The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-28 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Minister's Wife. By Mrs. Oliphant. Three
Vols. Hurst and Blackett.
Another three-volumed novel from the author of
the famous " Chronicles of Carlingford" is, in
tenth, at all times, a most welcome announcement.
It is as welcome, nowadays, to the lovers of fiction
as it used to be in the early part of the century,
when a new work was announced by the author of
the " Chronicles of the Canongate." Far more
welcome than it used to be more recently when the
same tidings were made public in regard to the
author of the "Chronicles of Clovernook." Standing
upon a lower grade than that Master Novelist and
Prince of Romancists, the great Sir Walter—Mrs.
Oliphant is not only, as a novelist and as a romancist,
but still more as a delineator of character, to our
thinking at least, raised as upon a dais far above the
level of Douglas Jerrold. Tozer the Butterman takes
his place by right among the humorous creations
peopling like actually human beings the wonder-
ful world of English light literature. " Salem
Chapel," the title of the particular story in which
that same Tozer was happily made known to us,
still remains, in our estimation of Mrs. Oliphant's
now voluminous works, her unquestionable master-
piece. Other popular, and many of them really
admirable, fictions she has written—some of the
very best of these, moreover, as additions
to that same series of the " Chronicles of
Carlingford." But not one of them yet, to our
mind, can be regarded as in any way comparable to
" Salem Chapel," with its Deacon Tozer, the But-
terman. Works as various as " Zaidee," and the
" Brownlows," and the " Atheliugs," and " Miss
Majoribanks," and " John Rintoul," and " Katie
Stewart," and a long radiant catalogue of others,
needless here to be accurately enumerated, have
rendered the name of this rarely gifted novelist wel-
come iu our ears and pleasant to our eyes, whenever
it has greeted us afresh upon any title-page. It is
rather in her character as the biographer of " The
Rev. Edward Irving," that she appears before us
here as the writer of these three volumes, entitled
" The Minister's Wife." It is rather as the cele-
brant of the phenomenon of the Unknown Tongues,
than as the novelist, pure and simple, that Mrs. Oli-
phant tells this tale about Loch Diarmid. The
picture she has here drawn—we must say at once
—is not in her old radiant colouring. It is rather
like a drawing in sepia upon toned paper. Besides
which, some of the characters are half crazed by re-
ligious fanaticism—conspicuous among these being
Ailie Campbell and her husband (eventually), Mr.
John, otherwise John Diarmid of Ardnamore. All
that relates to those two is repugnant to us. We
are sick to death of it long before the story has
been half related. We are tempted to skip all the
duller portions rel tting to those tedious lunatics
and their esrie revivalism. The interest of the plot,
in truth, lies almost entirely in all that refers to the
twin sisters of the Glebe, the orphan daugh-
ters of the late Captain Duncan--Margaret,
the saintly elder of the two by a few minutes, and
Isabel, the real heroine of the tale. Volume one
closes with the death of Margaret. Volume two
ends with the murder of Isabel's first husband. For
she marries twice, and, horrible to relate, takes
(unwittingly) as her second husband the murderer
of her first—Mr. Lothian, the clergyman of the
Manse being the first husband, and the second one,
who is, as we have said, his ruthless and most des-
picable murderer, being a young Englishman,

-
by name Horace Stapleton. It is in 'the double
wooing of Isabel by the middle-aged clergy-
man on the one hand, and, on the other, by
the young, selfish, heartless Englishman, Horace
Stapleton that subsists, whatever charm or fascina-
tion there is in the narrative. Once or twice the
interest awakened in the reader's mind is intense,
but it is only so very exceptionally. It is thus
when Isabel is taken during her first honeymoon to
the opera-box. It is thus when upon the night of
the murder she is waiting Mr. Lothian's return from
his ride on horseback through the storm. It is thus
especially when, by her discovery of the breastpin
hid away in Horace Stapleton's desk, she first
wakens to the recognition of the fact that he, her
second husband, is her first husband's base and
dastardly murderer. As the mere fact of
her ever marrying the assassin of the man who
first won her hand, will sufficiently indicate,
the root, idea, or groundwork of the story is by no
means agreeable. We read it, at its most interest-
ing parts, with a feeling of repulsion. We turn
from a consideration of the principal characters,
especially from the hero and heroine, with a sense
of relief to examine by preference Mrs. Oliphant's
delineation of two or three of the minor characters
here introduced. Happiest among all these lesser
delineations are, first of all, the Dominie Galbraith ;
secondly, Jean, stepmother of Isabel and Margaret ;
thirdly, old Miss Catharine Diarmid, of Lochhead.
The landscape is lightly but cleverly sketched in, and
the ways and means, the habits and manners of the
primitive inhabitants are ably and sometimes humo-
rously enough described.

r\c-
CUP

HER MAJESTY.

WINDSOR CASTLE, June 27.

The Queen, accompanied by their Royal High-
nesses Princess Louise and Princess Beatrice,
drove out yesterday evening to the Home Park,
and witnessed the battalions of Foot Guards cross-
ing the Pontoon Bridge to Datchet.
Her Majesty, with Princess Louise and Princess
Beatrice, attended Divine service this morning at
the Camp of the troops in Windsor.

The P►ince and Princess of Wales attended
Divine service yesterday morning in the Chapel
Royal, St. James's.

LATEST INTELL MENCE

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)