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Jvkv3Sy 16503 THE Ii EIDMB. 31?
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* NEW FICTIONS. The Grown Ward. By Archi...
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MEMOIRS OP DOCTORS WAUDLAW AND KITTO. Me...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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A Very Bad Book. June: A Book For• The C...
I hear Borne reader ask . Just look at it , and if , on closer scrutiny , you do not find that the flower is curiously constructed , and different from ordinary flowers , I am very much mistaken .. ' Mr . Stainton has heard , perhaps , that people in the country are dull , and with congenial dulness he has written for them . How otherwise explain the purpose of the platitudes -which are strewn like weeds over his pages ? E . 0 .: — In that lonely spot how this reminiscence of his childhood affects the whole man ! He passes in review whole years of his life , thinks to what purpose he has lived and is living ; determines that much of his past time has been -wasted , and resolves in future to do better . The reader will now , with considerable scepticism , read Mr . Stainton's praises of Natural History as a means of intellectual culture : — For strange is it , that whereas every form of animal and vegetable life contains much both to interest and to instruct , to too many such forms are unintelligible ; true they were taught in early life some two or three languages , and something of the history of the human race , but how to study the works of their Creator they have never learnt ; and the influence of such study on the human mind is not a thing to be despised , as all know who have drunk at that fountain of delight . And the sceptical reader will be inclined to say , If Mr . Stainton is to be accepted as a specimen of the effects which the study of nature produces " on the human mind , " I think , on the whole , 1 prefer the study of " two or three languages , and something of the history of the human race . " If we had lighted on any passages in this volume which had the slightest value or interest , we would willingly quote them as a set-off against the severity of our criticism ; but there are none ; the book is wholly worthless , and were it not for its attractive title , which will make others as eager to see it as we were ourselves , we would have taken no notice of it whatever .
Jvkv3sy 16503 The Ii Eidmb. 31?
Jvkv 3 Sy 16503 THE Ii EIDMB . 31 ?
* New Fictions. The Grown Ward. By Archi...
* NEW FICTIONS . The Grown Ward . By Archibald Boyd , Author of " The Duchess . " 3 vols . ( Bentley . )—There are two standards by which a novelist may be tried—the standard of art , and the standard of the circulating library . We prefer the latter in dealing with The Crown Ward and several other three-volume sets that . 'lie on our table . It is unnecessary , in all cases , to apply the laws of literature . Nine-tenths of the books that appear are addressed to uncritical readers , and there is no reason why tl » e uncritical should not read and enjoy them . Mr . . Archibald Boyd , it is true , appeals , by his manner and by his choice of a subject , to criticism more close than ordinary . He has attempted to revise Scott ' s description of James the First , to represent the difference between the language and habits of the same king on different thrones , and to produce a picture , historically exact , of the age and its associations . Nevertheless , his case need not be taken into any high court . The three volumes of The Crown Ward may pass rapidly from reader to reader , may be sent down to the watering-place in Mudie ' s parcels , and lie about the breakfast-room among the ephemerides of the season . It is essentially a conventional book—deliberately , studiously conventional . The characters axe strictly proper , fold their arms with consummate dignity , draw themselves up to their full height when necessary , go through the other time-hallowed gymnastics of the social drama , and act , in all situations , precisely as the novel reader expects and desires . As to the historical point insisted upon by Mr . Boyd , it seems to us that the reputation of King James was fully established before ' Me Crown Ward appeared . He was a plethoric and dirty pedant , whose pedantry and dirt have dimmed the page of many a hardwritten romance ; and if Mir . Boyd has done more than usual justice to the foulness of his linen , his half-articulate brogue , and his barbaric Latmity , future story-tellers and dramatists may take the hint . We say future , because as surely as the revolving seasons come , the old heroes will appear m new novels , though it may not be the fortune of the filthy prince to be described again so carefully as by Mr . Boyd . . . . , , The one moderate merit of the novel consists m the ingenuity with which the events are strung together . They are not new events ; they arc not described in a style better than smooth common-place ; but they are cleverly connected , and varied with sulBcient tact to lead the reader on passively to the end . We must beg Mr . Boyd not to undervalue this praise . Ike quality assigned to his story is a quality that few of our general story-tellers command . It the reader be miming over a list of new novels , he may—provided he be a novel-reader from habit—send for The Crown Ward , and expect to be amused . The Old Grey Church . By the Author of " Trevclyan , " & c . 