TAKE CARE WHOM YOU TRUST.*

Wit are not particularly given to championing ecclesiastical digni- taries, nor are we especially anxious to look after their welfare,— we go so far with our author as to believe that, on the whole, they are well able to perform this duty for themselves,—but we like some show of justice even for Canons and Deans, and would not willingly withhold it from the very Bishops themselves. There is a tone of personal soreness about Mr. Compton Reade's story which makes us wonder what the Dean and Chapter of Blankton have done to him. His book seems a sort of young half-brother to that virulent anti-ecclesiastical one called Toni Pippin's Wedding, which we lately noticed ; less marked both in its power awl its malevo- lence, but of the same family. So strong is the resemblance, that we are inclined to believe that Mr. Compton Reade is a disciple of the author of that work, and we can only say that we don't at all admire his taste. In both books there is the same tendency to grumble at everything, to hit out at everybody, to abuse and especially to maltreat dignitaries of the Church and the " superior clergy," as they are called ; and in both there is a general coarseness of language, with a fondness for slang and a tendency to affecta- tion, and a certain grossness in some of the scenes. But we must, after one further remark, dismiss the author of Tom Pippin's Wedding, and confine ourselves to Mr. Compton Heade ; only recommending the latter, if he is not a student of the former, to become so for a time,—as we send an angry- looking child to the glass, that he may see the reflection of himself, and take warning by its hideousness. That further re- mark is, that in both books there is a background of manliness— an admiration for what is generous and noble and high-principlea. Then why not try to practise these high qualities by looking for the brighter side in the characters of their fellow-creatures, and by endeavouring to forget the injuries—exaggerated almost certainly, probably entirely fancied—which they may have received at the hands of society in general and of deans and chapters in particular? Men do not usually meet with ill-treatment without having been, in some measure at least, the provokers of it.

There is no lack of descriptive power, but our author's study has unhappily been of a very common and low sort of people, and his tendency is to exaggerate their sufficiently marked defects. 'Theodore Lovett is the only character not distinctly and in- grainedly vulgar, if we except a lawyer and a farmer who play very subsidiary parts, the latter being merely a " stage " provi- dence, who, with very exceptional insight and charity, perceives Mr. Lovett's true goodness through his weakness, and, forgiving very serious injuries in consequence, comes to the rescue of himself and his wife in their extremity. The monster of the piece is a beneficed clergyman, who, with an original talent for wickedness, had been slighted in his youth by Lovett's wife and superseded by himself, and is therefore the mortal enemy of both. Added to his talent for treachery and malevolence of every kind is a wonderful knowledge

Tate Care Whom You TOM. By Compton Beade. London : Smith, Elder, and Co.

of ecclesiastical law—quite beyond our power to rival—by which he manages to swindle poor Lovett out of his appointments and benefices one after another and secure them for himself—without incurring the dangers of simony—at the same time involving Lovett in such terrible money obligations to himself and the Jews, that at the right moment he is able to overwhelm him completely, and steep the unhappy couple in the direst poverty. In this condi- tion—both dying of typhus in a London garret—the police and our jolly farmer—who according to common-sense ought to be ruined, but who having with his fathers before him lived at *Mtulflat for generations, hasof course perfected a talent for trade which has made his fortune in London—discover them, and the poor minor-canon and his wife, having been first restored to health, find that a grateful chorister has left them a fortune. Then there is the angel of the piece, a certain baronet's lady, called Rosa Montresor, who is, in Mr. Compton Reade's opinion, perfection ; but as she marries an old officer for his money, and flirts with an organist and falls desperately in love with a singer during her husband's life, spends her time in seeking pleasure, and drawls, "So charmed to see you I " we cannot agree to our author's estimate, and can only rank her as a very little above the other creatures of his imagination in vulgarity. The heroine is no better,—a silly school-girl who runs away from school, getting a curate with whom she had flirted to escort her,— then quarrels with her aunt about her lover, snarling and shriek- ing and pouting. We do not deny that the selfish, ill-bred aunt deserved the snarls and pouts, but we cannot admire the snarler and pouter. True, she becomes a faithful wife, but no heroine ; nothing to offer to a reader, without a much greater power than our author can claim, of clever and amusing character-painting. Such ability in this direction as he possesses is monopolised entirely by his bad people ; here, for instance, is a scene between Mr. Blackley, the evil genius we have mentioned, and his wife. The former is going to "read himself in "to his new vicarage, still held by his poor victim, Lovett. The extract is a fair specimen of the sort of vulgar force which characterises the whole book, and of such descriptive power as it possesses Sunday morning dawned brightly, and as the olook struck ten the Rev. Horace Blackley stood, sermon-case in hand, on the doorstep of the ruri-deoanal mansion, awaiting impatiently the arrival of the carriage, and his wife. Of course the carriage, a derelict), came before the lady, and equally of course the husband was disposed to be irascible ; although, in order to be up to time, the poor woman had been sadly flustered by convulsive struggles both with her maid, and certain pins, which art had planted at various depths in her own sweet brown fioah. 'I can't think what the deuce made you want to come,' growled Horace Blackley, as soon as they were seated, and well along the road. You'll have to lunch with those cursed Lovetts, and you know I hate accepting favours:— ' Considering you were their guest for days—' began Mrs. Blackley.- 'Exactly. We were on different terms then. Now Lovett thinks him- self injured, and is disposed to be awkward. You know that.'—'I know,' retorted his wife, angrily, that you wanted to go alone, in order to get up a flirtation with that yellow-haired creature. Ph! you can't deceive me.'—' I hate the sight of both of them,' cried he ; adding between his teeth, especially of her false face.'—' I don't believe a syllable you say,' she replied. Whereupon the new vicar indulged in an expletive which, as it had better not have been spoken, shall not be written; the imme- diate result of which was the drawing of a woman's most lethal weapon,

