The Sun.
London, England, 1861-09-23 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

East Lynne. By Mrs. Henry Woods, author of
" Danesbury House." 3 vols. Bentley.
The readers of the monthly serials have from
time to time found their attention attracted by
narratives of varying lengths and remarkable
• ability. The subjects, it is true, were frequently
painful and startling, and belonged almost alway s
, to the darker shades of life. Now it was a murder,
now a forgery, now an unjust accusation, now a
painful family secret, a warning dream marvel-
' lously realised, or some one of the thousand disas-
ters, crimes, and catastrophes of every-day life.
But while the lovers of tragedy and melodrama
might be fascinated by the very horror of the sub-
ject, there was an attraction which readers of
quieter and more cultivated tastes were equally
sensible of, without perhaps accounting for it as
easily. The charm lay in the style, in the
natural and truthful delineation of ordinary
life, and it is this charm which has ren-
dered " East Lynne," the last and longest of
these stories, so great an object of attraction
during the last few months. The plot of the tale
is painful in the extreme. Lady Isabel Vane is
3 represented as gifted with all the qualities which
should adorn a heroine by right. Her beauty, her
gentleness, and her misfortunes secure the reader's
, interest, and her miserable fate awakens his regret.
She is the only child of the Earl of Mount Severn,who
dies suddenly, leaving his affairs in a fearfully em-
' barrassed state. His property of East Lynne has
been disposed of during his life to a wealthy young
lawyer of the neighbourhood, who bears a high re-
, pute in his profession. This laywer, Archibald
Carlyle, is the hero of the book. His character is
well kept up throughout, and he is represented
as consistently kind, honourable, and highminded.
On fthe :earl's death his creditors became furious,
and the authoress takes the opportunity to intro-
duce one of her scenic effects, for one creditor
bolder than the others arrests the dead body of the
earl as he lies in his chamber. Lady Isabel is forced
to live with the new heir to the title, a distant rela-
tive,who is individually kind, but whose wife, jealous
of her beauty and attractions, treats her with cruel
harshness, and insults her openly. Mr. Carlyle,
who has long loved her in secret, is emboldened by
her miserable position to ask her to return once
more to East Lynne as its mistress, and Lady
Isabel, lonely and perplexed, and stongly urged by
her hostess, who longs to be rid of her, becomes his
wife. Unfortunately she has already given her
heart away to one most unworthy of it, though,
for a few years, all is comparative happiness.
A complication of events awaken her jealousy
of her husband, and at the same time throw
' her into the company of the designing Levi-
son, and in a moment of madness she forsakes her
husband and children for him. The most extra-
ordinary point of the story comes further on. Yeats
after, when she has long repented of her fault, and
found out the true characters of her husband and
Levison, when she is supposed to have been killed
by a railway accident, she returns to East Lynne
as governess to her own children. Mr. Carlyle is
married again, to Barbara Hare, a prominent charac-
ter in the book. The story of'the murder, of which.
her brother Richard is unjustly suspected, runs
through the story, and absorbs a large portion of
the interest. It displays much of the elaborate
ingenuity for which Mrs. Woods is so remarkable,
and the scenes in the court are ably drawn. Sir
Francis Levison, who is the villain of the piece, is the
real criminal, but this is cleverly concealed until the
close, suspicion being directed to other parties. The
secret visits of the unfortunate Richard Hare to his
native place, where his own father is his worst
enemy, are full of interest, and Barbara, who does
not always please us, appears to most advantage on
these occasions. Lady Isabel, who has been won-
derfully altered by the accident, which has dis-
figured her face by a scar, and rendered her lame
and lisping in her speech, further disguises herself
by her dress and by the adoption of blue glasses, and
escapes detection. She suffers a martyrdom, living
in her own former home under such unnatural cir-
cumstances, and however ably described, this part
of the book is painful and unsatisfactory. The fail-
ing health of one of her children retains her, and at
his deathbed she nearly betrays herself. She does
not, however, long survive her child, and in her
last hours her secret is known, and she dies
forgiven by him she has so deeply injured. There
are many other characters sharply defined and well
contrasted. There is the violent irascible Judge
Hare and his gentle broken spirited wife, who is
afraid to give an order in her own house ; there is
gaunt Miss Corny, with her extraordinary head-
dresses and her love of money. She is sometimes
a little overdrawn. Then we have a crowd of actors
concerned in the murder, and reappearing at inter-
vals. Altogether there is certainly no lack of va-
riety, originality, and talent, and however much
we may dislike the point on which the story turns,
we cannot fail to admire the skill with which the
author rivets our attention throughout, and never
suffers the interest to flag. Nothing is more
difficult than to describe little home scenes and
every day incidents with ease and natural effect ;
but when it is done no writing is more fascinating.
The great secret of Mrs. Wood's success lies in the
easy art with which she carries us through domestic
and social details as well as through the turmoil of
an election and the excitement of a trial for murder.
"East Lynne" can scarcely fail to take its place
among the most prominent novels of the season.