The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-26 00:00:00

WESTMINSTER.

A HUSBAND AND NO HUSBAND.-.-A middle-aged,
buxom-looking woman, addressing Mr. Arnold,
said—l want your worship to help me. lam very
much ill-used by a woman who is my husband's
‘vife, and a man who is another woman's husband.
Mr. Arnold—A woman who is your husband's
wife, and a man who is another woman's husband!

Applicant—Yes, that's it.
Mr. Arnold—l don't very clearly understand it.
Applicant—Don't you. Well, I'm my husband's
wife, and he's got another wife, and I want to take
proceedings against my husband and his wife.
They lead me a rare life, particularly my husband's
other wife.
Mr. Arnold—lle can't have another wife ?
Applicant—But he has got her, and I paid
for it.

Mr. Arnold—You mean to say that your husband
has committed bigamy ?
Applicant—That I do, and I paid for it.
Mr. Arnold— ;You paid for it?
Applicant—l've got it here (producing a certifi-
clte). I paid 2s. 7d. for it to the parson's wife at
Hammersmith.

Mr. Arnold, examining the certificate—lt cer-
tainly is a most extraordinary document, as it alto-
gether omits the year in which the marriage it
speaks of took place, and it omits to certify that it
is a correct copy of the register.
Applicant—The parson's wife took 2s. 7d. of
one for it, and it ought to be right.
Mr. Arnold—Do you wish to prosecute your hus-
band for bigamy ?
Applicant—Yes, if you like. He married me
first.

Mr. Arnold—l have no wish in the matter.

Applicant —I don't mind what I do to him or
to her. I should like to get rid of them both. First,
he with me, and then ho is with her, and then
they're both at me together. I want to prosecute
him for marrying the two of us.
Mr. Arnold—Before you proceed you must get
the date of your husband's other marriage put into
that certificate.

MISS BRADDON'S NEW WORK.
Birds of Prey. By M. E. Braddon. Three Volm.

Charlotte's Inheritance. By M. E. Braddon. Three
Vols. Ward, Lock, and Tyler.

A story and its sequel were never more intensely
One Work than " Birds of Prey" and " Charlotte's
Inheritance." Regarded separately, they are faulty
and, to a certain extent, unsatisfactory. Regarded
together, they are, on the contrary, far more to our
mind than merely satisfactory. So regarded, indeed,
they take their place among Miss Braddon's most
remarkable productions. Not but what there are
still passages that we would gladly see eliminated
from the earlier moiety of this rather lengthy fiction,
as derogating considerably, to our mind at least,
from its general excellence. Had we commented,
as we cannot now but conceive that it would have
been prematurely, upon the three volumes of
" Birds of Pray" at the time of their original pub-
lication, we could not but have expressed, and
that, too, in rather strong terms, our -disap-
pointment—we could not but have pronounced
an opinion in the fullest degree condemnatory. Re-
cognising as we nevertheless did at the time, the
simple but sufficiently obvious fact that i❑ publish-
ing "Birds of Prey" without its promised sequel of
" Charlotte's Inheritance," the authoress was
thereby doing herself a very grievous injustice, we
shrank from following up her own error of
judgment, we shrank from adding one in-
justice to another--an injustice of our own to
the one she had as we still conceive so
perversely inflicted upon herself by a mere
act of precipitancy. While hesitating thus
to condemn what, in our estimate of " Birds
of Prey," admitted alone of condemnation, Miss
Braddon was all the while with more than her
wonted rapidity, currente calamo, repairing the
damage done to her reputation as a raconteur of
wonderful skill and power, by completing the de-
sign she had herself held in view from the commence-
ment, in regard to this particular novel; namely, by
industriously penning the sequel, hero, happily for
herself and for her readers, produced in its ripened
completeness in the form of these three con-
cluding volumes of the one work, as we can-
not but regard the Six Volumes now under our
consideration—an elaborate fiction of which volumes
one, two, three are called " Birds of Prey,"
and of which volumes four, five, six ara called
" Charlotte's Inheritance." The justification of
the delay •of our notice of those three
earlier volumes, entitled " Birds of Prey"—
if justification for that delay is really required
at our hands—we adduce in the first place
from the concluding sentence .of " Birds of Prey"
itself, vide Vol. iii., p. 318, to wit-4c The His-
tory of Charlotte Halliday has grown upon the
Writer ; and the completion of that history, with
the fate of John Haygarth'S fortune, will be
told under the title of Charlotte's Inheri-
tance." That is our first justification in refrain-
ing from pronouncing judgment adversely upon
" Birds of Prey" until—by delaying our judgment

