THE LOWEST DEPTH IN NOVELS.*

Or all the trash provided nowadays for the amusement of the public, we hope there is not much so irredeemable as that in the book before us. Bad spelling and bad grammar occur so frequently and so conspicuously that the wretched quality of the writing is obvious at first starting, whilst the extravagant language and absurd similes indicate at once its sensational and superficial character. English, French, Italian, and Latin quotations crop up on all sides, regardless of construction, point, or meaning ; and there is, moreover, a general atmosphere of immorality that every one of the characters seems to breathe with satisfaction. We have been won- dering who and what the writer is whose initials appear on the title-page of this work. It is the evident lack of education and ignorance of society at home, together with a showy but spurious knowledge, and an apparent intimacy with wealth and extrava- gance, that surprise us so much, for we are not wont to see the combination of such traits either in an author or an authoress ; but our curiosity is at fault, and perhaps our conjectures too, RO we will leave both, and proceed to deal with what is more tangible, but equally unsatisfactory.

The gist of the story appears to be this : Lord Hamilton, a man "of whose pride of family" and "long line of unblemished ances- tors" we are constantly reminded, marries Ellen Mordaunt, a woman he had met abroad, but of whose previous life he knew nothing. Her cousin Philip then falls in love with Lord Hamil- ton's sister, Augusta, who, in compliance with her brother's com- mands (!), agrees to marry him, in spite of her detestation of him, and notwithstanding her love for Louis, the brother of her bosom friend and neighbour, Ida Fitzroy. On the evening before this wedding, however, disclosures take place which effectually put an end to it. It turns out that Philip has murdered his father's legitimate son in order that he, a bastard, should inherit the title and estates as the rightful son and heir, whilst Ellen Mordaunt, now Lady Hamilton, appears to have been an actress and pre- viously married to Arthur, Louis Fitzroy's elder brother, so she has to retire ignominiously from the scene, and becomes a nun. Philip then, finding the evidence against him overwhelming, shoots himself (all the strength of the company' being present to heighten the effect of this tableau!) and Lady Augusta is left free to marry Louis Fitzroy.

As accessories to this story, there are three midnight murders, a ruined girl trapped in a private lunatic asylum, some wholesale knocking-down in a gaming house in Rome, the elopement of a married woman disguised as a boy, and, in the course of the narrative, we are treated to no less than eleven deaths. Philip, the chief personage in the book, and one who, by some sin- gular fascination of manner, prevails over everybody in turn, is a man of many aliases, and the very incarnation of vice and cruelty, whilst he commits his crimes with a bravado and success that we should not have considered possible in times so recent as "186—."

There certainly is a grim satisfaction in finding on the opening pages of a book like the present the most unmistakable and unpardonable faults, faults that obtrude themselves upon our notice in the most palpable way, and at the same time occur so frequently that the most unobservant reader cannot but remark them ; *hen they are to be found in such profusion that we can gather them by the handful, it is unnecessary to search after rare and isolated specimens.

Having waded through the three volumes, the first thing that strikes us is the absurdity of the title. The only allu-

sion to shooting stars' is this :—" As she spoke, the beautiful star shot wildly across the wide expanse of heaven, and disap- peared for ever in the dark chaos ;" and this incident is later on referred to on one occasion. This is the only star in the book that shoots, unless perhaps Ellen Mordaunt, alias La Stella, the actress, may be considered one when she shoots front her high estate as Lady Hamilton across the expanse of the Bay of Biscay, and disappears in the gloom of a Spanish convent. We can think of no other clue to the misnomer of this book than the above connection of the star of heaven with the star of the stage.

The incessant peppering of foreign words (not quotations), scarcely a page being without one or more of them, is ridiculous, and they certainly fail to strengthen the context by their presence ; their introduction in such an indiscriminate manner soon ceases to be ridiculous, and becomes offensive. As regards their quality, we read, "True enough, three nights afterwards she appeared in her loge at the opera, blazing with the peerless collier !" and as regards their quantity, may be found on nine and a half pages of ...Shooting Marl. By A. D. 5 vols. London : T. C. Newby. 1869. chapter xiii. vol ii., no less than thirty of these foreign phrases or words, and all italicized to distinguish them.

