The Sun.
London, England, 1850-06-27 00:00:00

THE SUN,

LITERATURE. derness concealed by him under a grotesque and
ANNE DYSART. A Tale of Every day Life. almost repulsive bearing encircles him at last with
3 Trois the halo of the reader's sympathy aid edmiration.
During the'reign of Queen Victoria our literature Here and there the minuteness of description is car-
has been most appropriately adorned by the names or tied by our authoress to an extent but little short of
the masterpieces of a galaxy of authoresses. Inso- being ludicrous, as where she informs us very seriously
much has this circumstance been observable, that ' (V 01.111., p. 325) of Anne's costume at her
some of the most judicious critics of our generatien marriage—she ° wore a gown of violet co-
have not shrunk from suggesting that the honours of loured silk with a velvet mantle of the
the Poet Laureateship should, net only in commemo- same hue, trimmed with fur, and a rice straw bonnet,
ration of that fact, but also in compliment to her with a white veil !!" Surely this is nothing less than
Most Gracious Majesty, be bestowed on a lady pecu- the pretty garrulity of a lady-writer? Sometimes
liarly qualified to grace as well as to—be graced by again our fair novelist is guilty of little anachronisms,
as where, towards the conclusion of - the tale, she
• the wearing of the hay garland, that lady being no
other than the wife of the bard of Paracelsus. Look- says (Vol 111., p. 192)--" She found Mrs. Dysart's
carriage and a servant waiting for her at the coach-
ining at the various departments of art and letters, it is
office—for 1: am writing of ten years ago, when there
truth remarkable to detect the distinction attained
through the mere display of large and beautiful ca- was no railway in Scotland, except that between
E
pacities by women of masculine genius though of Edinburgh and Glasgow"—and yet (forgetting that
sh
feminine gentleness. While we have had occasion toe is still writing of " ten years ago") she says
regret the departure of such writers as Jane Austin, shortly afterwards (Vol. 111., p. 202)—" In the
and Maria Edgeworth, and the Countess of Blessing- evening, although the gay season had long been over
ton ; though we have had reason to lament and the town was almost empty, the latter, in concert
the disappearance of Anna Maria Porter, of Felicia with her mother, generally contrived to assemble two
Hemans, and of Letitia Landon—we have had at the or three young persons to have a little music and a
same time ample reason to felicitate ourselves upon polka." Ten years ago that bewitching dance was
the survival of other female authors of distinguished not in existence. Apart, however, from a few inter-
excellence, and upon the rise of yet more into a rapid inittent blemishes scattered through the volumes,
and auspicious celebrity. Assiduous application has " Anne Ds sari" appears to us to be a novel sirgu-
failed to exhaust the powers of the lively and obser larly deserving of' commendation, auguring largely
vant Mrs. Gore, of the shrewd and sarcastic Mrs. for the future popularity of its intelligent and accom
Trollope, or of that accomplished Miss Mitford, whose plished authoress
effusions have ever combined the morality of Mrs.
Hannah Moore with the fascinating simplicity of Mrs.
