The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-03 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

MARRIAGE. A Comedy. Longman, London, 1842.
As we gave an abstract of the plot and the
leading incidents of this comedy, in our notice
of its first representation at the Haymarket
Theatre, we shall content ourselves, on the pre-
sent occasion, with just saying a few words on
the subject of its characters and its dialogues.
And first of the former. The most life-like per-
sonage is undoubtedly Mr. Doubtful—a middle-.
aged gentleman who has united himself to a
young boarding-school girl, and, as a necessary
consequence, is kept by her in a constant state
of hot water. His alternate fits of distrust and
confidence—of affection and coldness—of vivacity
and sullenness—are discriminated by Mr. Bell
in a very skilful manner. Nor are the diverting
caprices of this elderly Benedick too much in-
sisted on, as is apt to be the case with drama-
tists when they get hold of a character which
strikes their tancy. We have just enough of
Mr. Doubtful, and no more. His young and
well-meaninc, wife is .a mere nonentity, but she
could scarcely have been rendered other Wise, at
least with a due regard to the proprieties of na-
ture. Mr. Cavendish-Pause is a less happy de-
lineation than that of Doubtful, though some of
his quaint peculiarities of sentiment and expres-
sion are whimsical enough, and must, oc-
casion much laughter on representation. Sir
Harry Vivid is a character that must be well
known to. the readers of Farquhar, Centlivre
and Libber; he has nothing original about him,
but his lively, dashing qualities are such as are
always attractive on the stage. With regard to
the language of the comedy, it is plain to see in
every page that it has been most studiously ela-
borated ; and we may add that it is uniformly
more remarkable for elegance and precision, than
wit or vivacity. Bounding animal spirits are in-
deed by no means one of the chief characteristics
of the comedy but it possesses— what is the
next best thing to great natural sprightliness—an
even, uninterrupted flow of good-humour, and
sometimes, but not often, much archness and
cleverness of repartee. The author must try his
hand again at the drama, for his present work—
though, as we have observed, by no means de-
void of blemishes—has no one radical defect, but
gives promise of future excellence. It is not a
little to Mr. Bell's credit. that he has studiously
avoided every thing like clap-trap, or plays upon
words. There is not a single pun or verbal quib-
ble in his Comedy, but such wit, and humour as
it possesses, are perfectly genuine.

THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES. 3 Vols.
Co'burn, London. 1842.

We perfectly remember the former tale of the
authoress of the work before us ; it was entitled
" Temptation, or a Wife's Perils," and gave a
promise of ability which its successor has scarcely
fulfilled. Not that the " School for Wives "is
deficient in talent; its descriptions are graphic
and spirited; and when the tenderer feelings are
to be excited, it supplies the requisite power to
a certain extent; but it fails in the constructive
faculty ; and not only is this the case, but—com-
pared with its predecessor—it exhibits a marked
decadence in point of invention. Then the
characters—with the exception, perhaps, of
that of the heroine, Susan .Bouverie—
are, what may be called " differences without
distinctions"—that is' to say, they are manufac-
tured after the most approved novel fashion,
without being sufficiently discriminated. Had
more pains been taken with the story—particu-
larly with the disposition of the incidents, it
might have been rendered as attractive as
" TeMptation ;"'but it seems to have been got
up in a hurry, and as if the materials had not
previously been arranged and digested in the
Writer's mind, but she had trusted to the Chap-
ter of Accidents to make successful progress
with it. The leading incidents of the story
may be soon summed up. Susan Bou-
verie, the heroine—a most exemplary spe-
cimen of womankind—forms an attachment
in early youth to a young man, by name Sid-
ney Gower, who is captivated, however, less by
the charms of her person, for her exterior is
something homely, than by the sweetness of her
temper, and the strength and elegance of her
understanding. .She returns his affection, and
they are accordingly betrothed to each other,
when, unfortunately, Sidney meets with the
beautiful Julia Curzon, the daughter of haughty,
aristocratic parents, by whom his truant feel-
ings.are ensnared, and whdm, after a long
struggle with his conscience, he makes his
wife. Charles Bouverie, the brother of the
deserted Susan, instantly resolves on calling
the " fickle swain " to account, Ind a
duel takes place between them, in which
Charles is shot dead. All this portion of the
narrative is related with uncommon earnestness;
and the sketch of the sister, after the death of
her favourite brother,- abounds in touches of the
sincerest pathos. It is indeed the redeeming fea-
ture of the work. In due time, Susan's exces•
sive grief abates, she becomes reconciled to life ;
and ultimately meets with a lover more to her
taste than was the former one, in the person of
Arthur Tyrrell, whom she marries, with which
event the story concludes. There are several
.minor .characters and incidents introduced to
vary the progress of the story ; but of these
we take no notice, for its principal interest cen-
ters in Susan Bouverie, who poSsesses all the he-
roism, disinterestedness, and fortitude of nature
which Sir Walter Scott has exhibited in Jeanie
Deans—in fact, Susan is the Jeanie of the middle
classes. The story is introduced by a preface in
rhyme, which displays a lively and ready power
of versification.

