NEW NOVELS. * My Life is founded upon the fair writer's
reminiscences of the character and family of a country clergyman and his parochial management; but she appears to have thought that the delinea- tion merely of his ministerial life would have been too narrow; she has therefore narrated the whole of his career as a fictitious autobiography with a matter-of-fact basis. In its leading outlines —the character of the clergyman, his wife, his father, (an ad- mirably-drawn and excellent person,) and the friend who assists in every plan of paroehial reform—the story seems to rest alto- gether upon the actual : probably it does so in some of the other persons, as well as in the condition of the parish and the improve- ments introduced.
The tale is not rare or striking in its incidents. It depends for its interest upon the elaboration of individual characters and the familiar acquaintanceship that grows up with them in the reader's mind, rather than upon skilfully-constructed story or single scenes. There are the college debts and difficulties into which Mr. More the hero is plunged by weakness of resolution and a dan- ns companion, from which he is rescued by his excellent "ther. His active strong-minded frienil and coadjutor, Langford, trained to bear from infancy, yet secretly sensitive owing to a-de- formity like Richard the Third's and dying at last brokenhearted through an unfortunate attachment, has a tragical element in its close, but quiet treatment and religious feeling remove it from tragedy. There are also domestic griefs and the troubles that may occur in an extensive parish among rich or poor; but the real, with its mitigations of evil, predominates over the artistical or rhetorical ideal throughout This real character imparts both its merits and defects to " the autobiography, of a Village Curate." The additions which have been made to the actual are not always congruous, and sometimes they-fall below it in breadth and force. The individuality is occa- sionally weak and even poor ; the narration, till the reader is well on in the story, slow, from a rather diffusive detail. The book, however, is a very truthful exhibition of life in a country village, with probable incidents, just relieved from commonplace, and con- nected together by a thread of story. Great public events serve to mark the period and relieve the everyday nature of the bulk of the book. There is also a spice of oldfashioned manners about the narrative, with some remarks that argue judicious thought and are appropriate to the theme. The following observations refer to distress in the parish during the scarcity at the beginning of the century; but they are applicable to all times. Englishmen, espe- cially uneducated Englishmen, are the least ready and the most helpless of mortals in new circumstances; the least disposed to shift, and, singular to say, apparently the moat incapable of turning what they have to the best account. "The poor usually cling very tenaciously to their own opinions, and this inflexibility operated prejudicially upon their interests during the season of scarcity. I cited to them the example of their Northern neighbours, who with a handful of oatmeal and a sheep's head will supply a substantial meal for a whole family, at a price for which one English labourer would barely get his dinner. I pointed out to them the sturdy Scotch drovers, whose heifers frequently halted for the night in a grazing-field hard by, and who supped well and wholesomely upon their oatmeal porridge, while the sum that procured their repast, if spent in bread, would not have sufficed for a little child. But all was in vain. The people relished my soup, but would make little of their own, and put up with half a meal of bread rather than a full meal of any substitute. • • • " It is of the utmost importance always to bear in mind, that a great com- mand over the necessaries and conveniences of life may be effected in two ways,—either by a rapid increase in the quantity and value of the funds des- tined for the maintenance of labour, or by the prudential habits of the la- bouring classes ; and that, as the former mode of improving their condition is neither in the power of the poor to carry into effect themselves, nor can hi the nature of things be .permanent, the great source of the comfort of the labouring classes must be in those prudential habits, which, if properly ex- ercised, are capable of securing to them a fair proportion of the necessaries and conveniences of life, from the earliest stage of society to the latest."
• My Life ; or the Autobiography of a Village Curate. By Eliza R. Rowe. Pub- lished by Vizetelly. Married Women ; a Novel. By the Author of " Broomhill, or the County Beau- ties." In three volumes. Published by Newby. Gwen ; or the Cousins. By A. M. Goodrich, Author of " Claudia." Published by Parker and Son. The Quicksands of Fashion ; a Novel. By Mrs. Martin Lucas, Author of " Gabriella. Witherington," " Treachery," &c. In three volumes. Published by Newby.
With greater powers of writing and more knowledge of life than usually belong to the circulating library novel, Married Women is essentially of that class. The story is not of pro- bable occurrence; the manners, especially of lords and ladies, are of the abstract conventional oast that are found in novels, and originate in speculation rather than observation ; the scenes, though not wanting in power or spirit, possess that faded air which characterizes general imitation. But there is the main thing in a novel—a well-varied story, told with soft- oient rapidity, relieved by secondary fortunes without complex involution, and if not reminding one of the actual yet rarely out- raging probability. It is a book for the reader rather than the critic ; though better adapted to the main end of writing, that of pleasing the class of readers for whom it is designed, than some fictions of a more vaulting ambition. The story traces the consequences of several attachments and three or four marriages. It also shows the effect of an imprudent choice or a selfish marriage. "Married Women," however, is not strictly the subject of the novel; for the consequences of an evil choice are shown in their operation upon the husband as much as upon the wife. The moral announced by the writer is har the true one—" that a well-educated, well-principled, religious g , is more likely to make a good wife than the flirt or coquette, how- ever well she may understand the art of attraction." Beyond another affirmation of the old saw, "it is well to_be off with the old love," the lessons to be drawn from the story of Married Wo- men are, for a young man to be on his guard against the schemes of an artful mother and her daughter by mixing somewhat in the world, and for a young woman not to fall in love with good looks and selfish good-nature.
There is a double character in the story and the execution if not in the moral of Gwen or the Cousins, which gives it an air of incongruity, besides disturbing the attention. A. third of the work belongs to the class of juvenile tales; pointing the moral of parental over-indulgence, youthful suffering, and early piety on the part of Mary Eustace, "good-hearted" selfishness on that of her sister Geraldine, and value of a wonderful pattern do- mestic in the person of Katherine Irving. The remainder of the story exhibits one consequence of the weak though charming cha- racter of Geraldine's mother. The beautiful engaging child and girl grows up into a charming but self-willed young woman. She falls in love with a young Italian count, and elopes when her stepfather rejects his suit. The remainder of the story is devoted to trace the results of a match so ill-assorted as that of an English- woman with a foreigner residing abroad, as well as of an impulsive ungovernable temper. The charaoter, and after a struggle the self-denying virtues, of G wen the poor cousin of Geraldine, is a collateral feature ; though we think the true heroine is Katherine Irving. The matter of the latter part, it will be seen, belongs to the fiction for " grown-up people." The general treatment is that of the juvenile tale. The style of the juvenile story predominates throughout, and rather mars the effect of at least the first part, by a didaotic solid- ity approaching to heaviness. The leading feature of the book is a nice conception and consistent development of character, slightly flattened in effect by the didactic object of endeavouring to preach some lesson by means of the exhibition. There is also a want of artistical management. Gwen, however, is a thoughtful well- written tale, not without interest, and with excellent objects, if some of them are a shade overdone.
The Quicksands of Fashion shows little knowle e of fashion- able or any other life. Neither has it that knac of dramatic story-telling which to some extent supplies its place by the air of vraisemblance that it casts over the narrative. One of the best characters is a selfish young man, with just enough of prudence or hypocrisy to hide at times his evil quality when its display would be mischievous to himself. Selfishness in some form is a frequent element in ourrent fiction, and generally well done, probably from the quantity of the article in actual life.
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