BAILLIE COCHRANE'S ERNEST VANE. * THERE is no great novelty of
matter in Ernest Vane—in the fictimist sense there is none ; neither is mach artistic skill displayed in work- ing up common materials. A reader well acquainted with novel litera- ture will be able to detect, not plagiarism, but the fundamental ideas of action and life which form the elements of Mr. Cochrane's tale. The seduction of Marie, "the daughter of a Tyrolese gentleman," by Lut- trell, is as old as Mackenzie at least: her laborious efforts to maintain herself after she is abandoned by her seducer, and the affection with which she tends him, when, blasted in character and ruined in fortune, the broken-down roue is mortally wounded in a drunken brawl, resemble • Ernest Vane. By Alexander Nate Cochrane, M.P. In two volumes. Published by Colburn. a similar conception in Mrs. Norton's Woman's Reward. A blase officer of fashion winning the heart, attempting the seduction, and compromising the character of an inexperienced country young lady, to gratify his vanity rather than his passion, has often been presented, and with more both of likelihood and taste than in Luttrell's affair with Algitha Vane. The scheme of a father, noble but needy, to marry his profligate and spendthrift son (still Luttrell) to the heiress daughter of a wealthy merchant, is as ancient as the old regime ; and is now more vulgarized than it was, because the great changes in society have modified the feelings which induced such marriages. The remark of stale- ness also applies to the duel between Luttrell and Ernest Vane ; which brings about the denouement of the novel, by killing Ernest, banish- ing Luttrell from society, and breaking the heart of Ida Leslie, the daughter of the millionaire and betrothed to Ernest Vane. In the resemblances there is nothing like plagiarism, no servile imitation of particular parts or a whole. It is probable that the works we have men- tioned were not directly present to Mr. Cochrane's mind; he may possibly not even have read them. But, whether the obvious is taken without thought, or the common repeated without conscious remembrance, the result is the same. It indicates a poverty of invention, or rather, per- haps, a want of that knowledge of the events and current of actual life on which invention must work. Neither is there any display of that literary skill in the conduct and management of the story, which, by colouring old matter with contemporary manners, may make the old as effective and look as good as new. A novelty of tone is given to the narrative parts of Ernest Vane, and some little novelty of style and even matter, by the conventional advan- tages of the author. He writes like a man of education and train- ing, who is familiar with good society ; so that his episodical sketches of men and manners have more life and reality about them than the com- mon run of fiction. Ile has looked at the world around him, with a full sense of its ills and miseries, and with a wish to see them re- medied. His reflections, as well as the occasional didactic discourses, exhibit a good feeling, that induces regard for the author, and respect for his elegance and even eloquence as a writer. Both the sketches and the reflections, however, are extraneous ; they stop the narrative, without compensating the reader by any very great originality or depth. Mr. Cochrane exhibits more of feeling than philosophy; and in the matter of social remedies displays more of the will than the way. Greater breadth and appropriateness are desiderated in the incidental characters and pie. tures of society : they seem introduced because the author knows the originals, rather than for any interest the public are likely to take in them. The style, too, would be improved by more of closeness and terseness.
It is possible that Ernest Vane was written with a view to exhibit some leading antagonistic principles of English society; but if so, they are not very successfully developed; the notion must be guessed at rather than traced. Mr. Leslie the millionaire may have been intended to re- present the active and energetic spirit of the age, which by means of commerce and manufactures now pushes on society in material things, as expeditions of conquest and settlement did in the dark and middle ages, or war subsequently. Opposed to him might stand the old Whig Lord Elversfoot, representative of the decaying politics of "the great families" and his own estate. His son Luttrell might typify the profligate man of fashion, (though, as drawn in the book, he is too melo- dramatic for a type); while Ernest Vane might not unfitly represent the fanciful dreamers about human improvement, who do nothing to advance it. But, if these characters were true types, the result does not lead to any effective conclusion. Mr. Leslie, the 710VUS homo, is beaten in his efforts to found a house; for he loses both the Earl's son and Ernest. Lord Elversfoot has to retire to the Continent on his pension ; his son Luttrell sinks into one of those broken-down roues which Yates used to represent (rather coarsely) on the Adelphi stage. Ernest Vane is shot to make a denouement ; needlessly as regards the rules of fiction and the elements of the story, but perhaps indicative of the author's idea of the fate which should follow dreaming Young Englanders, who, talking much, accomplish nothing in word or deed.
The remarks of the author on a sort of after-dinner oration made by Lord Elversfoot the Cabinet Minister, when he is flattering Mr. Leslie's vanity by inducing him to stand for a Metropolitan borough, may be taken as a sample of the general remarks and the politics of Mr. Cochrane.