3 vols . ( Bentley . ) - The predominant principle of this novel is Misery . Every body not absolutely foolish is miserable , and for no reason that we can discover , llie leading personage is Eustace Grey , the resurrection of a character dispersed m particles through many dead and sepulchred romances . He is tall , thin , and moony ; he is destined for the Church ; his prospects arc slender ; he loves a girl of wealth and station ; lie might be happy , but that he is troubled with an hysterical conscience , wlncli is perpetually turning him red , or blue , or ashy . Lucv whom he might have married and settled with had it not been necessary for tile author of " Trevclyan" to write another story , blights his happiness without any assignable object , and is herself blighted , partly by his woes , partly by a most unaccountable marriage , partly by the hangman , who disposes of her father in front of Dcbtors ' -door , Newgate . For utter a patient attention to two volumes of unutterable wretchedness Mr . Lushmgton , J- WJ ™ > begins to chaise countenance , and is rapidly transformed into bn John Dean Paul , the fraudulent banker . Thenceforward half-way to the end , the interest is purely that of an Old Bailey investigation There are the preliminaries be oic the magistrate , the ominous uittings of the detective oilieer , the ransacking ol the baSk , the trial , the Attorney-General ' s speech , the examinations and crossexaminations , the retirement , of the iury—verdict-emotion oi the JJ ^ c - sUence in court-sentence-visit of relatives to condemned cell- ¦* iheiiil s intimation to the prisoner that his hour is comc-bcll of St . Scpi lcslue s-b . uual service-pinioning- falling of the drop-last struggles . AH this is ye y exciting , but we have read it in the newspapers . The only difference is that . the banker ' s family are very cool , and that Eustace plays the part of an idiot gasping , and weeping , and Pegging for mercy , and bending over Lucy , and usli g tolndia . The satire of the novel is as weak as the romance . I « » ad c - raeters speak out their villany , the fools their folly , the immaculate then virtue iTaway unknown to human nature . The sickliest of readers can scarcely relish this . most vapid of novels . , / fiiion ,,, n ,, > Henry Luis : or , Life andExistence . By Emilia Marryat 2 vols ( Chapman and Hall )— We have some sympathy with the author of Henry Lyle ; she la obviously amiable and sincere . She is possessed of intelligence and enthusuwm . ' V ¦
This book , too , is her first . But we must advose her , if she produces a second , to take Henry Lyle as a model of what her second production ought not to be . The idea is that of a contrast between the career of a gifted man who really lives , and of one who only exists and wastes away in the desolation of selfishness . So far Miss Marryat ' s conception is admissible as the subject of a social story . But , what society , and what a story ! 'Henry Xyle ?&&» , ' Arthur Vere exists , and both die . Both , also , love Augusta Leigh , who marries the Life in preference to the Existence , although worldly and corporeal advantages are possessed by the latter . In consequence thereof , the . Existence tracks the Life , which leaves a trail of blood , b y which it may be traced . This is not a figurative , but a literal statement of the story . Henry Lyle , the happy and virtuous , but pecuniarily-embarrassed husband of Augusta , is a Claude Lorraine by profession : but , though good and gifted , is by constitution a most disagreeable hero . Miss Marryat does not hang , or behead , or stab him , or consume him with hectic fires , or ernulate the psychological studies of certain modern novelists , who take insanity as the pivot of then * stories . No ; Henry Lyle spits blood ,. " deluges the room with blood , " " streams with blood , " is " covered with blood , " enough to revolt an executioner . But every time Henry Lyle bursts a vessel ; Arthur Vere enters Augusta ' s presence , taunting her with her husband ' s inevitable death , and sometimes b y his very words necessitating the use of a styptic . He follows the melanchol y pair to Florence , asks Augusta how she feels at the agony of her dying angel , writes profane pamphlets , and , ultimately returning to London , falls down in front of Northumberland House , is mortally injured , and . lies in agony at the Golden Cross Hotel . Thither comes Augusta . Lyle and Vere perish about the same tune , are recorded in the same obituary , and . fade out of sight as completely as if Henry Lyle had never been written . The Linesman ; or , Service hi the G-uards and the Line During England ' s Long Peace and Little Wars . By Colonel Elers Napier . 