THE HUGUENOT FAMILY.*

• The Huguenot Family in the English Mime. By Sarah. TyUer. S vole. London : Hurst and Blacken. WERE it not for her pure womanly instincts, which, like lights at sea, shine clear and steady over dangerous tracks, the historical backgrounds Miss Tytler chooses for her novels would assuredly prove rocks upon which the vessel of her imagination would run to wreck. In Citoyenne Jacqueline the leading merit was perhaps not so much broad dramatic contrast of character, or skilful development of startling incident, as the unconscious directness with which she made the blood-sprinkled waves of the Terror float her characters into dramatic situations, grouping them all, uncon- sciously, but with the utmost naturalness, round lofty centres of motive and emotion, so that from first to last the " soul of Goodness is seen in process of conquering the chaos and creating the light." And in the Diamond Rose, which has recently been reissued, the cha- racters, to whose heroism she occasionally administers such hard pro- saic-seeming knocks, yet, like flints, throw out the brighter sparks for her stern inflictions, lighting up the dark artificiality and re- actionary life-weariness of that stricken period of Scottish history. Certainly, had Euphame Napier been painted a whit more after the conventional ideal lady of the novelist, she had stood the less

•

effectively, because the less naturally, in her place beside " sour, Amu Mark," the gentle Romirus, and giddy, birdlike Katie Crichton, in whom at last so much of the woman springs up that she cannot rest absent from her lordly husband. In this latest novel—which though less brilliant in grouping and colour than Citoyenne, and perhaps less intensely real and dramatically faith- ful than the Diamond Rose, is yet, in some important points, far superior to both—she has given us the most genuine, because the most faithfully idealized reflection we have met with of Huguenot life and suffering, along with a picture which we think almost as genuine of English Methodism and English eighteenth-century fashion. Here, too, the characters, elevated by the sudden and tragic sweep of events in a revolutionary time, have their highest heroism developed out of elements which on one side are utterly unheroic and common-place. We have heartily to thank the genuine woman in Miss Tytler for saving us from the fatality which, in the hands of a disciple less genuinely devoted to Thackeray than she is, would only have given us the show of heroism in place of the reality.

In the Huguenot Family Miss Tytler has preserved the happy mean between the purely domestic novel and the purely historical one. Her success lies in having so softly blended the two elements that each derives reality and colour from the other. When the Huguenot Family—settled in the Shottery Cottage, near the slut- tish village of Sedge Pond, which had for a good while lain watching them in the attitude of a surly mastiff—threatens to loselts distinctive character and be drawn into too close associa- tion with English ways and English people, by Grand'mere's gentle ministrations among the fever-stricken villagers, M. Denis Landre, the dry little grey rabbit of a savant—the last relic of the galleys—appears upon the scene. With his strange reserves and his hurried hints as strange as his reserves, he throws fresh light upon the great historical cartoon, which, growing dimmer and dimmer, had the effect of lessening the relief in which it was needful that each of our Huguenots should stand, that they might be kept naturally is relation with the great tragedy long past, but in which lay the root of the great tragedy amid which the life of good Grand'mere was to be quenched. So, too, when Graiultmere's blander in respect of the coveted alliance for Yolande with young Squire Gage, of the Mall, is made manifest, we must read in her failure the author's skilful use of a very natural incident to retard an identification of habit and interest which would have spoiled the chief charm of the story. And the same has doubtless to be said of Yolande's flight from the castle. Miss Tytler has made many fine points by the very mistakes of Grand'mere, which scarce another novelist had thought of, or, in trying to gain them by more direct means, had sacrificed that truthfulness for which this work is specially distinguished.