—time had enabled Miss Braddon to complete her
merely half-executed design as a work of art by
the composition and publication of the sequel so
promised under the title of " Charlotte's Inheri-
tance." A justification of our duty, however
far beyond that—a justification, indeed, which
appears now to be conclusive and triumphant, is
here adduceable in these three volumes them-
selves of " Charlotte's Inheritance." Having re-
considered this One Work, now, as a whole, we do
certainly conceive that we have done more justice
to ➢Miss Braddon by the postponement of our opinion
than she had done to herself by publishing " Birds
of Prey" so long before the production of its sequel
of " Charlotte's Inheritance." Cut in twain thus

—her production remained during all that in-
terval singularly incomplete, curiously and
almost ludicrously inartistic. The effect pro-
duced, indeed, by an examination of " Birds
of Prey" apart from its sequel was as
unsatisfactory and as disappointing as would
have been that of any other work of art when yet
but half accomplished. A piece of tapestry, let us
say, but partially woven —with the raw tags of
silk and gold thread hanging across the skeleton
web-work of the canvass yet remaining to be
covered by the rest of the embroidery. Or a fresco
painting, again let us say, with the raw plaister
on half the wall intended to 133 adorned by the
artist's design, whenever that design should be
eventually completed. Aristotle's thought as to
sculpture is, as it may be remembered, ingeniously
enough to the effect that in the block of marble the
statue is latent—the superfluous particles, or husk,
so to speak, alone requiring to be hewn and chipped
away by mallet and chisel. And here it was as if
we had been invited, perversely enough, because
so very prematurely by the sculptor, to examine her
half accomplished work of art, while yet one side
of it was the formless block untouched by the
edge of the chisel. At length, however, this work
of art, for such as it is, has been completed. " Birds
of Prey" is companioned by " Charlotte's Inheri-
tance." It is a statue and not a torso that we
are asked to take into our consideration. The pro-
duction we are here called upon to examine is a
whole and not merely a portion—it is a work in its
entirety and not alone a moiety of it. As such
we can at length regard it with something like
' equanimity, nay, more than that, with some-
thinglike complacency. Reconsidering it thus in its
co completeness, 11Ziss Braddon's new work may be
regarded, we do not hesitate to assert, as among
her happiest productions—her three principal works
being still considered by us to be " Aurora Floyd,"
"Lady Audley's Secret," and" The Doctor's Wife."
Side by side with those we now place these six volumes
of "Birds of Prey" and " Charlotte's Inheritance"
—" Henry Dunbar" and the rest of her en-
thralling romances following thereupon in long
and brilliant array. Before commenting, how-
ever, more particularly upon the distinct
merits and peculiarities of this most recent
and most highly-elaborated among all Miss
Braddon's fictions, that is to say, upon " Birds
of Prey" and its sequel of "Charlotte's Inheritance,"
it is only common justice to Miss Braddon, in her
capacity as a popular novelist, that some reference,
however cursory, should be here made to the extra-
ordinary attacks which have for some considerable
time past been directed against her widely-
extended and certainly well earned reputa-
tion. There is ono thing which her depre-
ciators have never been able to forgive her,
and that is her popularity. Rail against them as
they may, her books sell. Whatever their estimate of
of her has been all along, she - has somehow con-
trived to catch, and, what is more, to retain the ear
of the public. Not a book of hers has been a
failure. One of the mast industrious writers of her

time, she has nevertheless not yet written herself
out. Her writings aro already very voluminous.
And whatever—as yet—she has written, has been
eagerly read, has passed through elition after
edition, has been assailed with unmannerly abuse
by those whom her very SUCCeS3 seems to have
transformed into her enemies, and has, nevertheless,
prospered as a literary venture, all that same un-
mannerly abuse to the contrary notwithstanding.
Allusion would hardly have .bean made by us to
these unseemly onslaughts upon Miss Braddon's
reputation as a writer of fiction, successful amongst
the most successful in this age of Popular
Novelists, only that in the midst of all
these scurrilous assailants of her popularity
[for that we take to be all the while her most
heinous offence], the most crually unjustifiable
among them all was one whose attack was directed
against her through the long-honoured medium
of the best and ablest of all our monthly maga-
zines--" Maga," as it is called par excellence,
otherwise " Ebony," otherwise Blackwood. The ar-
ticle we are here referring to appeared some months
since, namely, during the autumn of 1867, somewhere
about the very time w hen " Birds of Prey" having
run its course as a serial story in the pages of Bel-
gravia, made its first appearance in three volumes
as a seperate publication. Had we been tempted
to descant upon the demerits as they then appeared
to us of " Birds of Prey," by writing of it as a work
of art then obviously incomplete, we should have
taken occasion at the time to comment in the;
strongest term of reprobation, upon the

