BOOKS.

THORPE REGIS.* THIS is the first considerable tale of English life, we believe, by the author,—no doubt a lady,—who told us so well those tales of the South of France called Unawares and the Rose Garden. Nothing is lost of her delicate art in the migration to our colder climate and rougher manners. This story of rural life in one of the South-Eastern Counties has all the soft colour and brilliance of her former efforts. She has carried her moral atmosphere iith her, and, like the ether in which light travels, it pervades even the dreariest scenery,—even the cold, drizzly east winds and the melancholy tempests of our Eastern shores. There are writers whose charm is mainly in their fidelity to life, like Miss Austen; and writers 'whose charm is mainly in their force and passion, like Mies Bront ; and writers whose charm is mainly in their style, like Miss Thackeray ; and writers who blend all three, like George Eliot. The author of the Rose Garden comes nearer to Miss Thackeray than to any other of those we have named, but her drawing is more definite ; she does not wrap her figures so completely in the golden cloud of her pity. She looks upon them somewhat more seriously as living figures to whom she recognises her responsibility as the interpreter of their story. Still the predominant charm of her marrative is the sentiment which pervades it, and which wraps the whole in a tender, poetical light, even when the situation is most dreary and the characters brought on the scene are least attrac- tive. The reader never fails to discern the writer's ideal aims pervading the hardest details ; and her feeling is so keen for the unexplained influence of scenery on the heart,—that influence, we mean, of which you find it impossible to judge whether it is the ecene that causes it by touching a special spring in the heart, or the heart which causes it by casting a special glamour over the scene,—that when you look back on the story after you have -closed the book, you see the individual figures framed as ,distinctly in a background of sky and landscape as if they had been made known to you directly less by means of incident and conversation, than by your having caught some momentary glimpse of a tell-tale expression as you passed them in your rides. And yet there is no want at all of realistic humour and truth, none of that unfortunate tendency to sublimate life into its lyrical moods and cravings, which is fatal to an art pre- tending to cover the full breadth and solidity of human self- interest and human passion. Whoever our author may be,—and of

this we have no conjecture,—she is no idealist in painting the facts of life. Her heroes and heroines have no immunity from the smaller blemishes of human nature, and her sense of the poor- ness of the average interests of average men is as keen as need be. Her humour, too, is truthful as well as delicate, and of this we may give a good illustration by quoting the following conversation between one of the most taking of the characters, a grey-haired middle-aged ex-attorney of the name of Mannering, whose life has been devoted to the care of a valetudinarian brother, and the gardener to whom he reluctantly trusts his favourite plants and hot-houses. It is the elder brother, the valetudinarian and scholar, who speaks first

My dear Robert,' he was saying, can there be any use in my -giving an opinion? So far as I understand the matter, you are blaming Stokes for not understanding the different natures of Gemara elliptica and Gesnera elongata. How can I, who until this moment was ignorant of the existence in the world of any Gemara at all, be an equitable arbiter?'—'Wrong, Charles, wrong. That is not the question ; in fact, that has nothing whatever to do with the question,' said Mr. Robert,

• 17torpe Begis. By the Author of The Bose Garden," "Unawares," dr.c. Smith, Elder, and Co.

resuming his hasty march up and down the room. ' Stokes is a fool, and, as he never was anything else, I suppose he can't help himself. I don't complain of that. What I complain of is that he should attempt to be more than a fooL Haven't I told you fifty times,' he continued, stopping suddenly before the delinquent, 'that your business is to mind my orders, and not to think that or think this, as if you were setting up for having a head on your shoulders ? Haven't I told you that, eh ? —answer me, sir.'—' Tain't no fault of mine,' rejoined the gardener, slowly and doggedly. If this here Gehesnear had had a quiet time and no worriting of charcoal and korkynit and such Homy nonsense, you wouldn't ha' seen a morsel of dry rot in the bulb. That's what I says, and what Mr. Anthony says, too.'—' Confound your impudence, and Mr. Anthony's with ft. So you have been taking him into consulta- tion? No wonder my Gesnera has come to a bad end between your two wise heads. Charles, do you hear.'—' Mr. Anthony has mastered horti- culture, has he ?' said Mr. Mannering, turning his back upon the corn- batants, whose wrath was rapidly subsiding. 'If the boy goes on in this fashion there must be a new science created for his benefit ere long.