Barbauld. Among the historical labours of un epoch
rendered illustrious by the contemporary research of
such annalists as the rhetorical Macaulay, the impar-
tial Lingard, the erudite Hallam, the indefatigable
Prescott, the sedate Turner, and the comprehensive
Alison, there has been awarded a lofty niche for the
elaborate and elegant compositions of Agnes
Strickland. Among brilliant uramatists, such
as Talfourd, and Lytton, and White, and
Knowles, and Lovell, and Marston, and Jerrold, and
Bourcicault, a high and conspicuous position has been
awarded to the intellect of the dramatist of the pas-
sions the eloquent and emotional genius of Joanna
Baillie. One of the most exquisite of living lyrists—
even with Tennyson still in his maturity, and Proc-
ter yet in the autumnal mellowness of his reputation
—is a lady graced with a name doubly poetic, Eliza-
beth Barrett Browning. One of the greatest fa-
vourites of the population, so rendered by her homely
and heart-born ballads, is Eliza Cook. One of the
most felicitous of our occasional versifiers is unques-
tionably Frances Brown. One of the most earnest
and imaginative of our poetic idealists is the Honour•
able Mrs. Norton. In the histrionic art our fair
countrywomen are nobly represented by Helen
Faucit, and in the pictorial art by Miss Setchell,
while, as a delineator of the fruits and
flowers of the earth, Mrs. lelargetts has drawn
inspiration not sparingly from the genius of the
inimitable Lance. From the highest to the lowest
department of intellectual excellence, among the
competitors for popularity, not the least noticeable,
or the
.leaat entitled to encomium, are those ladies
whose love fur the true and the beautiful has sur-
passed their terror of the supercilious designation of
blue-stockings. But if the eminence acquired by
the women of England, in the several walks of art
or literature above enumerated, has been in any de-
gree remarkable—it has been singularly surpassed 'by
the success of those numerous aspirants for renown
who have assumed the literary masquerade as novel
fats. Among these must be mentioned some of the
most promising authors of our generation, who, it
not possessing to the full the strong objective fancy of
Mrs. Radcliff, or the irresistible hilarity of Madame
de Sevigne, or the inexorable propriety of Mrs. Chapone,
or the virile judgment of Madame •de Steel, have
yet displayed, to a supriing extent, resources of
invention, felicity of humour, directness of purpose,
and keenness of observation. Foremost among these.
are the author of " Jane .Eyre," and the author of
"EmideWyndharn," both works of singular vigour and
ability, the intellectual productiveness of the writers
of which has been further severally illustrated, the
one by " Shirley," the other by the " Wilmingtons."
Even with such masters of fiction amongst us as
Charles Dickens and Bulwer Lytton, and with such
a multitude of gifted and agreeable rowancists as
James, Lover, Disraeli, Teackeray, Jerrold, Smith,
Chamier, Ainsworth, Lever, Collin;, and Warburton,
the vigorous capacities of such romenciste as Currer
Bell, and the author of " Two old Men's Tales," are
of a kind neither to be disparaged nor overlooked.
Another female writer, whose abilities must entitle
her to be enrolled ultimately among those
distinguished predecessors, has just appeared
in the person of the author of " Anne
Dysart." Another female writer, we say, because it
is impossible not to recognise in this " tate of every-
day life " a woman's tact, a woman's sagacity, a wo-
man's clearness of perception, and a woman's gen
tleness of sentiment. The story, although vigorously
written, the incidents, although powerfully conceived,
the characters, although boldly and nervously
sketched, are, nevertheless, all of them, mulitestly
the emanations of a feminine fancy. We must ac-
knowledge, moreover, to having been fairly charmed
throughout the whole perusal by that freshness which
is alone attributable to the unhackneyed verve of ca-
pacities neither worn nor jaded by previous employ-
ment. The narrative is of the simplest construction ;
the tale is, as the second title imports, one of "every-
day life ;" the personages introduced by it to our ob-
servation, are the men, women, and children
we see around us continually, creatures of flesh and
blood—of generic characters generally, though some-
times of peculiar and individualized idiosyncrasy.
What is, perhaps, the most prominent excellence in
our authoress is 'her shrewdness of observation—a
shrewdness which, aided by considerable piquancy of
style, satirical without being ill-natured—enables her
to limn the imaginary persons of her hi,tory with
astonishing vividness. From epitomising the plot by
a dry and needless analysis we sh .11 abeuin yet more
sedulously than ever in the instance of " Anne Dy-
sart," seeing that the work, as a first work, cLinands
more than ever such abstinence from premature dis-
closures. Besides, it always appears to us that the
scheme of a. fictitious narrative, though eminently
interesting in a novel, is , indescribably tedious
if abbreviated to a mere enumeration of
particulars in a criticism. What we feel
ourselves alone justified in specifying directly as
worthy of notice in a fiction 1 ke the present are, the
principal character, the conspicuous incidents, and
the manner in which both characters and incidents
have been delineated. Here, therefore, we are com-
pelled to avow at once that, while thus restricting
ourselves within a narrow compass we are embarrassed
by the multiplicity of thiisgs upon which we are soli-
citous to comment at least in a few cursory but
earnest observations. Anne Dysart herself, the
heroine of the story, is a charming• portrait of the
daughter of a Scotch clergyman, thrown suddenly by
the death of her last surviving parent into the society
of a little town in Northumberland. Her brother
Frank, a student in the Scottish metropolis, divides
with her the fascination of the reader's attention,
the interest of the fiction fluctuating between the
town of Lorlington and the city of Edinburgh. Mrs.
