The daily union. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1845-1857, 1845-07-05
From the London Spectator.
z TWO NATIONS.

9yDu ~ u COnuiluotiOu VI Tic OuuB -
Of Conngsby; and 10 colorcd by that understandable
something which generally disapPoints IN scques.
Ii wants the personality of its predecessor. Many
Of the political and fashionable characters possess
traits that will be recognised by people acquainted
with those classes; but none have the breadth and
interest Of Lord Monmouth, Rigby, and Lucian
CAV or even the frc-work sort of briliancy of the
theatrical Sidona. The main subject, too, 1.-THE
condition Of the people, has been handled already
by so many pens, in poetry, fiction, speeches, artl-
ces reports and lucubratons of the poor-law folks
that the theme is getting somewhat hackneyed. Ao-
stractng novelty Of subject and the extrinsic arac-
ton derived from personal attack, Syb however ~
an improvement on Coningsby. The swehihs
rhetoric is sobered down. There is more OF story
though il has been dashed in its conception. Inc
character and condition Of the poor, atnougn NOT
new subject presented in more artistcai manner
than by yerrold or Dickens. The sordid and the
shocking are kept back, unless in some general de-
scrptions of agricultural aborcrs, and drainage and
dwellings after Mr. Chadwick. The vices and
weaknesses nseParable from the condition OF power
w are skilfullly marked; and there is none of the
captrap sentiment which some novelsts promul-
gate at first hand, put into the mouths of their
persons. The indifference which habit induces TO
evils that horrify more refined and delicately-
nurtured minds IL noted with almost philosophical
ability; and this quality renders the characters and
dialogues Of the poor in Sybil more natural than in
any other work that has handled the subject. How
far this mode of treatment may forward the pro-
fessed purposes of the author, another question:
The ''two nations in one kingdom" are, as we are
told in capitals, ''THE Rich AND THE Poor" Sybn
10 the heroine Of the work, and designed to repre-
sent the Saxons oppressed by the Normans: but as
she Is of gentle blood and rghtful heress to an es
tate of forty thousand year, which lord and
rogue are keeping her out Of the representative prn
cpc is not true one. She is, however, a sklfu
and delicate creation. OF the Romish faith her fa-
thcr is employed by Roman Catholic manufac-
turer and Sybl herself has been educated in an
English convent-the only mode by which the gen
tleness selfpossesson and deep but refined feeling
of the heroine, could have been naturally developed
Walter Gerald, her father is intended as a type of
the better kind of chartiss: but as he s constantly
brooding over the family traditions of his gentler
blood and his right TO estate, he is by no means
a true representative of the "physical-force-men,
other means failing" Neither can it be said that
he is very natural character, though he is consist.
ly drawn. Stephen Morley, an unsuccessful lover
Of Sybl, and the editor Of proPerty-in-commoon
Journal represents the combination principles ST.
mon Hatton, locksmith from the mining districts,
exhibits the mere physical force animal in state OF
excitement. The hero of the romance is Egremont,
the younger brother Of peer, the lover of Sybil,
and the representative of the Normans and Young
England. He s better character than Coningsby;
having moro matter and stuff IN him, with less Of a
mere fashionable dandy. Perhaps, too, he has a
better moral sense, 0hough he does introduce
himself to Walter Gerald under false coors,
and pass as reporter:) but then, there Is no
Hebrew hero to whom the Englishman is to serve
as a foil Tadpole and Taper, the party hacks, are
continued from Coningsby; few Of its other char
acters are mentioned or appear in passing mob Of
gentlemen and ladies take part in the fashionable
scenes and, besides their ease and nature, have an
apparent truth in the lively emptiness of their dis
course and the folly of their views. There are also
several factory hands, miners, manufacturers, and
riffraf of all sorts, from Devilsdust and Dandy
Mick, who often appear, and even contribute to the
denouement, to London blackguards, who show fol
moment to exhibit trait of life, and then vanish
Public events are more closely and systematically
connected with the characters than in Conngsby In
politics, the work opens with the expected death Of
William the Fourth; and the members of the rich
nation are occupied with the hopes and fears that
event gave rise to. The struggles Of the tories To
GUST the wings, the three-days excitement of the
bedchamber business, with other leading political
circumstances, also occupy the rich. The poor ma.
ton is engaged in efforts to raise their condition. by
planning strikes and national holyday; by the ma
tional convention, to which Gerald and Morley
come up as delegates, carrying Sybi with them
and by the riots in the autumn of l842 which serve
TO bring about the catastrophe, and restore the he
rome to her forty thousand year; as bit OF privy
conspiracy after the failure of the convention in
wolves Gerald and Sybil in the distress of ares
for high treason; from which, of course, the here
relieves the heroine.
The romance of the novel is but so-so. TIL,
scheme of an estate kept wrongfully from the trut
owners, by missing papers and the roguery Of al
agent vulgar and worn-out, besides ITS unintelli
gibility in The case before us The other sections
designed for STIRRING interest appear like sober imt
fation of the absurdites of blackstone; or perhaps
both romancists have drawn from the same authori
ties mysterious admission of a candidate to
.'unon,'' with masked members, and a skeleton TO
Observation-Disclosures upon mandatory ana
noblemar' residence by miners with the destruction
b,,r. nf caotIa-fhe ahOOfinO of Svb1
father by yeomanry, get him out of the way, tina
the representatives of the Two Nations may b
united without the fashienables being shocked BY
the apparition among them of a man who had beef
ovcrlooker at factory--and the stoning OF Eyre
,nont's brother, Lord Marney, at the head of hi
troops, in revenge for the death Of Gerald that tn
hero may get title and esate-are all needless, ant
in the milner taste.
In philosophical point of view the failure i
complete. Beyond vague repetition OF some all-but
forgotten eroichets about the British constitution
che peace of Utrecht, Lord Bolingbroke, the revolu
ion Of 1853, and other dreams of Mr. Dlsraeii IN M
younger days. there is enunciation Of any principle
wha,soeyer The incidents that might have pointed
a moral arc equally barren. In the Too Nation
the poor can only rise to connexion with the rich
by being of old descent and entitled to an immens
fortune; the excellent representative of the last
ysicaorce charlis is shot; the representa-
live Of social reform by mutual cooperation is sho
jjkeSse; the animal chartists, when they approach
fhe rich get dead drunk, set the house fire, ant
are burnt in their own blaze; whilst Mick ant
Devilsdpst, the factory operatives, are set up IL
business, for getting the tile-deeds in the burnn,
Of the castle, and become capitalists themselves
With power to combine every probable opporunit,
and incident Of social life in the form of fiction
philosophical Young England can only imagine tw
modes of amagamatng the Two Nations-killin
of the poor, or making them rich.
The original germ of the plot was very good, bu
rnarred in its development by the introduction 9
these Minerya-press Weaknesses The structure
indifferent; too much broken up into fragments, a
if the writer, having formed his general scheme, ha
been too much hurried to consider the parts an
their relations. The natural rule that an incider
should be completed before it is left in not, perhaps
70 necessary in narrative in the drama; but Mi
D'Isracli, after having begun lesser theme, cor
tinraly leaves it in medic for something else. w
understand that publishers, with an eye to the tai
tics of circulating libraries, require that voun,
should close with suspended interest," in order thu
those who only get volume at a time should sen
A * r IL D.