The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-11 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Mervyn, Clitheroe. Nos. 1-6. By W. Harrison
Ainsworth. George Routledge and Co.
Welcome, thrice welcome—" Mervyn Clitheroe"
redivivus. A whole lustre has elapsed since the
date of its original commencement. The narrative
is at length, however, happily resumed, in spite of
the uninterrupted continuance of those laborious
occupations which it is hardly surprising should
have led in 1852, to its temporary abandonment by
its author—at once Editor and Romancist. It
should be remembered in regard to these literary
avocations of Mr. Ainsworth, that it is only within
the interval that has elapsed since the casual cessa-
tion cf. Mervyn Clitheroe's monthly appearance, that
his own magazine, the magazine called after him-
self, a first-class periodical conducted with consider-
able ability and extended to many volumes during
a career of several years' duration, was at length in
the fulness of time brought to the term of its ex-
istence. Beyond that, however, it must be espe-
cially borne in recollection that this indefatigable
man-of-letters simultaneously directs the editorial
department of two of the most conspicuous of our
popular monthly periodicals—Bentley's Miscellany
originally edited by " Boz," and in which Mr.
Ainsworth aclOeved one of his greatest successes,
that won for him far and wide by his romance of
" Jack Sheppard !" And the New Monthly Ma-
gazine already famous for its many distinguished
editors, amongst these being numbered in suc-
cession as Harrison Ainsworth's predecessors,
Thomas Campbell, Thomas Hood, Theodore Hook,
and Bulwer Lytton. Notwithstanding the unre-
mitting assiduity consequent upon the double
editorship of the New Monthly and Bentley, our
author during this interval has not by any means
been idle in his own peculiar capacity as a story-
teller. Scarcely had his pen completed the last
chapter of the old Englishlove-tale of the " Flitch
of Bacon"—when it was busy relating the fortunes
and misfortunes of that ill-starred scapegrace " The
Spendthrift." A fictitious history which is in
literature what Hogarth's " Rake's Progress" is in
art—a high moral, inculcative of prudence and mo-
deration, conveyed through a record (here liteiary,
there pictorial) of enthralling and protracted vicis-
situdes.
Mervyn Clitheroe, howbeit, we have now to do
with—now that it has been fairly resumed in ear-
nest, and with every prospect of its speedy and
felicitous completion. At the period when the four
first numbers were issued we very well remember
avowing our unaffected belief that this particular
fiction promised to be, in many respects, to
our thinking, its author's masterpiece. The rea-
lisation of our anticipation appears now in
truth to have been only for a while postponed.
December brought a fifth, January has brought
a sixth instalment ; so that already half
of the entire work has made its appear-
ance. Judging the book from this moiety
we can deliberately and explicitly endorse
our former opinion, and pronounce " Mervyn
Clitheroe " prospectively, in many important par-
ticulars, our author's masterpiece. It is thoroughly
national. It is racy of the soil, a flower of home
growth—no exotic—but thoroughly indigenous.
The scenes here depicted with a luminous pencil
alternate between Cheshire and Lancashire. The
Coketown of Mr. Dickens's " Hard Times" is not
more vividly Birmingham—than Mr. Ainsworth's
Cottonborough is obviously Manchester. The
picturesque meres, and mosses, and coppices, and
pastoral haunts, and sylvan nooks, the villages and
hamlets, the country seats and the farm houses, the
cots and mansions of those northern counties are
described as only one perfectly familiar with them
could describe them, and then simply on the pro-
viso of his holding in his grasp the pen of Harrison
Ainsworth, the pen to which we are already in-
debted for " Rookwood." and " The Lancashire
Witches." Admirable, each in its way, are the deli-
neations of The Anchorites, otherwise known
among its neighbours as Jacobites' Hall, the luxuri •
ous, old-fashioned dwelling-house of excellent Mrs.
Mervyn, our hero's wealthy relative and pro-
tectress—or the description of uncle Mobberley's
farm of Nethercrofts—or the sketch of an acaderni-
, cal interior in the Free Grammar School of Cotton-
' borough. As for the interest of the story—adven-
ture rapidly follows adventure. At the very outset
there is a hair-breadth 'scape upon the ice of
Marston Mere, where Mervyn saves the life of his
rival and evil genius, Malpas Sale : and before we
have reached the middle of the narrative we have
come upon a duel between these same closely con-
trasted competitors. Already, moreover, the
characters have become not only singularly nume-
rous, but no less singularly diversified. Several
of these portraits, drawn to the very life with the
facile touch of a master, are in truth inimitable.
They are not merely painted undoubtedly to the
life, but evidently from the life—creatures rather
of flesh and blood than purely of the imagination.
Hospitable Mrs. Mervyn (already mentioned), the
rich old Jacobite gentlewoman. Tipsified old
Uncle Mobberley, the farmer, of Nethercrofts, also
previously particularized. Simon Pownall, the
rascally barber-surgeon. Che them Quick, his
spindle-shanked apprentice. Pretty Sissy Cul-
cheth, the little Welch cottager. Honest Ned,
her husband, the red-whiskered gamekeeper.