Then the foreign quotations themselves, or rather expressions, seem as inexhaustible as they are fictitious and ill-timed ; they are apparently either taken hap-hazard from one of those phrase- books where the sentences are purposely misspelt for children to correct, or are written by ear, with no knowledge of the language or its construction. This is exemplified in many cases by the quotation being given partly in one language and partly in another, thus :—

" Sancta Vierge." "Cordon blue." "La Mater." "Addle ami !"

And for want of grammatical construction, &c., there are

"Cars Mio."

"Per Baccio !"

"Per Bacchus!"

" Es-tu Brute!"

'II Barbaro di Seville."

As for the spelling, the following words need no comment : " die- comforture," "to practice," " irrelavant," " Cincinatus," "pos- tillion," and the French " fantasie," "des Italians." Then with regard to the grammar, which is on an equality with the spelling, and particularly weak in its past participles, we have :—

" I should have sank." 'He had awoke."

"Until this water is all drank."

"He had sprang."

And in almost every instance (we noticed nine) the nominative " who " is given instead of the accusative" whom."

We must next refer to some of the incidental features brought into the story, and they are as curious as they are novel. The first is, that the people are always whispering to each other, "lie whis- pered a few words in her ear," "a great deal of whispering ensued," "her voice sank to a whisper," and so on, to the number of twenty-five "whisperings," in vol. i. ; then again, the same individuals rush to their rooms, and though unpursued, invariably lock and double-lock their doors ; the third peculiarity is the freedom of perspiration indulged in and its various forms, "he wiped the dewdrops from his brow," "the large beads of sweat that had gathered on his forehead ;" "large beads of perspiration stood on Ellen's brow ;" "cold drops of perspiration stood on the fcreheads of her listeners ;" "the perspiration rolling from his white face."

We may notice here two or three of the foolish incon- sistencies that abound in this work. We read in one place of Lord Hamilton's mother, that " the sight of her children seemed only to increase the violence of her grief. Her sole attendant was her maid ;" and farther on, that "quietly, imperceptibly had she breathed her last in the arms of her daughter, who had tended her with the most untiring and watchful tenderness." Again, Louis Fitzroy after coming to Clifton Castle for his sister at 10, makes an appointment with her and Lady Augusta

for 11—one hour later—and then follows the passage, "How wearily the hours would drag on till he could once more behold her." Then, of Lord Hamilton in love, " Onward, still onward—nearer, yet nearer to the fatal rocks which stared him in the face, came he, all unconscious of his danger." Now, if these rocks stared him in the face, why should he have been unconscious of danger? Next is the remarkable sentence, "it was such a night, so calm, so beautiful, as we could picture to ourselves to have dawned [sic] on Eden." Now, we have hitherto in our limited knowledge only heard of the sun or the morning dawning, and should be glad to see a night dawn. One little bit as a specimen of style, the ideal and deceptive, and we have done with extracts :— "Her good angel veiled his face and wept before the demon pride, which claimed her for his own. On the brink of a deep precipice she stood, looking down with vacant, dreamy eyes on the bottomless abyss beneath. The void in her heart making a solitude around her, Lady Augusta with all the might of her passionate nature brooded over the humiliation she had received, and breathed many a vow of vengeance."

There are here enough scenes of wild horror and excitement on which to found a dozen sensation dramas, -but they are all flimsy and disjointed ; the abruptness with which they succeed each other and the startling nature of their details take away our breath, and finally leave us angry and disgusted at having been induced to read so much claptrap.

We would advise "A. D.," if he or she attempts novel-writing again, to substitute the spelling-book for the phrase-book as his or her friend and guide, and if he must be always citing foreign words and expressions, to obtain a polyglot dictionary and keep it at his side for constant reference.