The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-04 00:00:00

ATISVSWORTH'S NEW WOLK.

Oringdean 67ranOe ; a Tale of the South, I frowns.
By W. Harrison Ainsworth. Illustra'ced by
Hablot K. Bro `s'lle• One vol, pp. 357. Rout-
ledge and Co.
other romance by Harrison
ouncement—welcome at
The completion of an
ro:uance whose eagerness
has not impelled them to devou."
is always a welcome ar2
the new narrative,
least to all those lovers of
publication. To
them this same announcement is an'
ything but ac-
bit by bit, in its original piecemei,2l-
ceptable—for it is the intimation the't they have
again done, for the time being, with the' most en-
gens
thralling and accomplished romancist of 0n..1-'
ration. As such, Harrison Ainsworth has lone
g
been regarded, not by a mere clique, but rathe7r,
one might say, universally, cordially, and by accla-
mation. Beginning, as he did, when yet very
young indeed—with somewhat of the precocity of
Shakspere's Henry the Fifth, (though, it will be
observed, with one slight italicised difference)—
" To witch the world with noble penmanship !"--
' Harrison Ainsworth has already enjoyed more
than a quarter of a century of popularity, though
but yet himself in the vigour of his manhood—
having been born in the same notable year (1805)
which witnessed the birth of three among the most
illustrious of his literary contemporaries—the late
Douglas Jerrold and the Right. Hons. Benjamin
Disraeli and Bulwer Lyttect —'4raeli the
;
Younger was winning his spe lists of
literature anonymously (his vizes e crest
on his helmet—no device upon hi, the
Author of Vivian Grey—while R._
the maiden sword of his wit behind tae sea..
the playwright of Black-eyed Susan—while Bulwer
was couching his lance at all the social follies within
his ken as the exquisitelychumorous and vivacious
celebrant of Mr. Pelham—the author of Rookwood
was riding over every difficulty at a bound, was
taking his place among the foremost rank as prin-
ceps in the new era of romancists, as firm in the
saddle, as light yet as sure in his grasp upon the
reins, as blithe of temper, as dauntless in courage, as
the earliest, and still to our mind the most re-
nowned and popular of his heroes of questionable
character, Dick Turpin, the famous Highway-
man. Since this last-mentioned and most memo-
rable literary feat was accomplished—how largely
have not the lovers of romance been indebted to this
heir and successor and surpasser of Anne Radcliffe !
It is now very nearly 30 long years since Rook-
wood was first conceived—the notion of writing
that pink and pattern and paragon of all
"romances" having first caught the imagination of
Harrisma Ainsworth in the autumn of 1831, during
a visit to Chesterfield. A year or two after that
happy thought the germ of it was so far developed
that towards the close of 1838 a considerable part of
the work was -written—where ? Why close upon
the very scene of this last of Ainsworth's romances,
but now (in 1860) just completed—namely
in the pretty little Sussex village of Rot-
tingdean ! Afterwards, that glorious " Ride
to York"—the finest thing Mr. Ainsworth
ever yet wrote, or to our fancy ever will write,
as it is one of the most inimitable fragments in the
whole range of imaginative literature—was penned
(as he himself has told us in a delightful preface)
in one day and one night, in less than twenty-
four hours, in " The Elms," a house then occupied
by the author at Kilburn. "Well do I remember
the fever into which I was thrown during the elm-
position"—wrote the Author of "Rookwood," fifteen
years afterwards, in the preface alluded to—" My
pen literally scoured over the pages. So thoroughly
did I identify myself with the flying highwayman,
that, once started, I found it impossible to halt.
Animated by kindred enthusiasm, I cleared every
obstacle in my path with as much facility as
Turpin disposed of the impediments that beset his
flight. In his company I mounted the hill side,
dashed through the bustling village, swept over the
desolate heath, threaded the silent street, plunged
into the eddying stream, and kept an onward
course, without pause, without hindrance, without
fatigue. With him I shouted, sang, laughed, exulted,
wept." And so on. No wonder his readers were
carried away with him in this rush of imaginative
ardour ! No wonder he took his place at once, as we
have said, at a single bound in the front rank among
the most gifted writers of prose fiction ! No wonder
that since that celebrated achievement, for an
achievement it undoubtedly was, and. a remarkable
one—no wonder that thenceforth Harrison Ains-
worth's name has been right welcome to all the thou-
sand-thousand lovers of purely romantic literature !
Particularly remembering how industriously during
this interval of more than a quarter of a century
the author of Rookwood has been making
good again and again by romance after
romance the distinction won for himself at
the outset of his literary career by the book that
gave him as it were instanter a reputation. Has
he not associated that reputation of his with some
of the noblest historic piles adorning this fair land
of ours, but chiefly its imperial capital ?—with
" Windsor Castle "—with " St. James's " Palace—
with " The Tower of London "—with " Old St.