Nat Wilson, the aunt of Frank and Anne, and
the spouse of poor Nathaniel Wilson, with all her
unconscionable niggardliness and meanne. s, her par-
simonious dulness, and painstaking mediocrity, is
pencilled with wonderful force of colouring and out-
line. It. is a picture of domestic meanness as bril-
liant as one of the gems of Hobbima. Of the family
of the Greys we can think and speak only with the
fullest satisfaction, forgetting their egotism in their
. suavity, and their coxcombry in their benevolence.
Charlotte. Grey, the patronizing and voluble blue-
sitioking, is admirably described with all her merits
and all her weaknesses. Frederick, though a little too
much of the " pet parson," secures our kind regard, and
his sister Beatrice, notwithstanding herinanitv, obtains
in some sort a share in our sympathies. Of all the
abominable beings in the whole book the most
abominable is that exceedingly. explicit and tautolo-
gical Air. Shield, who would be ;altogether an un-
mitigated prig but for his being at the same time a
Most intolerable bore. she wealthy merchant's fa-
mily of the Dysarts at Edinburgh contains just such
another nuisance as Mr. Shield in the person of the
heir to the property. Of Julia, the gay and the
frivolous, we could speak in- yet stronger terms of
disgust but fur a circumstance which the reader will
discover towards the close of the narrative, by which our
contempt is merged in commiseration. Barbara, her
deformed Sister, would, on the contrary, elicit from
Us our. ;met genial eulogiums but for a
certain repulsiveness about her which exists
as it were in spite of the evident partiality
of the authoress—beyond which the whole creation
reminds u' so strongly of pour Humpy in M. Eugene
Sue's Juif Errant as to deprive it in our eyes of the
Merit of originality. Eleanor Gi mime, on the other '
hand, is a character as original in idea as it is
masterly in execution. Her history constitutes a
striking and beautiful episode, for a while diverting
attention from the principal thread of the narrative.
Kindred in inanity are Mrs. Snll], her chaperon, and
Air. Hall, her suitor. One other of the principal
characters, not yet mendoned—perhaps altogether
about the principal character in the narrative—is
Gerald Bolton. Conceived somewhat in the same
morose or eccentric school as the Mr. Rochester of
" Jane Eyre," and the Mr. Dan by of "Emilia
Wyndham," this Mr. Belton of "Anne Dysart"
is nevertheless no transcript, out a creation
of distinct and even insulated individuality.
The powerful
.touches of nature with which his
rugged but sensitive character bas been portrayed
redounds very highly to the credit of the head and
the heart of the authoress. Several of the scenes in
Which Mr. Bolton appears are penned, especially in
regard to the dialogue, with much genius; his love
Pusages are depicted with exceeding grace, pathos,
1W delicacy; and On Noble and raagaaalcavas 44,1

THE TARANTAS ; Travelling Impressions of
Young Russia. By Count Sol ttegub.
Vassily Ivatiovitsch and Ivan Vassilievitsch, two
worthy Russian gentlemen, says the preliminary
advertisement to the " Tarantas," are anxious to avoid
all such inflammatory and dispute-provoking topics as
politics, either foreign or domestic ; but they believe
that the social system of that considerable member cf
the European family. of nations which is called
Russia, is as interesting as it is little known and un-
derstood in this conntry, and they further believe
that they are better able to act as interpreters or
showmen of their father-land, than are any of those
foreigners who have hitherto attempted to get behind
the scenes of that mighty and important theatre. The
" Tarantar," therefore, professes to be a Russian's tra-
velling impressions of Russia, and bearing this in mind,
its readers will be continually astonished by the impar-
tial and even critical spirit by which it is animated.
