JOHN ORLEBAR, CLIC.*

Er may sound paradoxical, but we believe it to be the fact that those who hoped for much future enjoyment from the author of Culmshire Folk, (and few things are more enjoyable than a really good novel,) will be both charmed with and disappointed in its successor. John Orlebar is even cleverer, more entertaining, more brilliant, more humorous, more incisive and sagacious, than Culmshire Folk. It brims over with fun, and is crammed with sensational hints, rather than events, and with the observations upon human nature of a kindly, but severe and somewhat cynical critic. Yet the effect is not satisfying. Too little pains have been taken to make the plot intelligible, and the somewhat discordant materials do not work in harmoniously together. The impression left upon the mind is that the writer only regards his story as a con- venient vehicle for amusing talk about life and people, religion and politics ; and we feel a sense of injury that a good plot and so much potential excitement should be wasted from lack of careful workmanship. The tale is in one volume—that is a merit per se —but we would gladly welcome two, or even three volumes, if by so doing we could gain from " Ignotus" a novel really worthy of his evident powers.

A rather old and very wicked baronet is dying down at Arderne, leaving behind him a heavily-mortgaged estate, and a loving, high-spirited daughter, both entirely in the power of a step-mother (who does not belie the traditional character of step- mothers) and her rascally son, who is determined to possess him- self of the estates,—by marriage, if possible, if not, by craft. The story opens with a view of this worthy in his London office ; the walls are piled with boxes of deeds and lawyers' papers (Mr. Twinch does not show his usual acumen, we think, in leaving

* John (Weber, Cit. By the Author of " Culmshire Folk." London : Smith, Elder, and (Jo.

valuable deeds about with no better defence than japanned tin boxes), and he, while contemplating one marked with the name of " Arderne," breaks out to his clerk :-

" don't see the deuce why I should not eh, Snell? You don't see why I should not? Speak up, my invaluable; don't be bashful.'—' It does not much matter whether I do or not,' said withered-looking little Snell, tartly.—' Sometimes you seem to forget that you are in the receipt of a weekly salary, my indispensable,' said Twinch.—' You never forget to dignify it by the name of a salary, at all events,' re- torted SnelL—' You might keep up the outward semblance of civility, just as a matter of business,' said his master. ' Offidially, you should take more interest in what interests me. You should give we a little more of your—what do you call it ?—sympathy.'—' You should give me a little more of your confidence, to say nothing of your money,' retorted Snell."

The villany which these fit companions are hatching might have been made a very effective piece of villany, but as it is, it has so little influence on either the development of character or the fate of the heroine (who, if matters had gone badly, would only have been a parson's wife, instead of a squire's, but all the same, John °Heber's), that it would be doing no injury to the book before us if we were to narrate it as fully as the most enthusiastic and tedious of playgoers tells the plot of his last night's piece. ' So we spare our readers, and will rather introduce them to some of the second-rate actors whose sayings, far more than the doings of the

chief actors, make the attraction of this novel.

First among them towers the tall, dignified figure of Dr. Frizelle, the popular preacher whose gay bachelor days were passed in Cuhn- shire. In Arderne he appears as the grave bishop, the married man, who hides under official reserve his somewhat latitudinarian views, as he hides under outward courtesy the sad truth that the "pedagogy of example had been too much for him" when he married, and that "he had made a mistake :"— •

" The marriage had been discussed and redisoussed by persons of all shades of opinion in every parish in his diocese. Even Farmer Stubbins's wife and McDougal, Lord Ormolu's Scotch steward, had had their argument about it, which resulted in a ' draw,'for while Mrs. Stubbins quoted Scripture to the effect that marriage was a divine in- stitution, he replied that, without wishing to gainsay Holy Writ, it was quite open to believe that 'many poor male folk have but poor friends in the other world to stand by them at a most critical time."

Dr. Packenham, the " fast " but genuinely humane young doctor, who comes to Lady Culmshire's help at "a most critical time," comes out in this tale also excellently in behalf of his friend John. Indeed, it almost seems as if what plot there is in the book was evolved solely to draw out the good qualities of our favourite. Dr. Packenham takes the first place in our estimation, from the moment when we see him, on a bright October afternoon, sitting on the wall of the churchyard waiting for the parson, and smoking a cigar, while he pondered on the cause of rustics always getting hot while in church, irrespective of the season, and concluded " that they felt like sick people in the hands of a surgeon " ;— " There was a carriage waiting at the church gate, and two ladies were getting into it,—a stout, red-faced one, vulgar and middle-aged; and a young one, stately, quiet, self-contained, and lovely, pale as a statue, and apparently as cold. The episode changed the current of his thoughts. He knew them both. My experience of step-mothers,' said he to himself, 'leads me, I must say, to the popular conclusion that they are, as an institution, a failure. Still, it is only fair to allow that one may be prejudiced, as one never looks at them from the step-mother's point of view, and there are two sides to every question.' Reluctantly depositing his cigar on the wall, he went out to meet the

carriage as it approached, and raised his hat 'Can you tell me, doctor, why it is that gentlemen always look out of place in

church Indeed, I could not, any more than I could tell you why ladies do not, or why everybody looks up at the roof when it rains during divine service, no matter how devout they may be. Can that possibly be " Jip ?" Lady Arderne,' he inquired, starting, and peering into her lap with sudden wonder. 'Does he say his prayers ? Has he taken to piety and good manners? Why, he used to be nearly out of his mind at the sight of me.'—' Ah, yes, poor dear replied my lady, with a deep sigh ; 'one of the last requests poor Sir John made, before this very serious attack under which he labours, was that I should take special care of " Jip," and carry him about with me always; so I thought the best way to meet his wishes was to have the poor dear little fellow killed and stuffed, and then made into a muff. You see, he has got his paws, and eyes, and tail, and everything quite perfect.' Here she held him up, with her left arm through his stomach.'—' What a touching thing real affection is!' said Winifrid ; 'beautiful to witness, isn't it ? If I were only dead and stuffed, too, would it not be nice, doctor?'—' For whom ?' he inquired, just as if he did not know.—' Ah she replied, with a careless half-sigh, relapsing into seriousness again,

am sure I don't know.'"

