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

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 whom
allusion has but just now been made and with whom 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, if looked for at all in
the pages of Miss Braddon, will certainly be 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 pls.i.n those monstrous charges of an
impure and demoralising tendency, as character-
ising the writings of Miss Braddon in common with
those of other authoresses, of whose repute 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 Naga, 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 the
shape of a letter purporting to come from Miss
Braddou herself, but with which that lady announced
at once through an 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 " Birds of Prey,"
a story otherwise full of interest, is rendered,
in one portion of it, really wearisome (a marvel
in any book of ➢Liss 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 ono 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
tho narrative—first of " Birds of Prey" and after-
wards of its sequel " C larlotte's Inheritance." This
second heroine being Diana Paget, daughter of the
vagabond aristocrat—aristocrat by birth, vagabond
by sheer force of circ nnstauces —Captain Horatio
Paget, a character admirably well describ3d. 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, iu 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
rem Halliday. In " Charlotte's Inheritance" he
►ll but succeeds in poisoning Tom Halliday's
laughter, pretty, innocent, childlike Charlotte,
then the betrothed of Valentine Hawkehurst. In
the battle for life between these two, between Philip
Sheldon and Valentine Hawkehurst, the interest of
,he 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 ono 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 bo entangled with
Lucy and Elgar, 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.' _ _

"}Li had placed himself before her chair, and was bend-
ing over the pillows to speak to her. Just now ho felt
himself unequal to the command of his countenance: Ho
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 come when he should
tgain kiss that soft brown hair with a deeper passion and
1, sharper pain, and when Charlotte would not know of his
kisses or pity his pain.
"' 0 Valentine,' cried Charlotte, you are crying—l can
see your face in the glass.'
" He had forgotten the glass—the little rococo mirror,
with an eagle hovering over the top of the frame—which
hung above the old-fashioned chiffonier.
" 'I am not so very ill, dear—l am not, indeed,' con-
tinued the girl, taming in her chair, with an effort, and
clasping her lover's hands. ' You mast distress yourself
like this, valentine—dear Valentine ! I shall be bettor
by and by. I cannot think that 1 shall be 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
Burkham and the famous physician Dr. Jedd•

Then it is that one after another there follows a
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-
ing with the greatest surprise of all in the whole
six volumes, namely, that caused by Old NancY
Woolper's almost distinct announcement of Char-
lotte's death to Philip Sheldon, the murderous Poi-
soner. At the heart of the whole plot lies the
endeavour to secure to the rightful heir, whoever
he or she may be, the heritage of the llitygarth Pro-
perty, consisting of a hundred thousand pounds.
Charlotte is supposed by the Sheldons, and also hi
Valentine Hawkehurst, to be the rightful claimant
to that property—the result proving, however, that
the true heir is the betrothed, and eventually the
husband, of Diana Paget—namely, that fine speci-
men of a chivalrous French gentleman, Gustave
Lenoble of COtenoir and Beaubocage. All this
portion of the story relating to the Lenobles---31
3?,
L t begins only with the commencement of " Ch
0_
lotte's Inheritance"—is charming. Several other
characters not yet mentioned arc introdue;
into the narrative with considerable effect— ucli