shameful injustice with which Miss Brad-
don's name was coupled with those of
other female novelists; her unworthy contempora-
ries, and with whose reputations (such as they are)

her own ought never for one instant to have been
associated. For, whatever else may be said of Miss
Braddon, as a writer of fiction, it is simply mon-

strous to denounce her as one whose fictions have a
tendency to demoralize. The impurities sullying
the pages of those other female novelists—to whoa
allusion has butjust now.been made and with w hom the
reviewer in Blackwood's Magazine (whoever he
may be) did not hesitate to couple the name of
Miss Braddon—the impurities sullying the pages of
those other female novelists, i► looked for at all in
the pages of Miss Braddon, will certainly he looked
for there in vain. As having ourselves read every-
thing of any importance whatever that she has yet
written, we speak here literally by the book, or
in other words advisedly. And, so speaking,
we distinctly challenge the assailants
of Miss Braddon's reputation, those enemies
created for her apparently by her popularity alone,
and conspicuous amongst their number this unfair

reviewer in the eminent pages of Blackwood's Maga-
zine, to make plain those monstrous charges of an
impure and demoralising tealcucy, as character-
ising the writings of Miss Braddon in common with
those of other authoresses, of whoserepate or noto-
riety it might be said in each instance that it
cometh up—ouida !—less as a flower than as some
noxious weed. Facts are stubborn things. At

any rate they are far better than mere idle or wan-
ton assertions. And facts in any way justifying
the gross and scurrilous accusations directed against
Miss Braddon we would here content ourselves,
with simply challenging the reviewer in Maga, in
common with Miss Braddon's other indecorous and
unmannerly traducers, to adduce. Instead of doing
anything whatever of the kind, these psuedo-critics
who have been pursuing our authoress for
some time past with such peculiar animosity,
have contented themselves for the most part with
the most gross and unwarrantable insinuations.
Once, indeed, they disdained not to descend, in
the columns of a youthful and brilliant evening
contemporary, to the meanness of a forgery in tha
shape of a letter purporting to come from Miss
Braddon herself, but with which that lady announced
at once through au indignant disclaimer that
she had nothing whatever to do. Seeing
the paltry devices to which her unknown

foes were thus driven in their efforts to
depreciate her ability, and still worse to mis-
present the tendency of its application, the
authoress herself might well treat with the scorn of
silence this certainly irritating, but, in reality, con-
temptible tribute to her success, and to her still sus-
tained and extending popularity ! Particularly
constituting, as it did in point of fact, only another
(the latest) illustration of the familiar couplet—

" Envy doth merit as its shade pursue,
And like the shadow proves the substance true."
Regretting still, as we do, that " Birth of Prey,"
a story otherwise full of interest, is rendered,
in one portion of it, really wearisome (a marvel
in any book of Miss Braddon's !) by reason
of the illiterate correspondence of the old dead
and gone Haygarth Family —we have rea-
son, otherwise than in regard to this one flaw
in the narrative, to congratulate the author of
so many tales of enthralling interest upon her hav-
ing added one other novel of singular attraction to
the already long list of her popular works of fiction.
Regarding the work as a whole, that is to say, these
six volumes of " Birds of Prey" and " Charlotte's
Inheritance," we can commend its perusal to the
attention of those who care for a story of deep and
powerful interest, and one—pace Ebony—without
any demoralizing influence that we can anywhere
in all the thirteen books recognise ! Charlotte,
as a matter of course, is the heroine, and she is
as pretty a girlish heroine as novel reader could
reasonably wish to follow the fortunes of. The
hero of the tale, setting forth as one of the Birds of
Prey, turns out very soon, on the contrary, to be a
noble-hearted young fellow, by name Valentine
Hawkehurst. Than the record of his reclamation,

never was there a more charming instance given of
the redeeming and chastening of a character sur-

