The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-14 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Sooner or Later. By Shirley Brooks. Two Vols.

Bradbury and Evans.

Having followed Mr. Shirley Brooks in his rela-
tion of this serial story month by month since the
date of its commencement, more than a year ago,
we have now to take leave of him and his last com-
pleted fiction, now that it has closed its course as a
serial, and has been formally issued to the world in
the shape of this very handsome publication. Illus-
trated with great ability by Mr. George Du Maurier,
" Sooner or Later" displays, Mr. Shirley Brooks,
so far as the writing of the work (the manner of the
composition,we mean) is concerned, at his very best.
Practice—proverbial making perfect--has certainly
tended to ripen the powers of this skilled and in-
dustrious man of letters, to whom the reading public
has so long been indebted for the assiduity with
which he has applied his abilities to the cultivation
of his naturally great capacities as a contributor to
popular light literature. It is not only to be here
said of him that since the staff of brilliant wits and
hunaourists formerly assembled in such a notable
throng around Mr. Mark Lemon, as the Editor of
Punch—a throng including within it writers as emi-
nent as Douglas Jerrold, and W. M. Thackeray, and
Gilbert A'Beckett, and Albert Smith, and others of
lesser celebrity--Mr. Shirley Brooks has been left
almost alone among the original contributors to
the Loudon Charivari, still aiding by his pen the
almost equally isolated pencil of Mr. John Tenniel,
who is no longer associated, as an illustrator of
Punch, with artists as renowned as John Leech and
Richard Doyle. It is yet more worthy of note in
regard to Mr. Shirley Brooks, that simultaneously
with his abundant contributions to the chief of our
comic publications, as well as to a great number of
our popular magazines, he has contrived, by good
artist-work, to build up for himself a distinct and
honourable reputation as a Novelist. And here, in
his capacity as a Novelist, he appears, in one sense
at least, as we have said, in this newly-finished book
of his, callel " Sooner or Later," at his best. In the
manner of its composition, that is. Not otherwise,
as we conceive, and for this simple reason—that
the material (material of his own selection,
of course) of which he has built up his story, is
really and truly not worth the labour lavished upon
it. The characters, in other words, here brought
together, are, as a rule, simply detestable. There is
Benjamin Dudley, the apothecary, for example—an
out and out scoundrel. There is that miserable
reptile George Farquhar—a drink-soddened snob,
if there ever was one. Mrs. Faunt is, in effect,
such an utterly abandoned old hag, in her way, that
Mr. Brooks can only himself compare her,
towards the close of his book, to the Bawd
in " Clarissa Harlowe." Then, too, there is Mrs.
Faunt's no less detestable daughter, Mrs. Sullage.
What possibly can be said again for that atrocious
old Rector of Saxbury—or even for that compara-
tively tolerable rascal his son, the Rev. Edward
Grafton? Mrs. De Gully is no better than she
should be, as the old phrase has it. Percy Vaughan
is a forger and a murderer. The Bullimans are no
better than mean-minded, scandal-loving bigots.
Henry Wigrain is a despicable slanderer and
coward, chiefly remarkable for his getting a thrash-
ing which he richly deserves. Lucy Verner is a—
well, in plain terms a kept mistress. And
the individual who, at the outset of the
story has her in keeping is no other than the hero
of the book, Ernest Dormer, whom we are expected
to like and have an interest in, mainly for the ex-
press reason that he throws her over in the most
heartless manner, in order that he may marry for
money (certainly not for love at the time of the mar-
riage first coming off) Magdalen Conway of Sax-
bury. If the truth must be spoken, however, we
almost rather prefer the vagabonds of the story,
such as Fount and Dudley, and the rest of
them, to those two insufferable old goodies,
Magdalen's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Con-
way—whose endearments of tongue to one
another, whose billings and cooings all through the
narrative are mawkish almost to the extent of being
nauseating. It is rather gratifying, however, to-
wards the end of the story to see how many of the
imaginary beings peopling it come to grief—and some
of them horribly. Mrs. Faunt, we are gratified to
record, tumbles down a cellar, breaking her head,
and dying there in great agonies. Mr. Dudley ex-
pires rather more painlessly than we could have
wished, being shot dead by Percy Vaughan. Colonel
IN alter Latrobe, one of the few gentlemen in
the book, is, as it seems to us, rather wan-
tonly destroyed by the author, who makes
him die the death in the very act of
saving the life of one of those little people
he loved so much, meaning thereby children.
The best things in the whole book to our thinking,
and this too beyond all comparison, are the con-
versations described by Mr. Shirley Brooks as
taking place in the club, chiefly in the smoking
room of the club, of the Octagon. The principal
interlocutors being Samuel Mangles, Jemmy Rydon,
Sergeant Penguin, Doddy DaLston, Milwarden,
Walter Latrobe, and Charley Launceston. Not-
ably, best of the whole bunch of them, Samuel
Mangles. That good little flyaway, Gracie Clare, is
capital fun, too, both she and that vulgar old mother
of her's, the greengroceress I Haslop, the Catholic
Barrister, is a fine-natured, dull sort of gentleman.
The Dorcas Meetings down at Saxbury, though
cleverly described, are rather a bore. The Hut one
never enters without a sense of discomfort and
even pain, with Lucy left there so heartlessly by
Ernest Dormer, and with her two darling little chile
dren, pets thenceforth only to noble-hearted Colonel
Walter Latrobe, Mopes and Dormouse. Com-
pensating for very much of all this in the book,
however, one never enters otherwise than with
pleasure, one never leaves otherwise than with re-
gret, the 'smoking room at the Octagon.

THE LATE FRIGHTFUL DEATH AT A STARCH
WogKs.—The young man Hammersley, who, along with
his companion Attenburrow, fell into a vat of hot liquor
at Gill and Tucker's Starch Works at Sandiacre, near
Nottingham, while foolishly playing near the copper, died
on Saturday, having survived his companion nearly a
month. The accident took place in consequence of Atteu-
burrow trying in jest to put Hammersley into the vat.
REFUSING TO CATCH THE. CLOWN.—TWO men
named Purse and Brown were charged at Sunderland
on Thursday by Mr. Clarence Holt, the lessee of the Ly-
ceum Theatre, with refusing to fulfil their contracts a 9
handicraftsmen. The defendants, it was alleged, had been
engaged as scene-shifters at the theatre, and one of their
duties was to assist in catching the clown (Mr. J. H. Huds-
peth) when he came through the apertures in one of the
scenes of the pantomime. At the performance ou Christ-
mas eve the defendants and several follow scene-shifterS
caught Mr. Hudspeth on his first flight through
the aperture, but just as he was clearing the canvas
the second time the whole of them walked
away, and had it not boon, it was stated, fur Mr.
felt's son and another gentleman, who happened to
be behind the scones, Mr. Hudspeth might have broken
his neck. Some light was thrown on the conduct of the
scene-shifters by Mr. Hudspeth, who stated that on the
23d December Brown asked him for some money. Ile
sent the men 18., but this they would not accept, and on
the following day it was whispered that there would be
uo one to catch him when he jumped through the apor-
ture, which was about 4ft. Gin. from the stage. The scene
was about 6ft. from the wall, and if he (Mr. Hudspeth) had
not been caught he should have dashed himself against the
wall. The magistrates thought there was no evidence a.B
to the contract under which the defendants were employed
at the theatre, though they were satisfied that the eunduct
of the men had been exceedingly bad. The cases were
therefore dismiseed,