— tears. 'It's a cruel shame for a man to speak such words to his wife, — on Sunday, too,' she whimpered.—' Don't make a fool of yourself, Louey,' he rejoined, feeling no small alarm lost the coachman should guess what was occurring inside.—But this semblance of kindness only made her worse, and the tears magnified into sobs, necessitating much marital affection ere ever she could be lulled to rest. ' I wish you wouldn't be so touchy,' remarked Mr. Blackley, by way of vindicating himself.—' It's all that b-beastly A.dine,' ejaculated Mrs. Blackley, breaking out afresh, and in naturalesque diction.—' There, there, I've told you once for all I hate and detest her.'—' It's only pique,' she replied ; you can't deny it's pique.'—' Never mind causes,' said he, 'you shall have effects before long to prove my words. But stay ; here is Mudflat. I told the man to drive straight to the church. Just a quarter to eleven. Good. The service is long, and I want to get it over, so I'll stop the bells, and make a start at once.' Mrs. Blackley pulled down her veil, and the pair entered Mudflat church in an ex- tremely devotional frame Of mind."

We have said that the book is not free from coarseness, and we are bound to make good the charge. Let us take, therefore, a scene in which the organist with whom Lady Rosa Montresor has been flirting is plotting the singer's exclusion from his mistress's favour with the said mistress's companion. Mr. Barwyn fears that if Mr. Ralph is not admitted he will write instead :—

;I And I shall read and retain—all, mind you, under the doctor's orders, and for dear Rosa's.good.' And she looked so deliciously serio- comic, that Berwyn, in an ecstasy of enjoyment, began to waltz with her round the table, treading on her corns, till he caused her exquisite suffering. 'You're a very good girl,' he said, 'and with your aid we will eliminate Mr. Ralph from the visiting-list of Rosa Lady 3dontresor.' You're not going—yet,' she faltered, crestfallen at seeing him take up his hat.—`Business, deary, calls, clamours. I've a dowager of fifty waiting impatiently to be ogled, and a miss of sixteen, her lovely daughter, to be saluted chastely over the piano.'—'You naughty man,' muttered Poodle, half vexed. Poor soul ! her love for this creature was such fatal earnest. He shrugged his shoulders complacently, When are you to have your holiday, sweet ? ' he asked, with much tendresse.— (When she is well.'—'And then you are to go to your respectable parents in the North, eh ? How I wish that I could be your eompagnon de voyage. We might be detained somewhere en route, you know ; such thingshave happened before now, and may happen again.' She squeezed his hand assentingly. Yet why did she shudder as he returned her squeeze. Idiot! She had already put one foot over the brink of an awful preci- pice. That, lover of hers, so accomplished in his acting, meant to effect her total ruin ; and only pour s'anzuser,—vogue la genre!"

No one is spared by this writer of unhappy experience. Beautiful young wives cannot be true to their poor lunatic old husbands, nor humble companion to themselves and their own dignity and virtue. We cannot too loudly pro- test against these would-be-satirical writers, who apparently bold that men and women who do not fall before the base- ness in their own natures—their selfishness and sensuality—are very rare exceptions. But Mr. Compton Reade is, at least, brave enough to attack the great as well as the small, and men as well as women. He traduces Bishops, sneering at their blindness to the delinquencies, and even the sins, of their wealthy clergy ; and Deans, making them detestably cruel to the subordinates of the cathedral ; and canons, assuring us that they would never take the duty for a sick brother, "a canon-major could hardly demean himself so far as to pray to God in public. Perish the thought ! " And rural deans and missionaries, and organists and choristers, —male and female—and even poor parish clerks and doctors, and solicitors, and police, and members of society generally, are all maligned through their representatives in this agreeable story.

Nor can we admire the style. We have already said that it abounds in slang and affection, and it is not even free from bad grammar. Here are specimens of all three faults :—We are told that if Mr. Lovett had been wise, "he would have strove hard to

crawl before attempting to walk ; " that the vicar "laughed con- sumedly ;" that Lady Rosa was "the purest and best lady who

ever condescended to utter to a rascal like Barwyn ;" that " Barwyn paled." We have sentences like these,—" Oh, Adine ! you have no so true a heart that you can call your own as mine." "No one but

Adine Sinclair could play that glorious commingling of light and shade, poetry and passion with such truth,"—fancy playing a commingling of light and shade ! We have innumerable instances

of that idle habit of expressing by one word the fact that a per- son speaks and the manner in which he speaks, thus ; "snarled Adine," "shrilled Adine," "hissed Miss Effler," "yawned she," "gasped poodle," &c. ; and the affectation of a frequent use of Latin words and of words either in disuse, or invented by our

author ; " estopped," " pecunious," " shopkeepery," " implete," " naturalesque," " eupeptic," "slowth of utterance," &c. It is

characteristic of authors whose prevailing style is a dashing coarseness, that they have, what may be considered as the com- plementary quality, a tender regard for sentimentality ; and Mr.

Compton Reade is no exception, as the passage quoted about playing a commingling of light and shade, and others about " tone-poems " and "tone-poetry," and the scenes between " Seraph " and his "dear lady mine" may prove. Sentimentality does not neutralise coarseness however; and neither tenderness of feeling, nor honesty of purpose, nor both together, can excuse a man who goes rudely forward to redress wrong with abusive, unmeasured, and indiscriminate reprobation. He should scorn exaggeration and misrepresentation in himself as much as injustice in another, and teach purity and virtue by the avoidance and not by the description of vice.