rounded by evil influences, through the effects of a
true and honest love for a young girl like
Charlotte Halliday. A second heroine there is in
the narrative—first of " Birds of Prey" and after-
wards of its sequel " C:sarlotte's Inheritance." This
second heroine being Diana Paget, dang,liter of the
vagabond aristocrat—aristocrat by birth, vagabond
by sheer force of circumstances —Captain Horatio
Paget, a character admirably well described. He
is another of the Birds of Prey—the two hungriest

and most ravening vultures among which
brood are the Sheldon Brothers : George

Sheldon, the attorney, and immeasurably
worse than him—for George has several redeeming
traits, and, in fact, for him (George) we have all
through both tales a sort of sneaking liking—im-
measurably worse than the worst of the other
characters introduced into the whole narrative—
Philip Sheldon, the surgeon dentist, afterwards the
stockbroker, and in both characters the cruel, piti-
less, infernal poisoner. Philip Sheldon is the evil
genius of the whole six volumes. In " Birds of
Prey" he succeeds in poisoning poor guileless
Tom Halliday. In " Charlotte's Inheritance" he
all but succeeds in poisoning Tom Halliday's
daughter, pretty, innocent, childlike Charlotte,

ilea the b3trothed of Valentine atwkehurst. In

the battle for life between these two, between Philip
Sheldon and Valentine Hawkehurst, the interest of
the whole enthralling narrative reaches its cli-
max. At this supreme point of the interest of the
story we cannot resist the inclination to give the
following passage, descriptive of one of the most
charming incidents in the tale :
" Di has been reading the " Bride of Lammermoor" to
me,' Charlotte says faintly, 'all this morning; but the
pain and weariness I feel seemed to be entangled with
Lucy and Edgar, somehow, and the dear book gave me no
pleasure.' . _

" My darling,' replies Valentine, ' you—you are to 0
weak to listen to Diana's reading.'
" Its had placed himself before her chair, and was bend-
ing over the pillows to speak to her. Just now he felt
himself unequal to the command of his countenance. He
bent his head until his lips touched the soft brown hair,
and kissed those loose tresses passionately. The thought
occurred to him that a time might C 31113 when ho should
again kiss that soft brown hair with a deeper passion and
a sharper pain, and when Charlotte would not know of hill
kisses or pity his pain.
" 0 Valentine,' cried. Charlotte, you are crying —I can
see your face in the glass.'
" Ho had forgotten the glass—the little rococo mirror,
with an eagle hovering over the Op of the frame—which
hung above the old-fashioned chiffonier.
" lam not so very ill, dear—l am not, indeed,' con-
tinued the girl, turning in her chair, with an effort, and
clasping her lover's hands, You must distress yourself
like this, Valentine—dear Valentine ! I shall be better,
by and by. I cannot think that 1 shall bo taken from you•
" He had broken down altogether by this time."
Particularly enthralling is the story immediately
afterwards when Valentine hurries up to London
from the neighbourhood of St. Leonard's, where he
has left his beloved apparently fading rapidly out of
existence, and contrives to summon to her aid,
and to his own by consequence, the young surgeon
Burkhaua and the famous physician Dr. Jedd.
Then it is that one after another there follows 3
series of surprises, beginning with the sudden return
of the poisoner with his family, and chief among the
group, of course, his intended victim, to the su-
burban villa of The Lawn at Bayswater—and end-
jag with the greatest surprise of all in the whole
six volumes, namely, that caused by Old Nato/
Woolper's almost distinct announcement of Char"
lotte's death to Philip Sheldon, the murderous I'°i-
loner. At the heart of the whole plot lice the
endeavour to secure to the rightful heir, whoever
he or she may be, the heritage of the liaygarth Pro
perty, consisting of a hundred thousand pountl3'
Charlotte is supposed by the Sheldons, and also 1)Y,
Valentine llawkehurst, to be the rightful claimant
to that property—the result proving, however, that
the true heir is the betrothed, and eventually tl'e,
husband, of Diana Paget—namely, that fine spec: _
men of a chivalrous French gentleman,
Lenoble of Cotenoir and Beaubocage. All
portion of the story, relating to the Lenobles--"
Cbal
i t begins only with the commencement of
1 other
lotte's Inheritance"—is charming. Sever" ~_cea
characters not yet mentioned are introucuh:
for
into the ntirrative with considerable effect—ga
Gusttb: