THE GRAVEDIGGER
NOT only fails to support the promise of the author's previous work, The Scottish Heiress, but falls below it, as well in the powers displayed by the writer as in their results considered as a fiction. To find authors exhausted by their first production, and afterwards repeating themselves, is not uncommon ; but we never met with it in such an extraordinary degree as in The Gravedigger. The inci- dents and actors of the tale are the same, only exhibited from another point of view. Kenneth Clyne, the hero of The Scottish Heiress, nourished an untold and hopeless passion for the heroine, Ellen Ruthven and so does Walter Osborne, the hero of The Gravedigger, for its heroine, Katherine Brandon. But Kenneth had reason for his silence, in the difference of station : whereas Walter Osborne is the equal of Katherine. Kenneth, after the ruin of his prospects, was carried to London as an adventurer, and involved in the struggles for subsistence which attend the friendless and unknown in the modern Babylon : so is Walter Osborne, after he is ruined by his own folly and the improbable rascality of an agent, for the convenience of the author. Ken. netb, in his troubles, wrote for the press : so does Walter Osborne. Kenneth got connected with an actress—which caused Ellen Ruthven, the heroine of the former novel, much distress : Walter Osborne has a flirtation with a demirep of fashion—which, in the present story, causes Katherine Brandon to accept an offer of marriage. The denouement of The Scottish Heiress, if we remem- ber rightly, was produced by Kenneth's sister informing the heroine of his deep affection : in The Gravedigger, this proceeding is in. verted, the heroine writing an account of her love to a mutual friend. In both novels the hero recovers his fortune, and in both by not very probable means : but in this, as in all other points, the first novel, we think, has the advantage.
Nor does the self-plagiary end here. The Scottish Heiress had a villain, bent upon getting possession of the heroine's property, and seducing the sister of the hero ; there was also a rival lover, whose object was to marry the heroine. In The Gravedigger, these two single gentlemen are rolled into one ; the suitor of Katherine Brandon being a roue, and an irresistible melodramatic villain, like Sir Edgar Ruthven, but a fainter copy, partaking more of the traits of average men which characterized Sir Grenville Rollo, the former lover. In The Scottish Heiress, Kenneth was attended by a sort of humble fidus Achates : in The Gravedigger, Walter Osborne has two ; which balances the conjunction of rival and villain. Even in subordinate incidents there is the same inferior repetition. A younger sister of Kenneth Clyne was con- sumptive; and her decline and death, though a common incident, was natural in its circumstances, and touchingly told : The Grave- digger must therefore have its case of consumption too; but very unnatural it is ; being that of a wealthy clergyman's widow, sud- denly reduced to poverty by the " train of inevitable misfortunes" of novels and newspaper-advertisements, and driven to make her daughter a female Cerberus—sempstress, shopwoman, and news- girl. Even the means of locomotion are repeated, with a difference : in the former novel there was a steam-voyage up from Scotland, in the present there is a steam-voyage down.
The only part with any pretence to variety is the club of loose livers, with good hearts, who meet at the Lord Burleigh. Among these, the best is Pontius Burton, a broken-down scholar and man of family, connected with the press, and the friend and follower of the hero. There is humanity in the man, despite of his dissipation ; and his sensible reflections with his foolish con- duct is a trait of his class. In these persons, indeed, the interest and amusement of the book centres : though the amusement is of a free and easy kind, the actions partake of caricature, and the delineation, although founded in truth, is not artistically truthful— imagination is wanted to vivify and art to connect the matter-of-fact.
It is useless to enter into the story of such a work ; but, apart from the probabilities of life, or novelty of invention, The Grave- digger is inferior as a mere circulating-library novel. Long de- scriptions, and reflections having no purpose or connexion with the tale, continually suspend the narrative. Chapters descriptive of scenes, and persons " to be let," impede the progress of the story: much of what has a direct relation to the hero or heroine contributes little to the denouement, beyond filling up the time till the curtain must fall ; even the amusing characters and scenes would be equally attractive as sketches as in their present place. From this looseness of structure, the quaint heading of the chap- ters, with an obvious and rather long-winded imitation of the moralizing claptraps of Boz, we think it possible that the work ma*. have been planned with a view to periodical publication ; though its deficiency in rapidity, and, except in certain parts, in attraction, would have rendered even that a hazardous experiment.
The only power of the author of The Scottish Heiress which is maintained in The Gravedigger with undiminished vigour throughout, is the power of writing: but mere writing cannot up- hold a work without matter and forms appropriate to its nature.
The most laughable incident in the book occurs when Walter and two old habitues of the Lord Burleigh are going out of town as ushers in a school; and Mr. Unicorn, a hairdresser, with a pro- fessional enthusiasm for the growth of " air," is accompanying them part of the way.
THE BARBER'S ADVENTURE.