Appbia Brideoake, the blonde beauty of the re-
mance—and Ora Doveton, the charming brunette.
Laughter-moving Old Hazy, of Owlarton Grange,
dealer in dreams and diablerie—and goodnatured
Doctor Foam, the antiquary and philanthropist.
Doctor Sale the pragmatical Vicar, father of Mal-
pas, the villain of th tale aforesaid. Phaleg and
Peninnah the Gypsies, not forgetting Obed, their
limber offspring. Cuthbert Spring, the facetious
diner-out. Colonel Harbottle, much of a port
drinker, and all but a fire-eater. The redoubtable
and portentous Dr. Bray, the very sbadow—though
it must be allowed a very substantial shadow—of
Dr. Parr, with all his learning, all his dry
humour, all his rudeness, and all his love for
an after-dinner pipe of tobacco. The loquacious
Mr. Comberbach—butler at the Anchorites. Even
among the four-footed personages introduced, are
there not sundry " characters " with which the
reader has longsiuce become pleasantly familiarised 1
To say nothing of the young hero's shaggy little
pony Taffy, are there not the old watch dog Talbot,
and the companion bloodhounds Gaunt and
Lupus, together with their St. Hubert successor I
From the bare catalogue here enumerated
the variety of personages pourtrayed in Mervyn
Clitherce may be readily conjectured. The delight-
ful skill with which they are pourtrayed may be
better appreciated by quotation. Here is Mr.
Ainsworth's admirable silhouette of—
THE THRASHING TUTOR.
"The Rev. Abel Cane, under whose care I was first
placed, was a sound, classical scholar, but a severe die
ciplinariate He was one of those who believe that a
knowledge of Latin and Greek can be driven into a boy,
and that his capacity may be sharpened by frequent
punishment. Under this impression ho was constantly
thrashing us. In his drawer he had several canes of
various lengths, and of various degrees of thickness, tied
with tatching-end to prevent them from splitting, and
for all these he found employment. While calling us up
for punishment he got as red in the Os as a turkey
cock, and occasionally rose up to give greater effect to
the blows. Some boys were so frightened that they
couldn't learn their tasks at all, and others CO reckless
of the punishment which they knew must ensue, whether
or not, that they intentionally neglected them. I have
seen boys with "blood blisters," as they called them,
on their hands, and others with weals on their backs,
but I not recollect that the castigation did them any
good, but the very reverse. But our preceptor had
other ingenious modes of torture. He would make us
stand in the middle of the school for a whole day,
and even longer—sometimes on one leg—and the effect
of balancing in this posture, with a heavy dictionary
in hand, and a Virgil under the arm, was ludicrous
enough, though rather perplexing. It must not be
imagined that I escaped the cane. I had enough of
it, and to spare, both on shoulders and hands. Not-
withstanding our dread of him, we used to play Mr.
Cane a great many tricks. We notched his canes so
that they split when he used them ; put gravel into
the keyhole of his drawer ; mingled soot with his ink ;
threw fulminating balls under his feet; and even medi-
tated blowing him up with gunpowder. An adventurous
youth essayed the effect of a burning-glass oa his ear,
but was instantly detected, and called round for punish.
ment. Another tried to throw the rays from a bit of
looking-glass into his eye, and shared the same fate.
With all his discipline, if our dreaded master were called
out of school for a few minutes, the greatest row would
commence. The boys sitting at either end of the form
would place their feet against the edge of the desks,
and squeeze up those between them so unmercifully that
they roared again. Books, volleys of peas from tin
cases, and other missiles, were discharged at the occu-
pants of the opposite forms ; and the miserable fellows
in the middle of the school became marks for their
comrades, and returned the aggression infthe
s o se
wit-
they could. These disturbances were,o u bro them ;
nessed by the ushers, but they rarely mentioned
and Dr. Lonsdale was too far off to hear what ass oing
on, and I don't thick he altogether ap.provdreadtfhuel
second master's severity. To a new boy,
_eitodwears
" Come
to bear Mr. Cane cry out to
„some offender,
round, you stew-ew-pid ass-s-s ! dreadfulhiswitness
like a serpent
to
as he uttered the final word of scorn ;
the writhings of the victim as he underwentd
castigation ;
still more dreadful to bear the words a ressedtorhovihmeesaedalsfl,l.
intensified as they were by the furious looks that
drove
accom-
panied them. In some cases, Mr,
the capacity they possessedout of boys' the
There was one poor little fellow, Devereux Frogg,
whose wits could never be stimulated. Poor
Devereux I bow I pitied him, and tried to help
him, and crammed him—but it was of no use.
When we went up he was so frightened that all went out
of his head, and the daily drubbing ensued. And there
were others like him. Mr. Cane was a fresh-comp-
lexioned man, with good features, and a handsome
aquiline nose ; he was scrupulously neat in his attire,
and wore a long gold watoh-ehain, which he twirled
about when walking, or when ezoited ; and he had a