This rare merit of softly tempering between the domestic ele- ment in her story and the historical one is only matched by the rare

power Miss Tytler has here shown in the dramatic interpretation of nature—a point on which we wish to speak the more fully and the more admiringly, that she has in certain passages called to our mind Tennyson and Browning, and has in one or two instances, at least, surpassed the former in truthfulness and breadth of render- ing. Take these contrasted pictures of young Caleb Gage, as he rides to the Shottery Cottage to inform Grand'mere that Yolande, whom he loved so tenderly, but of whom he cannot but have doubts, has been rescued from the -wolf grasp of the Honourable George Rolle : - Caleb rode along by the pastures and the edge of the Waists, on a wild, windy, rainy morning, only partially recovered from his disorder of the previous evening by the tossings of a sleepless night As he proceeded, he felt something of a wild man's savage satisfaction in the weather, in the landscape which he loved being blurred and blotted out, because he was deadly sick at heart. Yet it would not have signified to Caleb though all the haunts of bird and beast, and all the tokens of man's dominion over them, had been spread out in their freedom and fineness of detail before him. The broad whole, which was a glorious marvel, and every individual part of it, which was a wonder, would not have arrested or occupied him at the moment, for all his inclination would have been to shake his fist and hold up his hand to Heaven against the dominant white blot of the Roles' Castle, which lay like a treacherous spider's web in his path. Finding himself at the garden gate, which he had not entered for more than twelve months, Caleb hammered at it till two porteresses rushed at once to let him in. Prie, with her head swathed in a hugh roll of flannel resembling a shako, appeared in breathless haste ; but she was outrun by Deb (a girl Grand'mere had shown great kindness to when the fever raged), who in one night had shot up, like the bean-stalk of the redoubtable Jack, to the stature, bodily and mental, of a giantess. Her clumsy, massive features were now positively grand, as they were set in staunch resolu- tion, or worked with slow but sleuth-hound sagacity. Both reached the gate and assailed the new comer, " What news, master ? Where be the child ? What hai they done with her ?" Caleb Gage was reduced to such a state of suppressed passion that he did what no Gage for a generation before him had done, he shook off his fellow-creatures in distress, and refused to relieve their anxiety. Once within the Shottery Cottage, there came a revulsion in Caleb's mood. The dark and sombre parlour forced itself on his dazzled eyes, shin- ing with the reflection of love and duty. To another its want of embellishment and complete absence of any evidence of re- creation or diversion, might have told of a cramped, chilled, and stunted life, its deprivations almost a warrant for outrage against authority. But Caleb Gage's genial, healthy soul did not understand auch an argu- ment, with God's sun overhead and His green earth around, and down in the depths of the human heart such exhaustless treasures of affec- tion, ready to spend themselves upon every living thing. Though stupid and smarting under a blow, he could not shut out what he saw and remembered of that room. There were the pillow and bobbin, and the tapestry frame, with the tasks half finished, lying as Yolande had left them. It was by Yolande's unfailing application that the task was accomplished. (Vol. III., p. 81.)

And let the picture be contrasted with this one, which occurs after the death of Graud'mere, when the flower of hope has actually taken root in the soil of despair in Caleb's heart to incite him to seek Yolande. The outer world is harbinger of the promise of the heart :—

It was on such a day as that on which Grand'mire and the Sedge Pond villagers had had their last encounter, and put the final seal to their intercourse. Only, the silvery light of spring had become the golden light of summer. For dim, blue, scentless periwinkles in dark green ivy, there were now vivid roses, heavy with all sweetness in the rich russet of their leaves, orange flames of lilies, ripe oaten straws of honeysuckle, and nothing cold but the blossoms of the jessamine, which show among companion flowers like stars seen by day, and which need a kackground of night or age to bring out their purity, peacefulness, and trustfulness. All over the meads and the uplands, the castle woods and the very Waiiste—which Caleb Gage knew and loved with a power and an intensity of appreciation which are like an additional faculty of soul and charm of existence to some men and women—there were the same seasonable efflorescence and bounty for boast, and bird, and insect. Herds standing in the river lowed, and flocks on the wing warbled and sang, and bees hummed, filling the great plane and the whole row of hives with the murmur of the sea, as if all nature united, and did well to unite, and say, that the winter was gone and the summer was come, and it depended on God to repair the breaches of the past, and give back what was lost in the future. (Vol. III., p. 831.)