They all took off their hats on entering the room, for it was a warm spring day ; and the farmer, happening to be very bald, attracted Mr. Unicorn's at- tention at once. Spirits and cold water were ordered, and hastily consumed; Walter, although he disliked drinking in the forenoon, yet from a desperate wish to keep up his spirits, drinking a glass of brandy in a tumbler of soda- water. The barber drank rather more incautiously, and, warmed with genuine spirits, took the liberty of remarking to the farmer, who was wiping his fore- head with a yellow pocket-handkerchief, that it was a thousand pities he con- tinued bald, when so many remedies could be bad. The farmer, who was a very independent sort of person, as he always paid his rent, replied by some remark in relation to humbug in general and Mr. Unicorn's connexion with it in particular; which, as the coach was on the very point of starting, the latter had no opportunity of noticing at the time ; but no sooner were they all seated again, and the horse-cloths whipped from the team, than, as they started forward at a gallop, which further roused the barber's spirits, he began to turn over the words in his mind. It was evident they bad excited his anger ; for, during the progress of the stage, be shook his fists once or twice in a violent way at the broad back of the farmer, muttering the offensive term over and over again. By these means, aided too by the effect of the spirits he had drank, and the rapid motion of the coach, he worked himself up to a state of fury, and whipping out his scissors, before either of his companions knew what he was about, in a twinkling he cut off the skirts of the farmer's coat! It luckily happened that at the moment the coach was running uneasily over some broken stones, and the farmer thus remained unconscious of the injury he had sustained ; while both Walter and Mr. Buckhurst were so taken by surprise, that for a moment or two they remained gazing on the back parts of the shorn agriculturist, as if doubting their eyes. It is probable, however, that they both would have had recourse to different measures with their companion, had not his rolling from side to side sufficiently proclaimed a condition which called for better offices; and until the end of the stage they remained holding the barber between them, and watching uneasily every movement of the farmer's bands. Even the Frenchman, who sat with a stout lady and the guard behind the coach, raised his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, and appeared ill at ease. Every thing however went on well enough till the end of the stage. Then they all descended, Mr. Unicorn with precarious difficulty ; but no sooner had the farmer touched the ground, than putting his hand to get his pocket- handkerchief, and feeling nothing but his breeches, he turned twice round, clapping both hands behind him, to solve the mystery. This he might not have done so soon, if he had not happened to cast his eyes again to the coach, and seen his coat-skirts lying under feet. Ins moment he guessed who had com- mitted such a wanton and almost unprovoked outrage on his person. Half suffocating himself with oaths, he flew in a frantic manner at the barber, and would have probably killed him on the spot, had not Walter and Mr. Buck- burst forcibly kept him off ; a task which was rendered more difficult, by their having at the same time to restrain the barber, who had taken out his seisms, and was snapping them furiously at the farmer's face, calling out, "I'm a hum- bug, am I?" The Frenchman also exerted himself to keep the peace, aided by the guard, who was short-winded, and averse to riot ; and at length Mr. Unicorn was prevailed upon to enter the inn, and consent to go no farther with the coach.
A LONDON CHARACTER.
By his side was a gentleman about his own age, very negligent in his dress, and whose countenance betrayed more irregular debauchery than the Doctor's. His face was indeed rather bloated ; of that slightly humid character which is seen to much disadvantage in a clear light. This person styled himself Pontius Burton, A.M.; and, strange as it may appear, was a first-classman of Oxford : but had turned his attainments and talents to such poor account, that he had now to support himself by correcting the press for reprints of Greek school books, and by indiscriminate writing for the newspapers. He was well known to the editors of the leading journals, as one of the most useful men on the press; for he could report speeches, %hen he could hardly speak himself—could write almost on any subject, and certainly on any side of the question ; some- times with much logical force and intellectual vigour, and always with con- siderable ease and wit—for in politics Mr. Burton was a sort of Dugald Dal- getty, to whom all services were alike—the only subject upon which his own opinions were at all fixed being the question of imprisonment for debt. And so Mr. Burton rubbed through life in a threadbare coat, having, it must needs be told, no happiness, no friends, no stimulus to exertion, but what the parlour of the Lord Burleigh afforded. He was well known, he was almost respected there ; in the street he was looked upon as a miserable, a ducker from the day- light into blind allies, an object of pity or contempt. Yet his countenance, with all its drawbacks, had the composed look of intellect and education; and an attentive observer, who had seen him walking steadily along the crowded pavement, unconscious, as it seemed, of his sadly worn apparel and public- house guise, could have detected nothing of shrinking abasement in his undis-' turbed, self-reposing glance—nothing in his aspect that might be read, "my distresses make me thus "; but something that almost seemed to say, "it is my pleasure to be so." If it were so, it was a very melancholy one.
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