THE EARL'S CEDARS. • THE Kkam's CEDARS is worthy of special
praise were it only for this 'remarkable peculiarity, that being a modern novel, and written in the form of an autobiography, it yet does not weary and disgust the reader with any hypochondriacal maundering& The narrator is no more an egotist than Frank Osbaldistone ; he does not write for the purpose of expressing a great variety of opinions upon a great variety of subjects, or boring us with interminable lectures on his own mental pathology. He is not even the prin- cipal figure in the story he relates, but he plays an important though subsidiary part in its action, and is brought into personal contact with all the actors. He it is who has unravelled all its tangled threads, and accomplished the final denouement, and for these reasons, as well as because he is a man of keen discernment and strongly marked character, we feel ourselves brought closer to the persons and the facts of the story than if it had been told by any other other lips than his. It is an extremely interesting story, and he tells it for the most part admirably; the only fault we have to find with him as a narrator is that, for certain alleged reasons by no means satisfactory, he refuses to be a spectator of the denouement which has been brought about by his agency, and is thus compelled to huddle up the conclusion of his story and re- late its climax from hearsay, with far less vividness than he had imparted to many of its minor incidents. He ceases to write dra- matically just at the moment when our eagerness for dramatic de- tail is excited to the highest pitch. We have felt this defect to be the more vexatious because it seems to us entirely wilful ; it cannot have been the result of conscious want of power, for the author has clearly shown that the power exists if he had the will to use it ; but he has suddenly grown lazy, or crotchety, or impatient to have done. We must declare, therefore, with due severity, that- the picture would have been a better one if the painter had taken more pains at the last ; but after all we cannot deny its claims to respectful recognition as a genuine work of art. The story is full of movement, the characters are numerous, well defined and life-like, and the language is compact, easy, and graphic. The plot is elaborately and ingeniously constructed, and • The Barre Cedars. By the Author of " Smugglers and Foresters," Oce. In two volumes. Published by Booth. its incidents derive a strong colour of probability from their inti- mate connexion with the characters of the persons concerned in them.
The novel derives its name from a noble group of cedars in the Earl of St. Lo's park at Moraston, a wild west-country village on the sea-side. Hither the Countess comes to the, attended by the excellent village doctor, and deplored by her volatile Irish hus- band with a grief more vehement than enduring. He soon takes another wife, a beautiful demon, whose heart is bent on compas- sing, by means that shall not imperil her own safety, the destruc- tion of the earl's three children by his first marriage. One of the sons she drives to sea, where he perishes miserably; she en- feebles the character of the other and goads him on to ruin by every refinement of domestic torture ; and she is pursuing a simi- lar course with his sister, when the child's dangerous illness in- duces her father, whose better feelings have not yet been wholly extinguished by the arts of his fiend-like wife, to send her away from Ireland, and put her under the care of Dr. Frankland, at Moraston. There she recovers health of body and mind, and is imbued with principles that serve as antidotes to the poisonous influences with which she is assailed by her stepmother. She becomes an object of life-long interest to the doctor's son Charles, but she is still a child when she leaves his father's house, and when they meet again six years afterwards, at the earl's residence in the county Antrim, her friendship for her old playmate is as cordial as ever, but there is a mystery about her which he cannot penetrate. Stories are whispered of her, the evil of which he rightly refuses to believe, but the reader begins to surmise, if he does not, that they are only distorted versions of a true tale of clan- destine love. She is talking with him in the balcony of the castle that overlooks the sea, and frankly confesses that the good seed sown in her mind by his father's care had not borne all its due fruit, and that in the uncared-for life she had led in Ireland, untrammelled even by conventional proprieties, she had become as wild and wilful as ever. Charles Frankland suggests that she had the advantage of her brother Damian's protection and gui- dance- " take care of me :—Damian !' she exclaimed, laughing somewhat scornfully ; I'd be the leader in any mischief we got into together. They say women always are, and maddest ever ! but don't laugh at me, Charles Frankland ; it's no jesting matter when a motherless girl like me, with none to counsel her, rides wild about a country like this. If I'd no guidance, then, it was not love that set me free, but more like hatred ; and I remem- bered the yoke—I bore the mark of it on my chafed neck—and started off if the slightest touch was laid upon it. In my heart, too, there was the sore rankling; and it was not joy that set me off on my mad frolics, but despair, and the thinking there was nothing on earth worth living for.' "Lady Honoria bent her head low on the cold stone of the balustrade. I thought she was weeping; but, in a moment, I saw that her eyes were not closed or blinded by tears, and that she had lifted her head slightly, and was gssmg with a totally changed expression at a light which had suddenly burst forth, as it appeared to me, at the mouth of a deep cave into which I had once penetrated, because Salcombe told me its curious petrifactions were worth seeing. The smugglers of the coast were said to know it well, and often concealed their tubs in the intricate passages of the rocks.