"Lord Elversfoot spoke with vehemence, for it was a theme on which he felt deeply, and upon which he delighted to dwell: now, at least, he believed all that he said—the old Whig is never tired of talking about the people, and imagining himself liberal. He had long been a member of that party, who, possessing the strongest aristocratic tendencies, march in cloth of gold with the People' in- scribed on their banners: the thorough aristocratic Whig; the party of here- ditary principles of freedom, both in trade and institutions; the class that would do everything for the people and nothing by the people—at once haughty and condescending, universal and exclusive—who would desire to see every poor man's table well supplied, but take equal care that he should never trespass above the salt; who bow very low, extend tore-fingers to the middle class, shake hands with the people, but always with their gloves on ; who will tell you that the mid- dle class, the bourgeoisie, is essential to the wellbeing of the country, but draw themselves up very high if the middle class ever assert the smallest position in their presence ; a party composed in general of men of high illustration, and of unblemished race, who view their .society with the same reverence as the .Jews were wont to regard the inner circle of the Temple; who have an undeviating attachment to the tales of family interests and family claims, and the traditions of their history as written by their own party ; with whom it is a faith to wor- ship the memory of the traitors William Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney, and to repudiate Dalrymple's Memoirs ; who practise in religion an universal tolera- tion; who in rare instances, as Lord Elversfoot said, are willing to admit a se1e9t few of the middle class into their society, but would at the same time keep baog the crowd which is treading on their heels; who speak of commerce and mann- factures with all reverence, and honour those who have attained preeminence in life through their own industry, but who would be greatly astonished if any one of those persons approached them with familiarity, and did not apply to their man- ners such terms as 'condescending' and 'affable: "Such was Lord Elversfoot, and by no means a bad specimen of the clips; a man with whom all persons were proud to be acquainted and to salute as friend— whose whole public career had been- chareeterized by undeviating rectitude; and yet be was so entirely & man of a certain fashion of the world, that he had adopted, and permitted his son to adopt, all its habits and opinions as his code of morality. Oneself a man of ton at one-and-twenty, White's and Brookes's were to him what the fountain of Egeria was to Nuina, the sources whence he imbibed all his worldly wisdom- a man of action, with his time constantly employed, he had rarely himself been led away into extreme dissipation; but he made the fatal error, the error so common to all men, of attributing to their children precisely the same qualities, the same tendencies, which they themselves possess."
The following sketch of the decline and fall of Luttrell will exhibit the author more directly as a novelist.
a It was a cold bitter November night, about three years after these events had taken place; the sleet had been drifting down the streets, leaving the pavement slippery and dangerous. In a low quarter of London, in the neighbourhood of Oxford Street, a man might be seen reeling his way, it might be homeward, or perhaps rather in search of a home. He was thin, emaciated by illness and low dissipation: there were however, the evidences of refinement in his features; his hands, white and delicate, proved that he had once lived in a very different society to that which inhabited this district. It was Luttrell, or, as he now called him- self, Mr. Spence. After the fatal duel we have described, he was compelled to conceal himself for a long time. There was something so atrocious in the whole ease, that even his old friends could not take his part. Lord Elversfout would not hear his name mentioned. As for Lady Sandbeek, she died a few months afterwards, leaving everythine to a distant relative. The Government going out of office in 1834, drove Lora Elverefoot from all his places: luckily he had a small pension, with which he retired to the Continent, not taking the least trouble about his son whether he was alive or dead. For some time Luttrell retained his title; it enabled him to live upon a very third-rate society: hat unfortunately he could not even now control his disposition to intrigue' and another scandalous event drove him into the filthiest purlieus of London, almost penniless, and wholly de- graded.
"The life he now led was such as happily few people could picture to them- selves; and yet it is a common life, and Luttrell's is not a singular instance of men of fashion falling into it. It is quite surprising how many men who have at one time or another played a part in London society die without a roof to shelter them, or perida in some half-built hum,e on the outskirts of the great city. Lut- trell retired amongst the low coarse creatures, the cold, callous, brutal ruffians, with whom in former days in moments of his grossest dissipation he used to asso- ciate.
"These people, strange to say, had a kind of deference for him because he was a lord: they always spoke of him as the Lord,' although, as we have stated, he had taken the name of Spence. In one of the dens with which the city abounds, he would play with the most abandoned and the commonest profligates at half- penny commerce; there he would vie with the lowest and most brutal in language that devils would have shrunk from hearing. He was looked up to by this choice circle: for he had a keen intellect, and, equal to them in the slang of this foul dis- trict, he had that power of seiz:ng an idea quickly in which they were wanting.
"Oa this night he had jest left a ein-palace. He had drunk on this occasion to drown care; for during the day Nemesis had been present to him, and the iron had entered into his soul. He had done his best to forget himself; and so intoxi- cated was he, that he had to take hold of some railings to support himself on the slippery pavement. At that moment a man pushed rudely by him: to collar him and endeavour to throw him on the pavement was Luttrell's impulse. "Hands off, my man, or 1'11 knock you to pieces!' cried the other, who was much smaller than Luttrell: "You will, will you—come on then!' said Luttrell: he was in a most quarrel- some humour.
"A crowd had immediately collected. Why, it's our Lord cried one of the mob. Give him fair play !' said another. 'Make a ring!" Pitch into him!' 'lima, there, he's down!' 'Well done, little man !' They fought like lunatics. For a short time Luttrell had the best of it, but he was no match in the long run for his burly and sober antagonist. Suddenly Luttrell was tripped up; his head came with fearful violence against the iron railings, and the blood flowed in a stream on the pavement.
"'There! I think as how I have served him out; and the sooner lam off the better,' cried his opponent. And he lost no time in putting his theory into prac- tice. 'Take him up gently,' said one of the men. Where is he to be carried to? Where does he live?' were the questions asked. No one in that circle could answer them; for his friends had all rushed away when they saw how serious the matter had become. A policeman approached. 'Bring a stretcher,' he said; we will carry him to the hospital.'
"At that moment a woman drew near, bent down on the icy pavement, and looked into Luttrell's face, parted the hair from his forehead, and with a faint scream sunk on the ground. No, no!' she exclaimed, not to the hospital. I know him well; take him to my room—it is close by—do, for God's sake !' "
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