRIALS.

BY MRS. S. C. HALL.
London : Houlsion and Son, 1835.
"Women, and the lovers of truth and sincerity in
women, owe a debt of gratitude to Mrs. Hall for this
collection of beautiful tales ; in which she has vindi-
cated the claims of her sex to the possession of many
sterner virtues than are allowed by the superficial,
to find a genial soil in the female bosom. Even
those who, like ourselves, cannot be more firmly
persuaded of the excellence of women, wherever
their minds are not perverted by bad habits, will
peruse with pleasure a book, which aims to show
that their faults are more frequently the consequence
of an erroneous or defective education, than of an
innate disposition to commit evil ; and that under
all circumstances they possess FORTITUDE in an
eminent degree. The examples are taken from the
middle and lower walks of life ; and the tendency
of the whole work is so uniformly and obviously
moral and religious, that it cannot be read without
profit, appertaining to either head or heart.
Originality in books is so rare now-a-days that we
know not whether we shall be judged to assume the
just tone of honest criticism, or to exercise a cap-
tious censorship, in complaining of the want of it in
this volume. Tales are often beautiful without being
original, and sentiments are frequently as well ap-
plied by the twentieth writer who makes use of them
as they were by the first. In judging of the merits
of ordinary works, the application of the materials,
not the materials themselves, is taken into considera-
tion. We know that judgment and taste are necessary
to enable any person to select proper materials for a
stirring, or an affecting story ; but these requisites
for authorship are usually assumed to belong to all
who write successfully ; and, therefore, the majority
of those who read books, with an eye to criticism,
think no more of complimenting an author on the
presence of these qualifications, than of praising
the legibility of the manuscript. It does not,
however, follow that because writers are allowed to
borrow the materials which compose their works, they
are equally at liberty to adopt as their own the literary
labours of others. Indeed, we question whether a
propensity to appropriate, without acknowledgement,
the fruits of others' toils, can co-exist in the same
mind with genius of an exalted order. Now, if our
memory deceive us not, we have read some of these
Tales before ; and one of them—" The Trials of
Grace Huntley"—has been already dramatized. We
think it was due to the public to be informed by the
authoress of this somewhat material circumstance. If
we remember rightly, the original tale was published
by Mrs. Hall some years since in one of the Annuals ;
but that does not materially alter the case. It is dan-
gerous for any writer to indulge in liberties of this
kind. The world is oftentimes too forgetful of merit ;
but it seldom forgives an attempt to charge it with the
costs of this defect. Obsoleteness itself would not ex-
cuse reprinting, in the judgment of the public, unac-
companied by any allusion to the absence of originality.
Now Mrs. Mal is an authoress for whom the world
has too much regard to forget what she writes this year
before the end of the next ; and we therefore recom-
mend her not wilfully to incur its displeasure.
Many of Mrs. Hall's most striking aphorisms,