Well, Robert, science has always had its mai tyia, and you should submit with a good grace to your Gesnera being among them. When

did Mr. Anthony come back Tuesday night, sir. He corned up here yesterday, but you was to Tfnder'am.'—‘ I forbid his going within ten yards of the stove plants,' cried Mr. Robert, hastily. 'If I find him trying experiments in my hot-houses, you shall be packed off, Stokes, as surely as I have put up with your inconceivable ignorance for seven year's. I've not forgotten what Anthony Miles's experiments are like. Didn't he nearly blow up Underham with the chemicals he got hold of when that idiot Salter's back was turned? Didn't he bribe the doctor's assistant, and half poison poor old Miss Philippa with learning how to mix medicines, forsooth? Didn't he upset his mother, and frighten her out of the few wits she possesses, by trying a new fashion of harnessing? —and now, as if all this were not enough, my poor plants are to be the victims. I forbid his coming within the great gate—I forbid your speaking to him while he is possessed with this mania—I forbid his looking at my Farleyense7—'—'He've a seen that, sir,' said Stokes, with his stolid features relaxing into a grin.—' Oh, he has seen that, has he ?' said Mr. Robert, struggling between indignation and gratified pride. 'Do you hear that, Charles Actually, before I've had time to give my orders. And, pray, what had Mr. Anthony to say of my Farleyense ?'—' He said,' replied the gardener, doling out the sentences to his impatient master with irritating slowness, 'as how he had corned through Lunnon, and been to one o' they big flower shows they talk so much about. And he said there were a Farlyensy there—'—' Well, well As belonged to a dook—'—' Yes—well, what did he say ? Can't you speak ?'—' As warn't fit to hold a candle to ewers,' burst out Stokes triumphantly, slapping his leg with an emphasis which made Mr. Mannering, who had returned to his seat at the writing-table, start and look round in mild expostulation. His brother was rubbing his hands, and beaming in every feature of his round face.—' To be sure, to be sure,' he said in a tone of supreme satisfaction. 'Just what one would have expected. But I am glad Anthony happened to be up there just at this time and I will say for the lad that he makes better use of his eyes than three parts of the young fellows one meets with. So it was an inferior sort of article, was it ?—with fronds half the size, I'll lay a wager. You hear, Charles, don't yon? Well, Stokes, you have been exceedingly careful to treat that Farleyense in the manner I showed you—I knew it would answer—here man, here's half a sovereign

for you, and mind the earth doesn't get too Thank ye, sir, thank ye,' said Stokes, prudently abstaining from the contradiction in which at another time he might have indulged.—' And, Stokes—'—' Yes, Mr. Robert.'—' If Mr. Anthony comes up again, just let me know. I should wish him to see one or two of the other things in the house, but I prefer showing them to him myself.'"

But what is the most promising characteristic of the book is the individuality of every sketch in it, however slight. Little as we see of many of the characters,—of Mr. and Mrs. Bennett, for instance, or Miss Lovell, or Faith Stokes, or her father, or Mrs. Miles,—we see in each of them a distinct person whom we feel that we could get to know as thoroughly as any real human being, if we were to see more of them. How distinct, for instance, are both the Methodist preacher, David Stephens,—a man half of genius, half of fanaticism,—and the formalist peasant,—there are none so formalist as many of our English peasants,—whom we have before seen as Mr. Mannering's gardener, in the following conversation. We should explain that Stephens is somewhat deformed, and that he is engaged, against the will of her parents, to Faith, the daughter of Stokes :—

" As he passed along the wall inclosing Mr. Mannering's garden a door opened, and Stokes came out, locking the door after him. David had stopped, and his peculiar figure probably marked him sufficiently, even in the waning light, for the gardener said in a slow and rather

injured voice, That's you, is it Yes, it's me.'—'And yon'm going

to see Faith? Yes, I am,' said Stephens, and the two men walked on side by side in silence.—At Stokes began again heavily, as if he had been reflecting on the answer—' Twould be a dale better if it warn% you. That's arl I've got to say, and I've said it. A dale better.'—There was another silence before David spoke, with a fire of purpose contrasting strangely with the other man-4I don't pretend that I don't know what your words mean, and I don't say they haven't got something on their side. I suffered myself to be misguided by my own stubborn heart when I spoke of love to Faith. I should have known that this is no time for marrying and giving in marriage, with souls crying out of the darkness. It was a snare of the enemy to withhold me, and I was weak and feeble, instead of plucking out the eye, and cutting off though it were the right hand. I thought much of my own love, and that maybe we were called to work together in the vineyard, never rightly taking home to myself what was the sacrifice the Lord had called on me to make —' David stopped suddenly with a tremor in his strong voice. Stokes was always slow of speech, and for a few moments there was no sound but that of the heavy steps trampling through mud and dead leaves.—' I doan't know nowt of what ye're talking up,' said the elder man at last, doggedly. 'It's my Faith as I've got to think of. Nowt else.'—' You've got your soul, and the souls of others, if you'd only see it,' said the other, but Stokes shook his head.—' Noe, I ain't,' he said. "That's the parson's business. I baint no parson, nor yet no preacher, nor I doan't think much o' prachers as comes and takes t' bread Out o' passon's mouth. I ain't nowt to do wi' souls. I goes to choorch, and all be buried up thyur comforable, and us doan't want no prachere to Thorpe= That's the teaching of the enemy,' said Stephens vehe- mently. 'Don't you ever think of the sin and wickedness about you? What of Tom Andrews, and Nathaniel Wills' and that poor girl at Peters' farm? Don't you believe that if their hearts had been stirred by a faithful messenger they might have been saved from their sins? Noa, I doan't,' said Stokes, with a persistent force of opposition. 'That thyur Tom Anders has been a bad un ever since he wor a little chap, and steeled tummerts out o' my basket before my very eyes. I told his feyther then as he'd be hanged before a'd done with nn, and so a wull. And Nat Wills is another poor lot. Leave 'em aloan, and us'll soon see th' last of 'em. That's watt I says.'—'Ay, what you all say, and the most any of you can do,' David said bitterly. 'Parson and people all alike. He sits in his armchair and expects those poor sinners to come up to him, and preaches fine sermons in church, when there's not one of those as wants the sermons most there to hear him. I walked twenty mile yesterday, and fetched Nat Wills home with me, and I've got him at my lodgings now ; but if I hadn't gone after him, do you think he'd have come to me ?—'Then you was a fule,' said Stokes, promptly. 'He'll never do you no good. And now you'll be convertin' him, and setting un up for a saent. I closet hold by they thyur doings."