The following is of a somewhat different kind, but we cannot help quoting it as illustrative of our statement :—

Spring had come to Sedge Pond at last. But it was not the spring of biting winds, blinding (last, and stinging hail; it was the spring that is page and usher to the summer, and is so young, tender, and grace- ful, that the man in his strength, who is to follow after, is hardly thought of or desired,—a spring unerringly acknowledged by all living, and even by all inanimate things ; by the ringdove and the lapwing, the humble-bee and the dragon fly ; in the woods, now bursting into a flush of delicate green, brushed with fruitful brown ; on the Waiiste with yellow trails of golden gorse; by the water, with the white ranunculus budding among the still sere flags and rushes. Grand'inere was at once like ringdove and lapwing, like the hoariest old oak in the castle park, and the stiffest old hound in the castle kennel. She had a heart still green, which awoke throbbing obediently to God's signal in the breath of His south wind, as it had done for fourscore years. (Vol. II., p. 117.)

There is no rhetorical trick here ; the effect is gained by true insight and graceful simplicity of expression. And yet Miss Tytler's main strength does not lie in this kind of work, but rather in the peculiar realism with which she treats the properly romantic elements in her story. Indeed, she sometimes errs on the side of apologizing for the very excellencies of her characters. The self- consciousness which is so destructive of creative unity may mani- fest itself in this way, as well as in the opposite excess. This is

even more noticeable in the Diamond Rose than here. We should not be surprised although we learned that Grand'mere was really a

study from life. If so, the artist's merit is all the greater. Though Grand'mere throughout appears as a truly heroic character, yet what the authoress would teach us is, that Grand'mere was so great because she was not without faults of her own, to which, as much as to anything, we owe the great lessons she has to teach us. This calm reserve with regard to the fine points in her cha- racter is one of Miss Tytler's peculiar attributes, indicating a strength of individuality very rare among story-tellers. And had it not been for this circumstance, artistic truth had sometimes been sacrificed to moral truth, the more especially that Miss Tytler makes Yolande so much a youthful copy of Grand'mere

—a point in which, dramatically viewed, she has committed the one great error of the work. When, for instance, we find the young Huguenot girl at Corner Farm preaching to poor heart-hardened

Milly Rolle, in such words as the old Huguenot would herself have uses, we cannot help thinking that she has to some extent become a lay figure; and in the sacrifice of distinctive individuality, there must, iu a story, be a sacrifice of the elements of interest. How far Miss Tytler may have sought to escape from the penalty a direct lesson brings with it by this quicksilver-like disturbance upon the chief impression, we know not ; but from a very striking passage near the close of the work, it is evident that she is herself so far conscious of the loss accruing to the whole as art from this pal- pably adventitious projection of Grand'mere's influence. The only

thing, indeed, that saves this from exercising a disastrous effect upon the story, is that Yolande, being a real copy of Grand'mere, reflects those deeper elements of interest which lie very near to

the weaknesses and defects of character in the grand old Huguenot. These more noticeable faults, however, are largely atoned for by the presence of a healthy humour. To a great extent this was absent from Miss Tytler's former works, and a certain neutral-grey tone was imparted to them by the actual reserve of gravity ; but

here, the humour which plays constantly about the ever shift- ing fantastic groups, gives to each member a clear distinc- tiveness and relief. Black Jasper, the " simple, timid, at- tached negro, with great gaping mouth, rolling eyes, and pro-