3 vols . ( G . W . Hyde . )—The Linesman is scarcely a novel . It is composed of pictures and discussions sketchily put together , so as to constitute a reply , in the form of fiction , to the notorious " Memorial of the Guards . " Colonel Napier has seen a good deal of military life , and possesses a sort of literary facility common to alL the Napiers . His volumes are dedicated to Colonel Tulloch , who is not to be held responsible , however , for the Linesman ' s opinions , or for his invective . The narrative itself is a suppositious review , founded in fact , " of course , of a soldier ' s career in the Line compared with a soldier ' s career in the Guards ; the Linesman dropping into retirement , " in pale , contented sort of discontent , as a Captain unattached , and the Guardsman alighting among the upper ten thousand as a General , an Honorable , and a K . C . B . An examination at a military college , a fox-hunt , a Parisian assault of arms , a duel , a . Punishment Parade . various scenes of gambling and coquetry , precede the hero ' s embarkation for India Colonel Napier obligingly skips the voyage , and does not describe either a flying fish or a man overboard ; a pic-nic in Madeira , or a gale in the Pacific ; the cinnamon scent of Ceylon , or Indian starlight . A page suffices for the transition from Gravesend to Madras , from English sign-boards and meadows to the low , tawny coast , cavernous temples , dust , and palms of the warm and abundant East . The story takes at once an Indian colour , streaked with allusions to the anomalies of the British military system , and with arguments of every description on affairs of public policy . The Colonel throws his hero into the fevers of the Burmese campaign , but brings him off , abruptly , on sick leave , and pauses a long while to talk of Prince Albert and the Guards . Happily , however Lieutenant Beresford makes a second voyage to Madras , describes a march to Hyderabad , introduces a piquant episode on Platonic love , relates anecdotes of taxation and torture , confesses the results of a Nautch dance , and forces a pleasant variation of improbability by reviving a certain blonde ± " ansiemie called * Melanie , in the name and gauze of an Oriental queen . An aflray , a story of the murderous Phansegars , a Suttee , an adventure , equivocally consummated with the sculpturesque Sittayah , and a tiger tragedy , bringing out the Colonel ' s powers of effect and exaggeration , confer on the voiumes the merits , at least , of spirit and variety . The Linesman is a hearty , rough , manly book , which will amuse the military class , and , being adventurous » and melodramatic , may have attractions for other sorts of readers . Arthur Vauyhaii . By B . T . Williams , M . A . ( Kent and Co . )—A . sad , unpretending story , in one volume , written with grace and point ; very , martistically constructed , yet not deficient in evidences of culture and observation . A similar remark applies to The Good Time Coming , byT . S . Arthur ( Hodson ) , who appears to have published a library of miniature romance and whose style is that of florid elaboration . Glenmorven ; or , Nedley Mectory , byH . T . Mullissy ( Hope and Co . ) , resembles in style and spirit The Heir oj liedcliffe . It isnoticeableaa s a story written by various hands . False Honour , Two to Otte mdlhePoMtctan . belong , to Parker ' s well-written but didactic series . The Merchant Vessel ( Sampson Low ) is a story to chain a boy to his chair and charm his att ^ tion ^ and Shoe Fac Recollections : a Wayside Glimpse of American Life , by Walter Marsh ( Trubner ) , a collection of characteristic sketches illustrating ; tlie realities of American manners . Let us append to the list three books not designed as practical reflexions of society , but as al cgones to please an * * "S minds These are , the Stories of an Old Maid , by Madame Emile de Girardin ( Addcy and Co . ) , to which may be assigned high rank among nursery classics , ™ pie ? tender , and joyous are they ; The King of Moot Valley and ks Curious Daughter : a Fairy Tale , by It . lteiuich ( Chapman and Hall ) , a fantastic and ingenious tale , with eiglJt Irilliant pictures of the world in which rooks are violet birds purple , kings yellow , and lions vermilion : and Princess Use ; a Legend translated by Lady Maxwell Wallace ( Bell and Daldy ) . This is an exqfS Summer gift , a book in the best style of lairyism , delicate and Kt ! and fanciful , and eiad in rose colour and gold . . And tfie story , translated admirably by Lady Wallace , is not less elegant and rich .
Memoirs Op Doctors Waudlaw And Kitto. Me...
MEMOIRS OP DOCTORS WAUDLAW AND KITTO . Memoir * of the Life and Writings of Ralph Wardlaw , V . D . By William U"f ** Y Alexander , D . D . Second Edition . Edinburgh : Adam and Charles Black . Memoirs of Dr . John Kitto . Uy J . E . Kyland . Edinburgh : Ohphant and Sons . Dn Waruuw possessed many admirers both in England and Scotland . Hence we ( ind that a second edition of his Memoirs has been called for within three months after the publication of the first ^' ff . " .. ^ principally , if not entirely , amongst those sects which look with an ey 1 eye upon the union of ChurcU and State . Of their views he was a stanch supporter . When but a young mnn he entered warmly into the controversy concerning the power of the civil magistrate in things sacred , and at a much rrJS wleu discussions on Church establishments and the Voluntary iyetem moved the religious world , he advocated et . ll more boldly tbo sume principles .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 28, 1856, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_28061856/page/17/
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