ZACHARY COBBLE, Bull, London, 1842.
The author of this queer production has very
happily designated it in his title-page as a
" Rigmarole in Rhyme." It is a " Rigmarole,"
and such a one, as we do not often meet with.
To give any minute critical analysis of it is impos-
sible, for its plot, and sometimes even its language,
are as perplexing as the riddle of the SPhynx ; we
must perforce, therefore, content ourselves with
observing that it is a poem—or rather a string of
rhymes—one hundred and fifty-eight pages and
a quarter long ; and that, so far as we can gather,
it concerns the adventures Of a pedantic school-
master, by name Zachary Cobble, who is pic-
turesquely described as being
A stiff, hioi-shouldered, comic figure,
rawinrkyling haystack,
eyes
Called a gig- top, but somewhat bigger ;
LH(Tiiksheeu
thepe pase
easier
storyor ot
o.
f or all one way stuck
fh
his
twinkling an
To twinkle converse with the skies),
And from its rear was seen to shoot
A little bit of tail, or root,
Powder'd all o'er, whence his large mind
Its alimentary stores purloined." •
To say nothing of the exquisite taste and pro-
priety exhibited in the comparison of a man's
head and shoulders with a " haystack;" what is
to be thought of the assertion that Zachary Cob-
ble's mind " its alimentary stores purloined"
from his pig-tail? He must have had an extra-
' dinary intellect to derive nourishment from such
a source. But indeed he seems to have been a
queer genius altogether, for we find him, in the
earlier portions of the poem, bent on reforming
the world, by means of his own personal exer-
tions and:those of his illegitimate son, Dashem
promising stripling, whose duties in. his
father's school=room are thus sportively defined
" Ilis.duty was to hold down breeches,
And clear the way for stripes and switches,
To run as powder-monkey, 'tween
, • The embrasure and the magazinit;
And when retreating signal sounded,
To button and bind up the wounded."

This gifted couple, father and son, set out,
like Htfdibras and his squire, Ralpho, one fine
morning in search of adventures, chiefly in con-
sequence of a dream which old Cobble had had
a few nights before, in which dream a spirit ap-
peared before him; and after playing him a va-
riety of droll pranks,
" Bore him upwards with a whistle
That set his brains all in a frizzle."
On awaking up from this unpleasant dream, old
Zachary finds himself as chilly as an iceberg,
which gives the author an opportunity of dis-
playing his aphoristic powers of thought in the
following terse and pregnant couplet :
. ~ Evaporation is a process
That cools men's minds as well as noses."
It was some time, however, before our hero's
mind---,whatever may have been the case with
his nose—was thoroughly cooled, for it seems.
that, among other things, he had dreamed that
lie was married, which naturally put him into
a state of effervescence; and lie could with diffi-
culty reconcile himself to the fact that,
" The greetings of his wedded„ spouse
Were all a visionary chow.
`We pause here, for the purpose of directing the
reader's specialatrteefintnioed the expression ? Butn to the perfect grace and
beauty of the word " chouset" How poetiCal
the idea ! How
fatherthey leave
having
t
faultless as it is, it is scarcely superior to a dia-
logue which takes place between
thetsve moenCobble,
after
they father, and Dasheni, the so
forth
asked
the their
ae
sonirgu expedition.question
ion guess
ofmoral
Thsome
puzzling riddle, involvinge
right, the son modestly and classically replies,

_ •
" That's a pretty go,
How
_should I, I should like to know ;"
wherenPottold ("Able delicately intimates that
Dashem ii-anaSS-; After some further conversa-
tion the two enthusiasts for moral and political
improvement jog quietly along the high ma,