The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-28 00:00:00

home. It was a higher and a holier thing, the soul's
admission to its native skies, the spirit's ascent to its
kindred angels."
Elsewhere it is observed by our novelist (11. 15.), in
the noble language of consolation, "the extinction of
our little lamp of life will be as the first word of the
summons, the prelude- to. -the appalling anthem that
shall hereafter be completed, when the archangel' s
trumpet shall resound on high, re-echoing over expiring
creation There is pastry in that reflection. .
Among the few sentiments which we are disposed to
cavil against, as expressed by the author of "Silwood,"
we shall merely indicate one where it is observed some-
what too much in the scoffing vein of Rouchefou-
cauldt (I. 43.), "It is better to form too low than
too exalted an opinion of another; for in the first
place you have but to raise deserving merit
to its proper standard, while • in the latter you have
made idols but to find them clay." Against this sen-
timent we would protest, because of its alluring
sophistry ; and against this sentiment alone—for
the work is otherwise almost wholly replete
with the exposition and enforcement of the noblest
principles and the purest morality. Generically the
work might be classed by the superficial among the
semi-religious romances; but in the justice of such a
classification we cannot in any way coincide, those
fictions being embued invariably with polemics, and
bristling at all points with argument, irritating,
pregmatic, and controversial. No moral could be
indicated by any fiction more lolty or more hu-
manizieg than the one conveyed in " Silwood"—
the intention of the novelist being perpetually di-
rected beyond the mere earthly horizon to that
celestial region in the east, towards which the Arab
bends ia homage in the desert, and where the Chris-
tian looks for the doomsday apparition of the Mes-
shill coming in the midst of the clouds of heaven
with great pomp and majesty, attended by innumer-
able legions of the beatified. To no sect individually,
to no creed exclusively, is the religious portion of the
narrative addressed, but to all those who believe in the
divinity of the Nazarene, to all those who read the
Book of Book; with the reverence of faith and
the simplicity of children, the tendency of the story
must prove singularly clear and palatable. The nar-
rative in this particular, indeed, is conceived in that
admirable spirit which seems. of late to bo gradually
pervading a large portion of the light literature of
our generation—the spirit which evidenced itself con-
spicuously in Warren's " Now and Then," and yet
more recently in Bulwer Lytton's family picture of
the " Caxtons." . Referring yet once
more to the ingenious 'complication of the plot of
" Silwood," and especially to that portion of it which
we have already termed the equivoque of the passions,
we would here make a brief but suggestive quotation,
in which the ernbarras,sments cf the six lovers are
happily enumerated. The passage occurs in the midst
of their causeless bewilderment ,
" Alas, poor Jessie, she was just learning by expe-
rience that sorrow without hope, in which no appeal to
the kindest friends can soothe or cheer; the course of
true love never did rue smooth,' was fully exemplified
in all the characters concerned in this narrative,. Whe..
tber we turn to Gordon in his wild anguish of untutored
grief; to Florence in her passionate despair; to Jessie
wishwi, her grief effaced by t;,ars; to Julia with her calm
endurance veiling a broken heart; to Silwood in his
ftloomy solitude, where many a vain struggle was made
to bury his affection in the mine of study; to Ross. in his
sorrowful It( firemen", where every touch of his lyre,
woke the echoes of happier times, tne glimpse of better
days—all, alike were miserabl,l"
How the miseries accruing to Jessie Gordon, Flo-
rence Howard, and Julia Maitland, to Gordon, to
Ross, and to Silwood, beCome in the end assuaged,
or whether those miseries are mitigated at all
in their poignancy, we shall not attempt
to intimate, solicitous as we are that the
work itself should be consulted for any desired expla-
nation. Before our present criticism is brought to a
conclusion we would redeem a promise its given at

commencement, by directing more particular atten-
tion than we have done hitherto to those more dis-
cursive and at the same time more reflective chapters
in " Silwood" where the novelist apostrophizes the
master passions of his fellow-mortals. We cannot do
this more emphatically than by quotation. Here,
therefore is a passage in which our author gives
utterance to some of his cherished thoughts upon