The Sun.
London, England, 1859-05-14 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The .211 an of Fortune. A *'tort' of the Present Day.
By Albany Fonblanque, jun., Esq. Pp. 409.
Routledge.
If a first novel—this is certainly in many respects
a very remarkable one. Occasionally it is no
doubt marred by considerable improbability and
extravagance. But after running through the in-
troductory eight chapters out o f the twenty-eight
into which the narrative is subdivided, the reader's
interest is fairly taken captive, and he " needs must"
go on, turning the pages rapidly, down to the very
conclusion. Hugh Trevor is the Man of Fortune—
heir to a baronetcy and £lO,OOO a-year---betrothed
to his cousin Eleanor, herself an heiress, the gentle
heroine of the talc, spoken of throughout it fami-
liarly and lovingly (evidently the young novelist's
pet character in the book) as Nelly. Although the
story opens fantastically near ono of the Italian
lakes—just after Hugh has been entrapped into a
marriage with the evil-heroine of the tale, one
Lorenzo. Amadina, an arrant adventuress—the
scenery all through the work is essentially English.
A fantastic variety of personages will be found
flitting to and fro across this scenery as the plot is
developed—the skein of it being, of course, accord-
ing to approved usage, carefully entangled, and then
with all clue elaboration as carefully unravelled. In
the discrimination of these characters there is fre-
quent evidence of genuine humour on the part of
Mr. Fonblanque. Instance this especially, almost
every passing, apparently careless, but really artis-
tic touch given to the life-like sketch of Mr. Cairn-.
leigh-Haughton—the Squire of the Grange—a true
blue landed proprietor of the old school, known
familiarly by the soubriquet of the Ancient Briton
among all his neighbours. His younger daughter,
the haughty beauty of the Grange, also designated
by a companion soubriquet as Boadicea, is cleverly
and facetiously described—but far beyond the lim-
ning of Boadicea, the portraiture of the Ancient
Briton is capital and delightfully humorous through -
out. Whenever he comes upon the scene he is
always welcome—whether it be at the moment
when he is lamenting the accident to Hugh, so very
characteristically speaking " as if it were the estate
that had been thrown from its horse and had concus-
sion of the brain"—or, under his more ordinary
aspect when laying down the law, "and waving his
hand like a flourish of trumpets." There aro casual
touches of humour, again, now and then noticeable
in the account of even such minor personages in
the story as Mr. Springett, attorney•at-law—" a
gentleman of a florid habit of body," who per-
spires with unusual freedom when under any
great mental excitement ; and of whom we
read, in his interviews with Don Ramon, that
to his surprise he found the handwriting of the
papers brought to him by his visitor identical with
that of the papers, in his deed-box—" a fact," says
the writer, " which he greeted with much delight
and perspiration." As exemplars of the novelist's
descriptive powers take in contrast his picturesque
view of Trevor Hall, by moonlight, and his comic
delineation of one the Poor Streets of our metropo-
lis, familiar to London wayfarers. Here is the
former—