But after all, the interest and beauty of the book turn upon the delicacy of the painting of the principal figures,—Anthony Miles, the versatile, proud, sanguine, ambitions, restless, sunshine- loving young man, who is so easily embittered by the distrust of his friends, and so much more dependent on their approbation than he is aware of, and the squire's daughter, Winifred Chester, who has in her a shade of haughtiness and far too much reticence for one who, like Anthony, delights in open appreciation, but still with more of the qualities that deserve love than one could find by combining those of the heroines of i dozen ordinary novels. Indeed nothing puzzles us more than to know why any one falls in love with most heroines. Why any one should care for Adelaide Palliser, for instance, in Phineas Redux, or even for Dolly, in Old Kensington,—we are assured that Sheila in the Princess of Thule is a great exception, and are bound to believe it, as it has been so stated in these faithful columns,—we cannot imagine. But we defy any man not to feel a tenderness for Winifred Chester, and not to feel a certain jealousy of Anthony Miles, and a strong impression that he is not quite worthy of her, though, as reader of course, he is bound to wish for her happiness. It would be unfair to the author to extract any of the lovely little pictures in which Winifred Chester is sketched with so much beauty, but we feel sure that no one will be disappointed with her, though they may pro- bably think Anthony happier than he deserves. We cannot con- clude, however, our notice of Thorpe Regis without introducing our readers to one of the best sketched characters in it, Sniff the terrier. Observe the presence of mind with which Sniff covers his own blunder of mistaking a friend for a stranger:—

"The knock outside was answered by Sniff within by a series of short sharp barks, which only increased in energy until the door being opened by Faith disclosed a friend. A dog of weaker character would at once have acknowledged his mistake by a sudden change of attitude, and a hospitable greeting of the new comer. Sniff knew better. With infinite presence of mind, and without a moment's hesitation, he rushed past Mr. Mannering as if he had nothing in the world to do with the matter, and, planting himself in the middle of the drive, barked long and loudly at an imaginary enemy, after which he subsided into an amiable calm, returned leisurely to the house, went upstairs, scratched open the drawing-room door, and advanced to Mr. Mannering with the most friendly of brown eyes."

And here is an illustration of the dog's sense of humour

"Sniff, it must be said, had a particular attraction in Underham. He was a dog with a peculiarly strong sense of humour, and in the little town it unfortunately happened that there lived another dog, the property of an old lady, and the victim of innumerable washings. Mop was a white Spitz, of a depressed and meek turn of mind, probably the result of the many torments to which his white coat condemned him; and, with a profession of gambolling friendship which it would have been impossible for Mop, even if he had possessed the spirit, to resent, it was Sniff's great delight to choose a muddy spot of road, rush at and tumble him into it. It added much to his enjoyment when, as was every now and then the case, he could see his friend, with dropping tail, caught by the cook and carried ignominiously to the tub ; and his appre- ciation of this little comedy of his own invention was so great, that it was almost impossible to avoid taking him to Underham. Some mute signs there were which instinct enabled him to detect, and, with that walk in view, no coaxing could induce him to venture where a door might be shut upon him; and more than once Anthony, congratulating himself upon having given him the slip, had found the little Skye waiting for him at some corner of the lane, wagging his tail with the most irre- sistibly deprecating expression of brown eyes."

From the dog, our readers may infer what is the drawing of the human beings. The latter are easier to understand and to paint, and are painted proportionally well.