BOOKS.
THE WILD HUNTRESS..
A NECESSARY consequence of the extraordinary development which, within the last half-century, has taken place in that department of literature which is appropriated to fiction, is that the task of the critic to whom works of this class are submitted for judgment has become wider and more complicated in precisely the same proportion It is no longer sufficient to pronounce a volume simply to be either good or bad. A verdict of so broad and unqualified a nature would be far from furnishing the novel-reading public with the amount of information necessary to determine its choice of what to read and what to avoid. A novel may be an excellent one of its kind ; but it will certainly fail to be acceptable to a reader who has no liking for the particular class to which it belongs. The species Novel includes so many distinct varieties, that a complete and exhaustive classifica- tion of them all would be a work requiring considerable patience and research, combined with a more than commonly acute faculty of dis- crimination. For our present purposes, however, it will be sufficient broadly to divide works of fiction into two great classes, to which, for the sake of brevity, we may give the respective titles of Novels of Character and Novels of Action. The first class comprises, strictly speaking, all those novels which have the delineation of character as their main object ; the incidents of the story being quite a secondary consideration, and, in fact, only possessing any importance so far as they tend to the development of the characters of the persons of the tale. Those of the second class, on the other hand, do not aim at all at the delineation of individual character, but rely, for their power of gaining the attention of the reader, solely upon the interesting nature of the events which they relate. It is to this latter class that Capt. Mayne Reid's novels exclusively belong. It would, we think, be an- possible to name any novelist with whom the delineation of cha- racter is so entirely a secondary consideration. It is not that he at- tempts it, and fails: he simply does not attempt it at all. In his hands, not only women, but men also, are reduced to that dead level of uniformity which Pope asserts to be characteristic of the weaker sex, and are represented. as "having no character at all." The per- sons of each successive story are constructed upon exactly the same type ; and, in fact, serve only as pegs, on which to hang a certain quantity of more or less interestmg adventures. There is always a hero of remarkable bravery and activity, whose aptitude for faLing into the most appalling dangers is only equalled by his capacity for getting out of them; a heroine of surpassing loveliness and, generally, of imperfect civilization; an latter ruffian, without a single redeeming point; and two or three wild figures, commonly hunters, who speak an extraordinary dialect, and are possessed of miraculous skill in the use of the rifle. Not unfrequently Captain Reid does not even take the trouble of inventing new names for his stereotyped figures, but simply reproduces the same actors, who have already appeared under slightly different circumstances. But the mere statement that in Captain Reid's novels no attempt whatever is made at the delineation of character does not define their position with sufficient exactness. Novels of action may rely for their success either upon the skill with . which the several incidents of the story are made to bear upon, and ultimately to bring about, the final catastrophe—in other words, upon the elaborate construction of their plot ; or they may neglect the plot as completely as they do the delineation of character, and aim solely at stringing together a certain number of incidents which have no bond of mutual connexion beyond the fact of their happening to the same set of people, and whose only claim to attention consists in their being individually of an interesting and exciting nature. Of the former of these subdivisions Mr. Wilkie Collins't Woman in White is, perhaps, the most elaborate and best-developed specimen; and, of the latterr, Captain Mayne Reid's novels furnish as good an example as could' possibly be chosen. There is, we think, no doubt that, re- garded merely as works of art, stories of this class must be ranked lower than novels of character, or even than those which rely solely upon an elaborately constructed plot. It is, nevertheless, not less certain that they both enjoy and deserve a very wide-spread popula- rity indeed. Since the ordinary course of civilized life does not generally furnish adventures of a sufficiently exciting nature, it becomes almost a necessity for novelists of this class to devote them- selves to the description of a savage, or at best of a half-civilized, state of existence, of which the backwoods of America, and the wilds of Texas, furnish at once the most striking and the most accessible examples. This is the field which has been trodden with such suc- cess by the great American novelist, Fenimore Cooper, to whom Captain Mayne Reid may, we think, fairly be regarded as the legiti- mate successor. Not that we think that Captain Reid either is now, or ever will be, so good a novelist as Cooper : proximus est, indeed, longo sed proximus intervallo. The adventures related by Cooper, while they are at least equal in interest to those described by Captain Reid, are decidedly superior in variety ; and his novels display, fur- ther, a perception of character, and a power of construction, of which there is no more sign in Captain Reid's latest production, than there was in the earliest of his works. Still, as we have already said, Cap- tain Reid not only is, but deserves to be, a popular novelist. Whe- ther the adventures which he describes are the actual results of his own experience, or whether they are the fruit of a ready invention, aided by a thorough knowledge of the scenes in which they are laid, there is a dash and vigour about the manner in which they are re- * The 1Vittl !Address. By Captain Mayne Reid. Author of "The Rifle Rangers," "The War-trail," ,fie. 8 vols. London: Bentley.
lated which carries the reader irresistibly along, and renders it very difficult for him to lay down the book before he has read it through. The principal cause of Captain Reid's popularity is, we are inclined to think, to be found in that love of adventure which is, after all, one of the deepest and most characteristic impulses of the English character. This adventurous spirit reaches its fullest development, in most cases, at a comparatively early age ; and it is accordingly with the younger class of readers that Captain Mayne Reid is an es- pecial, though by no means an exclusive, favourite. Another cause which has probably contributed in no small degree to the popularity of his novels, lies in the fact that they are, perhaps, the very easiest reading that can be found within the whole range of English litera- ture. They can be read and appreciated without the smallest men- tal exertion on the part of the reader ; and are, consequently, always acceptable whenever the mind is indisposed for anything more active than mere tranquil amusement. And we should think, judging both from internal evidence, and from the rapidity with winch they suc- ceed each other, that, when the necessary local experience has once been acquired, their production costs their author a scarcely greater effort than is required for their complete absorption on the part of the reader.
