The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-08 00:00:00

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HER MAJESTY, &c•

WINDSOR CASTLE, April 7.

The Queen, accompanied by her Royal Highness
Princess Louise, drove out yesterday afternoon,
attended by Lady Churchill.
_ _ _

His Royal Highness Prince Leopold walked in
the grounds, attended by Mr. Sahl.
Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry of Prussia
also went out.

The announcement in Saturday's papers respect-

ing her Royal Highness the Princess Christian of Schles-
wig-Holstoin was incorrect. Dr. Farre was sent for from
London on Friday night in consequence of her Royal
Highness not being quite well, but he Las returned to
Loudon.

THE PREMIER.—Lord Derby was again absent
from the Cabinet Council on Saturday. He is, however,
reported somewhat better, although still unable to leave his
bed.

The Duke and Duchess of Manchester have been
entertaining company at Kimbolton Castle, Hunts, during
the latter part of last week.
The Duchess of Montrose returned to town on
Saturday from visiting Viscount and Viscountess Ingestro
at Gumley Hall, Northampton.

LITERATURE.

A Wife and not a IVile. A Novel. By Cyrus
Redding. Three vols. Saunders, Otley, and Co.
Although the incidents and characters of this
story are entirely fictitious they have been suggested
to the writer's imagination by an actual history
which will at once occur to the recollection of the
readers. This fact the author trusts will only add
to the interest of his work. There is a lady now
existing, who, according to the decision of different
courts of law, has been pronounced " a wife" and
" not a wife ;" and it is apparently a matter of in-
dividual opinion whether she should be addressed by
her maiden name or by that of her " honourable"
husband. The character of Mary Fitzwalter, the
heroine of Mr. Cyrus Redding, bears no resem-
blance whatsoever to the very romantic heroine of
the actual history. Truth being in this instance, as
usual, far stranger than its fictitious counterpart.
In one respect, however, the novel is even more be-
wildering than the history. We cannot quite under-
stand what kind of marriage ceremony united Mary
Fitzwalter and Captain O'Brien. The author himself
is evidently quite uncertain about the matter, and
manifestly contradicts himself. In the first place,
the marriage is thus described :—" The usual cere-
monies being gone through by the assistance of two
or three clerical officials, so the newspapers related
the incident, in executing the Herculean' office of
reading the ceremony as by law established, the
happy pair' with certain friends went to break-
fast, and so on ; the description being precisely the
same as that of the ten thousand consecutive
marriages given by the press in the course of
the current year." So far at page 105, vol.
1., and at page 110 of the same volume we
read—" Among unrepealed acts of legislation
was one which enacted, that a marriage between a
Catholic and a Protestant should be void if the
marriage ceremony were performed by a Catholic
minister. The captain had only to profess himself
of a different creed from his wife to become a free
man—[but what of the two or three clerical officials
reading the ceremony as by law established at
page 105 ?] The captain would be High Church
of England or Catholic, as might suit his purpose.
Knowing that the Fitzwalters were Protestants, and
he himself not holding any faith or belief se
attachedly that he could not adopt or abandon it at
pleasure to serve a purpose, he made a declara-
tion that he had been long a good Catholic, and
went once or twice to confession in proof of it."
To add to our bewilderment at these conflicting
statements we actually find, after the description of
the ceremony at page 105, after the assertion that
the Fitzwalters were Protestants at page 110, Nvo
actually find at page 117, Mary Fitzwalter or
O'Brien, in referring to her marriage, declare, " The
good priest married us as Catholics. My husband •
never spoke of his Catholicism or Protestantism
then." The best proof, perhaps, of the confused
state of the law is its evidently bewildering effect
upon the minds of all those who contemplate it.
We must confess our utter incapacity to understand
the rights of this marriage of Mary Fitzwalter with
Captain O'Brien ; as fax as we can discern, it is, to
use the ex pressive words of Lord Dundreary, " ono
of those things which no fellah can make out."

My Son's Wife. By the author of " Caste." Three

vols. Hurst and Blackett.
Mrs. Gore, in one of her most celebrated novels,
" Mrs. Armytage, or Female Domination," very
forcibly exhibited the evil influence of an arbi-
trary female invested with unusual authority. The
situation in the novel before us is somewhat similar,
but the dominant lady, domineering though she is,
is a far more amiable character than Mrs. Army-
tage, although for a time at least the effects of her
arbitrary authority are not less pernicious. The
scene in which the lady of the manor addresses her
dependents with dignified authority in her words,
but almost maternal cordiality in her demeanour, is
very well described; and the rightful heir, listening
to her in his obscurity, may be pardoned for not
wishing to overturn a rule so firmly established and
so admirably maintained. The main sufferer in this
unnatural state of things is of course the son and heir
of the great lady. A warm affection and yet a con-
tinual dissension exists between mother and son, and
this feeling becomes so great when the young heir
proposes to choose a partner that " my son's wife"
becomes the bane of the mother's life, and gives
her name to this history of the family feuds and
misunderstandings. The son's wife, Elinor Ituthven,
is a very attractive, loveable heroine, excepting
always in her unnatural grief at her father's death,
a grief so manifested as to shut the mourner out of
the pale of all our sympathies. The domestic life
of Elinor and her husband is very charmingly de-
scribed, and the sad bereavement which overclouds
its happiness is very touchingly told. Some of
the characters are far from attractive, among others
Rotha, who learns to deceive her confiding mother
and the impetuous cousin, who twice behaves
in a manner so unwomanly as to be quite re-
pulsive. The story is, however, as a whole suffi-
ciently interesting, the son's wife and the son's
mother being by far the most attractive and in-
teresting personages introduced.