The Tarantas itself is a huge, unwieldy, but very
Voinmedious vehicle, which transports its owner
Vassily Ivanovie•ch (an old fashioned country gentle-
man), end Ivan Vassilievitsch (a member of Young
Russia returned from a European tour), from Moscow
to Kazan. Ivan carries in his hand a blank volume,
to record his travelling impressions, but his journey,
full of incidents as it is, is, nevertheless, to him pro-
ductive of continual disappointment. The chief
fault we can find with the little volume is its
very light and superficial character ; but this
was, perhaps, its writer's object when he en.
titled it " Travelling Impressions." Instead of
descriptions of men and manners we find only
brief units and passing allusions, its pictures of social
life are shadowy glimpses or bare sketches. Teis
peculiar style has, nevertheless, its advantages.
Vague and incidental as is its mode of affording in-
formation, information is, nevertheless, afforded.
Among the most effective descrip'ions of Russian
life is the following melanct,oly picture of
RUSSIAN LUXURY.
" I was compelled by a stup,d presumption to imitate
the luxuries of others, not at all regulating them by my
means. This is a universal fault in St. Petersburgh.
Lite there is like fireworks, much brilliancy, much
smoke, and after a while nothing is lift. Every one
does his utmost to surpass his neighbour ; every
one is a cop) ist : one class copies the nth. r,
poor people copy the rich people. The one
who is not wealthy assumes the appearance of
wealth, and gets ruined; the one who is rich
offers so much to luxury that he inevitably gets
ruined too. It :ems as if our nobility was seeking po-
verty; and, indeed, see what different things have ren-
dered themselves as ii.dispete-able for us, as bread and
water; f lost 'net?, the crowd of our house-serfs, the
legions of men in liveries, a major-demo, stewards, but-
lers, some thirty or ferrymen in all; then our mansions,
with drawn g-rooms, dining-halls, studies, dancing
salons, our coaches-and-four, opera-boxes, dresses,
cards. In one word, I must. say that, in S .
Pe•ersburgh, luxury is the first necessary of life. Preple
there think first of what is not necessary, and then
of what is; there,ore you every d'iy.see noblemen's es-
rates sold under the *auctioneer's hararn.r. And then
what pass,ons rise from a discordance between income
and expenditure; :to what doleful scenes they lead in
'amities; what a numb. r I f persons Lave tor ever lost
both the quietude of their conscience and their • self-
esteem and honour. Lite in the capital, like a deluge,
carries away with it every one, everything, without
giving yisu even time to see your position."
Arid here, by way of contrast, is a sweet glimpse of
A HAPPY HOME.
" Every thing in the house of Ivan Vassilievitsch's
friend was c4lnf,riahle, though simple and unpretendii.g,
but the smallest tittle was distinguished by an artistic
selection; every thing ri-11Pctcd the indt•rcriGable light of
the presence of a youlig end beautiful woman. She Wel-
coumd Ivan Vassilievitsch stub a smiling friendliness
as if she had known him for meny, many years,
and he stopped in devout admiration before her.
It seemed to him us if tilt thea he had
never tv:en a woman. She was not beautiful with
that beauty that troubles the passionate dreams of
youth; her whole bring was an ideal of the highest
peace, of the most poetical quietude. Her soul looked
through her el es—her heart spoke through htr lips.
tier child-like features expressed such a kind-heartedness,
such profound and holy love, that any titan in locking
at her must inv,lontarily become a better man! Two
rosy -chi eked children, at the view of the stranger
pressed their curly little heads to her knees. Ivan viewed
this picture as it it were a retie, and he felt that he had
before him the brightest illu,tration c f the highest reward
for man's toils, labours, and sorrows. How long he
stopped before this scene he was uncoascious; he did
not hear a slngte word That was said to him, but his
heart fe:t wider and wider, all his feelings concentrated
themselves into one of quiet beatitude, all his thoughts
ieto a prayer."