The Wild Huntress, Captain Mayne Reid's latest novel, is an ex- cellent sample both of the merits and the defects of its popular author. The hero and narrator of the story is the same Edward Warfield, the Captain of the Rifle Rangers, whose previous history has furnished Captain Reid with the materials for more than one of his former works. This time, however, we find him, not on the battle-fields of Mexico, or the plains of Texas, but in the backwoods of Tennessee, where he has purchased an allotment, and designs to end his days in peace. Doubtless he thought, as any gentleman in his position naturally would, that the troubles which he had already gone through were quite sufficient to ensure him perfect tranquillity for the rest of his life. Unfortunately for him, however, Captain Mayne Reid held a different opinion on this .point, and destined him, before he finally settled down in his home in the wilderness, to go through a fresh series of adventures, not a whit inferior, either in quantity or in quality, to those through which he had previously passed. We will not be so cruel as to spoil the reader's pleasure by giving him any hint as to the nature of these adventures. We will only remark, simply for the purpose of raising his curiosity, that they arc to the full as interesting and exciting as any that Captain Mayne Reid has hitherto related; and that never, in the whole course of his life, has Edward Warfield been placed in a position of more imminent peril than one at least in which he finds birapelf in the course of these volumes. We cannot, however, resist the tempta- tion of intimating that his final deliverance from it was wrought by the aid of an Indian chief, of the significant and somewhat ominous name-of Walker. Now that the ex-captain of the Rifle Rangers is at last comfortably settled, and married to "a girl of roseate hue, -with a ehevelure ot yellow hair hanging to her haunches, in all its lus- trous luxuriance," we do hope, for his sake, that Captain Mayne Reid will have mercy on him at last, and leave him to enjoy his well-earned happiness in peace. In one of the principal incidents of the present story, a defence of an isolated mound against an army of savages in the plain below, Captain Reid has, unless we are much mistaken, repeated himself; for we certainly remember an elaborate description of a precisely similar incident in one of his former novels, whose name we cannot at this moment recal, but which is easily identified by the fact that the troubles of its hero commence with a chase after the wild snow-white horse of the prairies. There is, however, one feature in The Wild Huntress which stamps it with the mark of ori- ginality: it is, as far as we know, the first novel into which the pecu- liar institutions of the sect of the Mormons have been introduced as an essential part of its machinery. The villain of the book is a Mor- mon apostle, who is scouring the country in search of spiritual wives for the chief prophet ; and the greater part of the story consists in the chase and recovery of "the girl of roseate hue," who has been selected by him as worthy of this honour, and carried off accordingly. We have even a brief glimpse of the prophet himself, the great Brigham Young, in the reminiscence of a trick which was played upon him by the Wild Huntress, when a girl, and which is thus re- called by her father. "He tried to spark the gurl, an' made fine speeches to her ; but she couldn't bar the sight o' him, for all that. lia, ha, ha! Don't ye recollex the trick that ar minx played on him ? She unbuckled the girt o' his saddle, jest as he wur a going to mount, and doun he kim—saddle, bags, and all—cawallup to the airth ! ha! ha! Arter he wur gone, I larfed till I wur like to bust." Captain Mayne Reid is no friend to the Mormons ; but his objections to them are rather oddly expressed. Their system, he says, "appeals neither to reason nor romance. The one is insulted by the very shal- lowness of its chicanery, while its rank plebbishness disgusts the ether." We should have thought that the principles and practice ef the disciples of Joe Smith were open to several more serious and substantial objections than that of their not having an aristocratic tendency.
We have already said that The Wild Huntress is a fair sample of the defects, as well as of the excellencies, of its author. Foremost among the former we are inclined to place his inveterate tendency to fine writing—a propensity which is illustrated to some extent in the description of Warfield's lady-love, which we have already cited. A still more flagrant instance occurs towards the close of the third volume, when the hero, wishing to state, merely as a matter of fact, and not at all as a joke, that an old aunt died and left him some money, communicates this simple piece of information in the follow- ing terms :—" The letter announced the demise of an octogenarian
female relative who, for a full decade of years beyond the period allotted to the life of man—or woman either—had obstinately persisted in standing betwixt me and a small reversion." It is but another phase of the same propensity which leads Warfield, when conversing with a wild trapper about the latter's love-affairs, to re- mind him that "the proud Roman conqueror yielded to the seduc- tions of the brown-skinned Egyptian queen ;" and further to remark that, "as the poet says, 'Hell knows no fury like a woman scorned.'" And the most wonderful part of it all is, that the trapper does not express the slightest astonishment at either observation. Another not less objectionable habit of Captain Reid's, the result of which is, we think, even more apparent in this than in any of his former works, is that of interlarding his narrative with French words, when English would serve his purpose at least equally well. Thus, when Warfield and his companions proceed to get rid of the Indian paint which they had assumed for the purpose of gaining an entrance into the Mormon camp, he says, "It was natural we should seek to rescue ourselves from a disguise that the eye of woman could not look upon otherwise than with de'goat." Sometimes Captain Reid goes a step farther, and displays an absolute ignorance 'of the meaning of the terms which he cannot resist the temptation of using—. Thus, when mentioning the fact that two girls amused themselves byogling a good-looking young trapper, he speaks of "their espieglerie of the handsome hunter; and, wishing to allude to a departure by water, he calls it "a congl in a canoe." We should much like to know Captain Mayne Reid's authority for the use of either of these very common French words in the sense which he has assigned to them. We wish heartily that this popular novelist would allow us to persuade him that, as a gene- ral rule, the effect of a story is greatly enhanced by its being told in the simplest possible language, and that this rule is especially up, plieable in the case of those narratives of stirring adventure which he has made so peculiarly his own.
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