Agatha Chieveley : a Novel. By Fanny D. Dickins. (Charing
Cross
Publishing Company.)—Without any particular merit, with certain glaring faults indeed, this story has kept us interested, after a fashion, to its close. It is, we suppose, a story of fashionable life, drawn from what may be called the governess point of view,—that is, from the outside. We cannot describe it as a sporting novel, yet there is a vast deal about horses, dogs and poultry, ratting and terriers, and
(favourite theme of novelists) Goodwood's "ducal park." Even the heroine, Agatha, a young lady of seventeen, is fond of taking the odds, an amusement, not unreasonably, as it seems to us, objected to by her betrothed, the Earl of Pentland, though, as it tarns out, his objecting was rather a case of straining at a gnat (with the usual sequel). This nobleman figures through the story as a most moral and estimable person, rather priggish than otherwise, until the very morning of his "nuptials," when a truly surprising event prevents these from being celebrated, and causes our authoress to "hark back," as she would say, and review his career. We feel we have been imposed upon quite as much as was Sir Harcourt Chieveley. There are some very odd things in this story, almost suggesting that the author is "poking fun" at her readers, such as the inclusion of a very fearful ghost story as part of the narrative, a story, too, which we are supposed to believe, for a foot-note expressly tells us that it was told to the writer as true by a young lady friend to whom it occurred. Odder still, perhaps, is the selection, by way of a motto to one of the chapters, of a passage from one of the late Dr. Guthrie's sermons, printed to look like verse. The result is so truly grotesque, that we venture to repeat the experiment
I bless God for cities. Cities have been as lamps of life Along the pathway of humanity. Having no sympathy with those Who, regarding them os excres- cences of a tree, would reze our cities To the ground,—! bless God for cities."
GUTHRIE, (p. 164, Vol. I)
Previous page