When John Orlebar comes fresh from college and full of Broad- Church ideas into the parish vacated by an old Evangelical clergyman, he finds his work very up-hill work indeed. Much of the amusement of this book lies in the description of his clerical difficulties. Mrs. Stubbins is a thorn in his flesh ; and even a greater one is his own clerk, the redoubtable Ruggles, who recognises at once the "unsoundness" of the new parson. At the funeral of Sir John Arderne, Ruggles and a knot of parish- loners are discussing deep topics, when the funeral procession appears :—

" They say the Bishop is to spake snmmut.'—' Aye, he coomed over

to his nevvy the parson a purpose, I suppose Worse luck,' ejaculated Ruggles. 'From all false doctorin, hear-say, and sohysm, Good Lord deliver us! It's my belief that there's neither of them sound, uncle or nephew.'—' They're only in the fashion these times,' said Stubbing. The Cokehampton-folk has been pitehin' into their own parson for sayin' that there's some back-way out of hell, and pitchin' into the bishop, too, for not spakin' out and silencin' That's rank popery ; gittin' out

again, once your in,' said Nokes You have got hold of the wrong end of the stick,' said McDougal, with the theological tenacity of a Scot ; Parson Stanley did not say that there was a back-way oot o' the bottomless pit. It is a nice metapheesical point that : the groond he takes his stand on is that there is na Hell,!' the vulgar acceptation of the term, and that the Dell is not, as is usually supposed, a black man, with horns, hoofs, and tail, stirring up fire with a big fork. He maintains, on a good show of reason, though I don't go so far as to say I agree with him, that the infernal regions and the devil to boot are both located, Master Ruggles, i' your own bosom and your own black heart.' Here the united gaze and the general interest of the audience became naturally concentrated on the parish clerk, and he felt that it was incumbent upon him to rise to the occasion, and urgently necessary for him to reply. 'Take care, Mr. McDougal,' he said, with a solemn warning of the uplifted finger, that while you judge others, you are yourself free from reproach ; take care that while you preach to others, you are not yourself a castaway, and perhaps doomed to everlasting perdition.'—' Wed,' responded the Scotchman, quite unruffled by the retort, 'all I can say, my very good friend is, that it is but a poor prospect for many ither very well- to-do folk, if I'm to be damned! Ye ken,' and he turned on his heel, 4 we have an old saying in my countree, and you'll find it apply pretty generally all round, "Seldom comes better."'"

To fight with the Devil is the technical calling of a parson ; as one of John Orlebar's parishioners expressed it, "Only for the de'il the parson would be idle, and only for the parson the dell would have a walk-over ;" but the manner in which the new parson waged his conflict confused the minds of his listeners. They did not approve of the new doctrine. Like the Scriptural wine, they said " the old was better," as it certainly was stronger :—

" 'You make a bugbear of this personal devil, Mrs. Stubbins,' said John.—' Ha! that she do, and a precious big bear, tool Mrs. McDougal's four bears is nothing to it,' put in her husband. Mrs. Stubbine did not notice this remark, but went on to explain. 'Ah! if you only heard Mr. Wake preach I I really and truly do believe that if the Lord had permitted him the opportunity, he would have saved Satan,—I really do.' Orlebar's blood began to creep or boil. Billy had his ears cocked ! 'Eh, mother !' he said, wouldn't it be jolly if he w or converted?' He rubbed his hands together gleefully at the bare idea, and grinned. 'We'd have no more devil; that would be prime!' Here he caught Orlebar's eye 'I meant jolly prime for him, of coarse, poor fellow !' After which he slunk quietly away. Inexpressibly soothing, indeed, would it have been to the youthful Stubbins to know and feel that the devil had been saved ! To the majority of these simple folk,' John said to himself, as he walked thoughtfully away, 'hell is more intelligible than heaven ; and they look upon their clergyman, for the time being, as a kind.of spiritual fire-esoape."

Of course, "Ignotus" carries his readers into Ireland, and though the taste he gives them of Irish humour is but small, compared to the stories in Culmshire Folk, yet it is genuine, and smacks of the soil as true Irish whiskey does of its native peat. Jack Horgan, and his squalid cabin, round which are the clean and well-cared- for stables of his master, with his mingled flattery and independ- ence, slothfulness and energy, is the typical Irishman of, we would fain hope, a bygone day ; but the author paints him con amore, as the living representative of a nation towards which he has an evident partiality, if even he is not (as we suspect he is) one of them himself. Certainly his humour is of the Irish type, and reminds us continually of that amusing satire on the passing follies and permanent weaknesses of humanity, Mr. Savage's Falcon Family, but with this difference, that there is in John Orlebar a much deeper insight into the springs of action of human nature, and into the troublous and perplexing problems of modern life.

As the amusement of some otherwise tedious hours of railway travel, no book could be more appropriate ; but those who read it first for pure amusement will be apt to recur to it again for the enjoyment, in more thoughtful moments, of its mingled wisdom and wit.