Paul's" Cathedral ! Even " Auriol," that " Frag-
ment of a Romance" which was originally designed
to have given us a record of "The mysteries of
London" more wholesome than Eugene Sue's power-
ful but pernicious prototype--failed not in its time
to evidence, in a new way, the varied force of our
author's vivid and vigorous imagination. The selec-
tion of themes has, in another way—of itself—upon
the very title pages of Ainsworth's fictions—de-
monstrated in a conspicuous manner the daring of
that same almost audacious imagination. Has not
his " Guy Fawkes" served, in its turn, to emphasise
that whimsical remark of Charles Lamb's, when
that dry humourist regretted the non-success
of the Gunpowder Plot, because, said he, it would
have been such a magnificent thunderclap in his•
tory ! Again, when going in quest of a hero for
a new story, who else should he light upon at an-
other while than " Crichton " the admirable !
Writing in a monetary age, his heroine at another
time is not inaptly or unattractively designated
" The Miser's Daughter ;".but about the fair Hilda
Scarve what a glamour of romance is there not
thrown from the moment of her introduction in that
crazy old house in the corner of the Little Sanc-
tuary of Westminster, to the hour of her happy
marriage at last with Randulph Crew ! As for
" Jack Shepherd," who has forgotten the aptness
of that most apt of all quotations upon a title page,
that emblazoned upon the " head and front of
its offending," in those expostulatory and
explanatory words from The Life and Ac-
tions of Guzman D'Alfarache ? " Upon my
word," said I, " you have almost made me long to
try what a robber I should make." "There's great
art in it if you did," quoth he. " .Ah! but," said
I, " THERE'S A GREAT DEAL IN BEING HANGED."
A quotation that ought certainly by rights to have
been emblazoned also in very legible characters over
the proscenium every time the dramatised version
of this far-famed story was represented by her Ma-
jesty's servants before her Majesty's lieges. For
" Jack Sheppard" has exercised from first to last—
even its antagonists have insisted upon this
(perhaps of all, indeed, the most loudly)—a won-
drous fascination. Not to tarry longer, however,
over the past productions of Mr. Ainsworth's fancy
as a romance writer and novelist, let us content
ourselves here with enumerating some of his
later effusions—the " Lancashire Witches," for
example, and the " Flitch of Bacon," and " The
Spendthrift," and "Mervyn Clitheroe," arid now
last, but not by any means least, this latest of his
numerous works of imagination ! Works so nu-
merous that we believe they have numbered
up already from sixteen to eighteen separate fic-
tions, most of them of very elaborate construction.
As we have before intimated—where the first of
Ainsworth's many popular romances, " Rookwood,"
was for the most part written, there lies the scene
of the last of his romances—this " Tale of the South
Downs," called OVINGDEAN GRANGE. Published re-
cently, month by month, in instalments as the feature
and chief attraction in Bentley's Miscellany,
" Ovingdean Grange" has now upon its completion
been reissued in a separate form (in one goodly
volume, but indifferently illustrated) by the pub-
lishers of Mr. Ainsworth's collected writings, the
enterprising firm of the Messrs. Routledge. The
illustrations (to have done with these at once)
we cannot but regard as altogether unworthy of
the pencil of Hablot Browne—probably the ori-
ginal designs having been marred by the careless-
ness or the lack of skill of the engraver. However
this may be, they are wretchedly unworthy
not only of the hand of Phiz, but of the
picturesque and entralling letterpress of which
we presume they are designed to be the em-
bellishments. These illustrations, moreover—for-
tunately to the number of no more than eight alto•
gether—are all the more noticeable for their insig-
nificance from our remembrance of the many ex-
quisite plates adorning previous works from the
same master romancist, plates touched into forms
of grace and lines of beauty by artists like George
Cruickshank and Tony Johannot. Phiz would do
well not to trifle too frequently, as he has done of
late, with a repute fairly won years ago at the
point of his keen etching needle and sus-
tained with admirable effect also years age
with a lead pencil upon boxwood, as in the wood-
cuts contributed by him, in companionship with
George Cattermele, to "Master Humphrey's Clock."
Enough, however, about the mere " plates." And
now, if we cannot say revenons a nous moutons, at
any rate let us return again to the tale of the
South Downs. It is a narrative that has been fami-
liarizing itself for some months past to the readers
of Bentley's Miscellany; and one that will now
secure to itself yet more numerous "troops f
friends",in its present form, as a complete
and
sepa.