In the chapter entitled " Merchants" is recorded a
curious scene at a tavern, where some merchants
are regaling themselves on the, apparently, favourite
Russian beverage, tea. An individual bearing the
euphonious name of Potspitsch enters the room, in-
quires if one of the merchants, is•guing to.Ribue, and
on being answered in the affirmative, consigns to his
charge more than five thousand roubles, to be paid to
some one residing at Ribua, without, to the astonish-
ment of the civilized Ivan, even asking for a receipt.
On the stranger's departure, the inquiring Ivan can-
not resist demanding of the merchant if the owner of
the money is a relstive or intimate acquaintance,
and then naively asks—" but how is it that he did
not ask you for a receipt for the money ?" The other
merchants laugh, and the' one concerned gets into a
passion. `s es. receipt !" he cried out furiously; "a
receipt. I would havehrt ken his jaw with his own
money had he dared to ask me for a receipt. I have
been a merchant now more than fifty years, and I
have never yet b-en insulted by being asked to give
a receipt." In trifli-g matters like this the writer of
"The Tarantas" has extiibited with happy effect some
of the peculiar, anti in some cases praiseworthy, cha-
racteristics of his countrymen. Brief as is the jour-
ney, and trivial as are the events which it reveals, a
trip by the Termites will he found by all who choose
to essay it both a profitable and pleasant pastime.

PUNCH VERSUS HUMBUG.

A delighttul sarcasm, both pictorial and literary, is
given in the columns of our droll contemporary,
Punch, of this morning. Fain would we transfer to
our impression the large wood-cut, most grotesque
and humourous, pourtraying my Lord Ashley and
my Lord John Russell as Puritans—the latter ex-
claiming, with the genuine nasal twang of the conven-
ticle—" Verily, Brother Ashley—between you and
me, and the Post—we have made a nice mess of it."
Gladly, too, would we give the sketch of the " Puritan
Penny Postage Stamp' with the initial letters in the
corners, C—A—N—T. We must content ourselves
with transcribing the following facetious para-
graphs:--
. LORD SACKCLOTH-AN.D•ASHLEYS.
WHEREAS,—On consideration of our desire to com-
memorate the pious services of our dear cousin, the•
Member for Bath, and hereto:ore known as LORD
A 8

It is our pleasure, thst, in consideration of our dear
cousin's succesful attempt to abut up, put down, and
otherwise confine and castigate Sunday, that he shall
henceforth assume the title and name of—

LORD SACKCLOTH AND ASHLEIS;
And further, that he shall be empowered to quarter
a cinder-sieve with his armorial bearings,—a cinchr-
sieve with a pilgrim's shirt of sackcloth proper.
Given under our hand, at our Office, 85, Fleet•street,
June 24, 1850. PUNCH.

CONVERSATIONS OF THE SUNDAY-BOUND LETTERS.—
We have received a communication, signed "St. Martin-
le-Grand," of so wonderful a nature, that it it had come
from anybody but a saint, and from any saint but St.
Martin-le-Grand, we should never have believed it. St.
Martin avers that the letters detained in a provincial
letter-box have been, in the interval between Satur-
day and Monday, owing to the stoppage of postal
communication in the meanwhile through puri-
tanical legislation, so impatient •of the delay, test
they could not contain themselves, and have been ac-
tually heard to compare notes. He gives the follow-
ing as a few out of many of their conversations:—
To letter A—which excites attention by heaving a deep
sigh, as if from the heart of the writer—says letter B.
" What are you about? You seem very sentimental;
and you are sealed with a heart skewered on an arrow."
" Ah!" replies A, "I am addressed by a poor mad
young fellow, head over ears in love, to the object of
his affections, who has unaccountably neglected to
answer his last six billets. lie writes to say that he
will destroy himself cakes he heara from her by
return of post. What is your news?" "Mine?'
answers B, wily, rather urgent, I should say; briefly
this Your father has had a fresh atttack—put
yourself into a postchaise and come, up instantly if you
want to see him alive.' " Any thmg particular F 6 asks
-10Sser g lector D. '11.1o," sumo D.