" TREVOR HALL BY MOONLIGHT."
" Far away—though the glare of the fiery breath gleamed
like a stormy sunset above the distant woods—in the quiet
midnight, lulled to rest by the songs of the nightingale,
the old hall stood like an enchanted palace, which the first
beam of the morrow's sun, like the kiss of the Prince in the
fairy tale, would awaken into busy life again.
" It was a fine old palace, in a fine old park, sheltered by
fine old trees—fine old oaks, as sombre and stately as the
old rooks who stuffed ragged nests into the forks of their
wide-spreading branches. Many a change had those old
trees known, from the time when they first struck root in the
ground—puny saplings, bent and worried by the wind—
till now, when they stood like a double row of mighty
giants, guarding the broad avenue which led to Trevor Hall.
" Many a tale could be told by those old trees and woods,
of days when their present master's ancestry were in their
cradles. Perhaps, in the moanings of the night wind, those
old trees did send out voices known only to themselves, as
their branches mingled, and their green heads stooped to-
gether as though they whispered.
"There were signs, moreover, which you and I could
read—a gap here and there in the row, not amongst the
oldest, but where the trees were in their prime. In the
woods, too, the bushes and young shoots nearly hid the
smooth stumps of great timber oaks, that had been cut
down and sold, for what had shortened the days and bar-
tered the soul of one whom the old trees had known, long
ago, to spare even the violets that blossomed at their roots,
that they might brighten the spots where summer had
scattered them.
" There was yet another story in the woods and trees—a
prop to sustain a fallen limb, a band of iron girding a splin-
tering trunk. There was clear evidence of care and vene-
ration in the lopping of their withered branches, and the
faultless condition of the roadway which lay below them.
Some trees had been felled in the plantations, and lately
too ; but they did not leave the land they had grown upon,
but rose again for a good purpose. Neat white cottages,
with cheerful little gardens, elbowed out wretched hovels
from patches of waste land, where, if the old wood had not
lost its power of 'perception, it might know that it had
brought comfort and kindness where miseries and hatred
had lurked before.
"In the plantations there had been quagmires and
marshes, in which the roots of the trees lay rotting, making
them rank and old before their time. There was a bright
stream now, dashing along merrily. When the long-
imprisoned waters first found their liberty, they had no idea
of being checked by a mill •wheel that they found in their
way; so they whisked it round so briskly that the new mill
began to prosper, and the young girl who had listened to
love upon their newly-blossoming banks, soon became the
miller's little wife.
" The hall was, like the trees, massive and stately, and,
like them, bore also the traces of its own history. Thero
were niches and pedestals within and without, but there
were no statues. There was a spacious picture gallery, but
few paintings, and those quite modern, though the oak
panelling bore the marks of hundreds of ancient frames.
There were stags' heads and antlers in every passage, but
there were no deer in the park. The rooms were all well
and handsomely furnished, but there was no mark of age
upon anything save the wainscoting and stained-glass in
some of the windows. The library alone bore out the an-
tiquity of the place; you might see there, shelves upon
shelves of old books, with an old coat of arms upon the back
of each—two dark old portraits in black oaken frames,
frowning at you; rusty armour on the walls, old carvings
on the ceiling, old small panes of glass in the windows—so
that when you entered it from the rest of the house, it
seemed as if you had stepped back three hundred years.
Here is a Boz-like glimpse of one of the
" POOR STREETS OF LONDON."
" Poor streets I—rich in nothing but children, who loiter
along the kerb and on the door-steps, on an average of
about six to a house, composing dirt confectionary ix dry
weather, and performing experiments in hydraulics in the
gutter when wet. Musty streets I—savouring perpetually
of boiled cabbage-stalks, and the eating-house at the corner.
Lonely streets I—full of odd shops, containing scanty stores
of commodities that no one seems to want, but which, being
found in all poor localities, must have their trade and their
profit, though how it comes Heaven only knows. There
is, of course, the barber, who keeps birds closely packed
in es like ,nignionette boxes turned on their sides and
wire over, with an old stocking nailed on the top ; th•
stationer who sells farthing wooden battledores (the
only toy to be seen in the street), theatrical portraits—a
penny plain, and twopence coloured—of Mr. Staggers in
the unknown costume of an undiscovered country, defying
unseen adversaries in an impossible attitude; and who pur-
veys all the weekly filth of the Mysteries of London school
(only half neutralised by the moral and clever cheap jour-
nals) to the reading portion (who can they be ?) of the
neighbourhood. And no less certainly shall we find the
den where tawdry finery is exposed for sale or hire to the ,
most wretched of the wretched—the honest cobbler's stall
—the rag merchant—the herbalist—the gin palace, flaming
with light from ormolu chandeliers, brilliant with plate-
glass reflectors—and, as a natural concomitant, the pawn-
broker I They are all alike—the poor streets of London."
Conspicuous among the characters in the book is an
out-and-out ruffian, Con Bates by name, alias Hud-
speth, who thus responds to Phil Hunt, the poacher,
when asked by the latter " How come you out ?
answer me that. You'd transportation for life ; I
heard you sentenced." To which quoth Bates,
with a grin—
" Put a reformed individual—l am ; I'm a brand plucked
from the burning—l am ; I swallowed an hour of gammon
every afternoon, and a bundle of tracts every morning, for
four years—l did. I can tell you all about Fanny Hope,
the pious staymaker,' and ' Martin Hoyle, the naughty
by
little boy who told a fib, and was tossed the mad
bull in consequence.' I know all about James Foy,
the repentant dustman,' and 'the Religious Dairyman,'
and all that lot. Ler' bless you! I took to making up
Bible such tales myself, and other coves had readtoa,ndiy a mß'aenimb, 'em.
here'
M
e' My
s
a
eyes! did'nt I pitch it in stiff, neither ? So the chaplain
he
couplegot
moef a s
oticket-of-leavet; and,of tthe
sayse fund,
n hde; is
Prayer-book for you to take to church.'Smo
vlelreyntptarhteiebkoloakrs,
to an uncle of mine, who wanted to read,e
and he gave me ten bobs for the accommodation—don't you
see. Oh, it's a rare game—the ticket-of-leave caper—I can
tell you."

Sometimes, if he pleases so to be, the writer can be
at once witty and sententious : ex. gr.—
‘, Pour dirty water into a pot full of earth, and it trickles
through clear. Filter a man's character through a landed
estate, and it is womderful how pure it will come out."
At another moment he can, when he likes, descant
upon the imaginary griefs of his story with true
pathetic sentiment. As when upon the passing
away of Nelly Trevor's intended bridal-day, he
writes--

"But, oh—the morrow—the morrow I
You, upon whom some
has been to your aid,and
lifted the mtohr re owwe
weight
fallen, have ve you forgotten great and sudden calamity has
syourweethselaeretp,
and you have dreamt that your htWfrhoemn
dream, and
have wakened to find it a reality. theaOglTlyWas aw
.
" When the bright day has IIIOITO
birdsi
broken, and the are
singing •
gaily, and happy faces aro passing you. When
some unconscious friend has seized your hand, and mocked
you with a joyous greeting. Oh I the morrow I
" When you rise, to see the empty chair—to miss the
accustomed face—to seek the idol you worshipped, and find
it broken. When you must act for an altered end; with
the ashes of a withered hope clogging every step, and em-
bittering every thought. Oh ! the morrow—the morrow I"
We are fain to quote largely from the descrip-
tions contained in the 23d chapter, headed " Assize
Intelligence," in which there are capital portraitures
in pen and ink of Slumberton, the county town of
----shire, of the High Sheriff, of the Sheriff's jave-
linmen, of the accompanying trumpeters, and of the
manner in which, among other marvellous ceremo-
nials at the Assizes—" Her Majesty's Judges are.
blown into their carriages by those indefatigable
trumpeters; then blown into church, where they
are preached at for 20 minutes ; and then blown
back into their lodgings again." Also we are
tempted to extract somewhat largely from the ac.