Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1869-03-07
NOVEL SUIT IN COURT.
The Libel SaIt of Charles Reade
Against the PrOprletOrs of
1.-The ROnnd Table"

Against the FrOpflelOrs Oh
THE ROnnd Table"
Fro n The New York TrIbure, February q.
In the Supreme Court, trial term, be-
fore Mr.. Justice Clerke, novel and in
teresting scene was enacted yesterday,
with all due decorum, the occasion being
nothing else than the reading of the eel
ebrated novel, Griffith Gaunt, to the
court and jury by Mr.. George Vanden-
hof, the we'll known elocutionist Some
people used to assert that Mr.. Dickens
could not read the trial scene from
% Pickwick any better than Mr.. Van
denhoff but the reading yesterday
was the feature in the trial scene, rather
than-the {" trial scene the feature in the
reading. Instead of heavy tones from
Coke upon Littleton, down to that bun
die of confusion, q The Revised Statutes
of New Y ork, the counsel tables were
covered with copies of Mr.. Charles
Reades novels, and "Grifith Gaunt, or
Jealousy" was for one day, at least, the
most carefully studied authority recog-
nized by the court, and, instead of dull
and dreary arguments founded upon pre-
cedents as dull and dreary events as the
arguments, the court and jury, the coun-
sci and spectators, all resigned them
selves to hearing the unfolding of the
" plot Of one of the most startling and
striking novels of this startling and
striking novel-produeing age. Even the
doOr-keeper was compelled to listen and
the clerk TO hear.
In 1866, Mr.. Charles Reade sued
Charles II. Sweetser and Dorsey Gard
ner, at that time publishers of The Round
Table, in libel, the complaint being
founded upon two criticisms on the novel
- Griffith Gaunt," published on the 9th
of June and the 2Sth of July in that
year. and a communication entitled did
Charles Reade write Griffith Gaunt, and
signed &C. S. H published on the
11th of August. The novel was then
being printed in the Argosy, an English
periodical, and in The Atlantic Monthly,
and the criticism charged that as far as
it had been published it was one of the
worst stories since the day when Sterne,
and Fielding, and Smollet deiled the
English literature of the eighteenth cen
tury. The Round Table said the book
was " essentially bad and indecent" and
declared that it was left for Mr.. Reade
" not only to elaborate with masterly
skill the insidious growth of a guilty pas
sion. but to detail the arts by which a
dissolute servant woman seduces the hus-
band of her mistress. The article went
on to say that the story was "replete with
impunity," reeking with " illusions that
the most prurient seandal-mOnger would
hesitate to make -; asserting that " Don
Juan was less corrupting reading" and
that - George Sand and Eugene Sue were
less pernicious authors to turn loose upon
society than Charles Reade, as he now
reveals himself, and closed with the de-
claration that the publishers of the Argosy
and Of the A2aatic Monthly had no right
to introduce it into thousands of virtu-
Gus families, since it was ''only fit for the
columns of The Police Gazette, or the
pages of the avowed organs of the Paris
ian deBu-ntoHde" Up to the time Of
the publication of the first article in
The Round Table, the story has ap-
peared in The atlantic Monthly as far as
the close of chapter &c, and, strangely
enough, the criticism was founded upon
the closing words Of the chapter. Grif-
fifth Gaunt had deserted his wife in a
fit of jealousy, and written to Mrs. Ry
der, the servant-woman of Mrs. Gaunt
8" have taken a wayside inn, and think
of renting a small farm, which two things
90 well together. Now you are of all
those | know most fitted to manage the
inn, and | the farm. x x So then
at seven Of the clock on Saturday even
ing, be the same wet or dry, prythee
come to the gate of the grove unbe
known" Because Mrs. Ryder had made
up her mind that if Griffith and she
began as allies in business, she felt very
sure she could make herself. first, neces-
sary to him, and then dear to him" it
seemed clear to the mind Of The Round
Table that G. G. had been " seduced,
and slashing article sprung from the
following words;
"What with her coal black hair, so
streaked with red, her black eyes, flash
ing in the starlight, and her glowing
cheeks, she looked bewitching.
"And, thus armed for conquest, willy,
yet impassioned, she stole out, with
noiseless foot and beating heart, to her
appointment with her imprudent master" "
The second article was founded upon
chapter 81, this chapter having appeared
in The Atlantic Monthly within few
days. This is the chapter in which the
bullet with the words
UT LOVE- KATE"