" must tell Salcombe of that light,' I said, after watching the glimmer- ing radiance, which sometimes burned very clearly, then appeared to go out, and was several times rekindled. am certain that is a smuggling signal ; have lived too much upon the coast not to know when I see one.'
" Oh! you wouldn't mention it surely ! ' said Lady Honoria, eagerly ; I like to see it burning. That light—it has not been kindled lately,—perhaps it is not what you fancy.'
" I scarcely see what else it can be,' I answered and I know Salcombe isexpeeting the smugglers to try and land a cargo. You would not wish me 00 let my friend get into trouble for want of a word from me ? ' " 'It's not his business ! ' said Lady Honoria, haughtily ; he is the officer afloat ; let others look after the coast. Oh, Charles, let the poor fellows alone! You know your father, though he wouldn't buy their goods, never told of them. Don't come to Ireland to turn informer ! '
"I laughed, but there was deep anxiety in her tone. " I'm a real Irishwoman at heart, Charles, and that light shone out against the dark rocks, when I was saddest, to cheer me. You may laugh at me as much as you please for being superstitious, but I always was and will he ; and I take it for a good omen, so don't east trouble upon me.'
"The drawing-mom was by this time brilliantly lighted up, and filled with guests ; but Lady Honoria did not move, or offer to join them.. Seve- ral of the officers, at times, came into the balcony, but her manner was so cold that it gave them no encouragement to linger. She still talked to me, and seemed to wish to keep me near her ; rather, I think, to prevent an- other from taking my place, than from any more flattering reason, for her thoughts evidently wandered, and her manner was fluctuating; sometimes flightily gay, at others deeply sad. The affectionate confidence which had marked it at first was not restored."
One may see with half an eye that there is matter here out of which the countess may contrive to work &world of mischief ; but we will pry no further into the mystery. Let us turn to this con- trast of characters. Salcombe, the coastguard officer, mentioned in. the preceding extract, is a firstrate seaman and right good fel- low, who is perpetually getting into trouble through his indiscreet zeal for the good of the service.
" It often surprised me to see, how in this man, the natural impetuosity of his disposition had never been, and seemed never likely to be, overcome. Salcombe had had more than most men to keep down his spirit, but the mo- ment a spark fell upon the tow it kindled into a blaze. The strong discipline of the naval service, the tyranny of the local conunandere, the arbitrary regu- lations of the coast-guard duty, had been bridling him in for years and years ; and yet he was just as ready ROW as when he ran away-from school in boy- hood, to throw up the irksome task of pleasing his superiors. Nevertheless, he was a great stickler for the strict observance of rule and order, as well as in theory, a respecter of authority. He marched into church at Moraston with his hat off, and his head thrown back, punctually to a minute ; and oven the severest fit of rheumatism, each as in our damp fogs often assailed bun, never interfered with his bending the knee, or standing erect, as en- joined by the rubric. M3, father, on the contrary, was disdainful of all rules and regulations, and held the laxest opinions on Church and State questions, concerning which ffalcombe and he disputed. by the hour, with, out coming to any conclusion ; yet he, too, in practice, often differed mate- rially from his own theories. How was it, then, that while the good Doctor walked evenly on along the straight decorous path of moral duty, obeying the laws he professed to deride, and keeping his family from the smallest derelictions by the force of his own good example, as well as by the awe he inspired, Salcombe was always flying off at a tangent, and sinning against the light that appeared to be burning so strongly within him ? No one expressed himself more loyally in favour of constituted authorities, or quarrelled with them more frequently, than the impetuous lieutenant; while my. father, who, from the monarch on the throne and the bench of bishops, irreverently declaimed against the powers that be, in practice con- formed to their dictates. While holding the extremeat opinions respecting the original taint in man's nature, the depravity of the human heart, and the imperfection of our best aspirations, his life was pure and holy, and his household kept the Word as it was delivered to them by those grave lips, better than I have seen it honoured under any other roof."
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