jecting ears, which were like ebony handles to the ebony casket of his body in its green and yellow livery,"—is, in this respect, a capital character, skilfully disposed, and giving, in that exquisite chapter, " The Truce of God," the most tender bountifulness of life. Nor less so, bluff, blunt, club-footed Prie, with the "down- cast, grudging, introverted eyes, not because she was a suspicious character, but because they had early had her club-foot perpetually suspended before them, while at the same time they had not cared to look at it." And Maitre Lushington, the Rolles' butler, " with his cauliflower wig, noble calves, and his person drooping and slouching in its gorgeous peach and scarlet," fulfils an honourable office likewise, for with those just named he aids in bringing out such marked contrasts of character as only a genius could have con- ceived and sustained with a power like that Miss Tytler has shown in this work. There is Lady Rolle, nonchalant, contradictory, heartless, imperious; Lord Rolle, idle, vain, empty-headed, and fond of a reputation for wit and learning ; Parson Hoadley, no intense in character that the strings of his mind snap under the force of a fresh conviction; and Dolly and hilly Rolle, frivolous, exacting, and, like the Honourable George, void of natural affection. The dry humour of the scene at the overturn of the chariot, in which the Honourable George Rolle had run off with Yolande and Milly, is exquisite. Milly is wailing piteously, though not a wit worse. Yolande is running eagerly to aid whom she can, and George him- self is wedged tightly in between the panels of the splintered chariot, while the coachman lies groaning and bleeding at a little distance.

"Mistress Milly," Mr. George startled the girls by saying, as quietly as if they were all seated at the castle supper-table. When they looked round, and tried to discover him, a struggling moon-beam gave them a glimpse of his smooth sallow face, rendered grotesquely horrible by a large splash of mud on it, and by his scratch wig being displaced in the shock, so that his head looked like a lunatic's in its primitive bareness, as it nodded to them with imperturbable good breeding over the panel, " Mistress Milly, I beg you to have some mercy on your own lungs, cousin, if not on our ears, and those of the owls and the bats; the tympanums of thelatter may recover, but I implore you to consider that it is the former which will be the greatest sufferer in the contretemps, if you

persist in exerting them to so tremendous an extent. My good creature, be reasonable ; we are all in the same mess ; and though little Daptry seems provided with wings for every catastrophe, I, for my part, have come off but poorly. Allow me to mention that have had the small misfortune to lose an eye. I am convinced that one of my eyes has been knocked out in rough contact with this detestable pale ;" asserted the Honourable George, affording a wonderful example of philosophy in his own person, as he put up his hand with simple ruefulness, and touched a cold wet mass in the socket of his eye. (Vol. III., p. 26.)

Nor do these exhaust the characters. There is Madame Dupuy, in her reserve and gloomy concentration as she broods over Huguenot wrongs, self-consistent to the very last, even when her resolve, like a steel bow, bends under pressure, only to spring back again with sharper recoil ; and there is old Caleb Gage, a sweet old man, in whom the stern faithfulness of Methodism is wedded with something of the gentle stateliness of the men of the Elizabethan time. And speaking of Caleb Gage, we must remark in passing that it seems to us the authoress has so far missed the spirit of early Methodism when she makes the preachers at the old Squire's last feast begin to discuss interpretations of prophecy.

So far as we know, the early Methodists looked rather lightly on that class of studies.

We have preferred indicating our impressions of the work to giving a formal outline of the story, for which, perhaps, our rea- ders will thank us, when they take up these volumes to read them, as we hope they will not miss the chance of doing.

In spite of the defects we have indicated, or perhaps, in some measure because of them, for they spring from the existence of rare and beautiful qualities in the author, we have no hesitation in characterizing this as at once the warmest, richest, and sincerest.

of recent novels. It is bright with skilfully contrasted pic- ture, and full of mellow wisdom ; clouds and shadows do brood brood over the landscape, but only that rain may fall to make the grass greener and the leafage richer. Many readers will, no doubt, feel disappointed, and object to the tragically painful elements which gather round the death of Grand'mere ; yet what may be lost in conventional consistency is certainly gained in that broader truth for which we yet honour Shakespeare; what is felt to be lacking in fanciful suggestion, is made up for in that grand unity of emo- tion in which at the last all the varied impressions crown and sear themselves. Not only to novel-readers will the book be a pleasure,

but to those who wish to get a glimpse of Huguenot life we would rather recommend Miss Tytler's pleasant pages, than the shadow- swept sentences of Jean Marteilhe, or the flowing ones of M.. Coquerel. They see the bare reality in its separate ghastly

details ; see through the imagination, and in its higher relations.