24 AUGUST 1867, Page 22

FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS' REWARD.* WE believe, from internal evidence, that

this novel is written, as it professes to be, by a barrister, or at least by some one familiar with daily life in Lincoln's Inn ; and also that it is a first venture. It has both the faults and the good qualities which might be expected in such a case. From beginning to end there is not a single blunder (except, by the way, two grammatical errors in the solitary attempt at a Latin quotation), none of the mis- takes which are to be found even in the productions of our best novelists, arising from carelessness, from ignorance of minutiae relating to unfamiliar classes or occupations, and, most of all, from ignorance or misunderstanding of the law. A barrister would naturally avoid all these errors, he usually has a pretty wide knowledge of the ways of the world, his training makes him exact in his statements and careful not to leave diffi- culties slurred or small points unexplained, and he will be sure to keep his legal incidents in order. At the same time, he will be likely to assume rather too much both of acquaintance with the law, and of interest in its curious sinuosities, in the minds of his readers, and to lay undue stress upon mere perfection of coherence. No one will say that Five Hundred Pounds' Reward is

* Firellundred Pounds' Reward. By a Barrister. London : Bentley. 1867.

not minutely coherent, not that it possesses an elaborate and artful plot, after the manner of Mr. Wilkie Collins, where we never feel certain that the slightest incident related may not eventually turn out to be of primary importance, but that every detail is explained and connected, much as ought to be done in preparing for trial a case depending on complicated evidence. There is an ostentatious avoidance of all mystery, such as might seem congenial to a lawyer who likes to make every step clear as he goes into a case, which is certainly more agreeable to the reader than the imperfectly concealed secrets characteristic of novels in the last generation. Whether it be partly due to this deliberate method, or entirely to the author's being a novice in the art of novel-writing, his work is certainly very inartistic in form. He falls somewhat into the pre-Raphaelite error of paint- ing things exactly as they are,—not so as to produce upon the spectator the truest effect. And though there is a spice of agree- able naivete in recording the conversation of ordinary fools in all its common-place folly, just such conversation as one is doomed to hear every day, and forms life in average society, yet a little of this goes a great way. The very theory of a novel is that it re- cords incidents so far removed from mere common-place as to be interesting ; even in a novel of character the perpetual chronicle of small beer becomes wearisome. It is a standard complaint against the old comedies that they make every one, whatever his character or powers are represented to be, say brilliant things. The author now before us approaches far more nearly to dramatic congruity, for he makes his characters talk at least down to their proper level, which, for many of them, is low enough. The same power of accurate observation and representation which is here expended on the mere outsides of things might enable the writer to depict other characters forcibly, that is to say, if he has the power of imagining any, a point on which his present work does not afford us data for an opinion either way.

It must not be supposed, however, that Five Hundred Pounds' Reward is a novel of character, or of humdrum every-day life ; on the contrary, it depends upon its incident, and does not contain a single really well drawn character. A young barrister sees an advertisement that a young lady is missing, and by way of doing something energetic resolves to find her. The first volume is devoted mainly to his adventures in search of her, which are imagined appropriately enough to a young man of impulsive' temper and considerable native sharpness, and are described with great fidelity to the outside view, so to speak, of things and per- sons, and with a lively readiness to tell every detail which a more practised novelist would half envy and half despise. We must, however, except his love entanglement, for the young lady, who, fancies he has fallen in love with her, says and does things at once unladylike and inconceivably silly. For more than a volume the young barrister is dropped entirely, in order to insert a history of the birth, parentage, and education of the young lady advertised as missing ; how she was an heiress, a ward in Chancery, and under the guardianship of a very unpleasant admiral ; how she fell in love with an eligible young man, and her guardian, most unaccountably

disapproving the match, brought the terrors of the Court of Chancery down on the lover's head ; how she ran away for no, particular reason, and the admiral laid elaborate plans to make

people think that she was still with him. Then the young bar- rister is again started on his search, and just as he has resolved to give it up in despair, accidentally meets the young lady, who has given up her little escapade in despair also, and is quietly walking in home again. It is perhaps needless to add that the lovers are married, the disagreeable old admiral duly snubbed, and all made smooth, through the intervention of a very unusual,

dour ex machines, the Court of Chancery. What became, of the young barrister and the lady who accepted him without,

being asked nobody knows, and certainly nobody cares. The tale professes to be told by a subordinate actor in it, who is a legal friend of the enthusiastic young barrister. This is no new plan, though we cannot remember an instance before the present generation, being a refinement upon the method, always common, of putting a novel into the form of an autobiography. Like some other devices occasionally employed for the adornment of a novel,. such as grouping its incidents round some historical event, or introducing machinery avowedly or apparently supernatural, this. mode of telling a story is admirable when well used, but becomes a mere blemish by unskilful treatment. Arthur Pendennis writing the history of the Newcomes is a very use- ful personage ; it suited the peculiar genius of Mr. Thackeray

to have a character who could talk for him ; but even he failed when he tried the same method a second time. If an author chooses to present to his readers some actor in the tale, as also the narrator, he is bound to relate nothing but what the nominal. author, through his connection with the other person, might be expected to know. Such is the necessary penalty to, be paid for the privilege of adopting that particular method, and if this, rule be pot reasonably observed, the air of truth- fulness given by the use of the first person is entirely lost, and an impression of clumsiness is conveyed instead. The supposed writer of the book now before us, for instance, can tell with special life the doings of his young friend, and can descant with perfect propriety on the various legal difficulties which, occur ; but when he comes to relate minutely the actions and thoughts of the heroine's father, when alone in India twenty years ago, just before his death, the reader feels instinctively that he can know nothing about it. In a somewhat similar manner, want t, of experience often spoils the effect of the author's digressions, which are, some of them, clever enough, but nearly all are so manifestly digressions that they almost seem to have been inserted as padding. We, by no means, however, accuse the author of this dire offence ; we rather warn him that he has unskilfully laid himself open to an accusation which he does not merit. As an instance of a digression absolutely without reason, yet excusable by reason of its cleverness, we may cite a burlesque specimen of the tracts that one of the characters is supposed to be always writing, which ridi- cules, very pleasantly the astounding ignorance of men and things displayed in many of those unaccountable productions, and the selfish and obtrusive nature of the virtues inculcated in them. As a specimen of a digression fairly justified by the subject, we may mention some very wise remarks about the scrapes a man gets his friends into by making his own will ; but it never seems to occur to the author that he would be doing a better service if, instead of warning people to avoid the traps set for them by the law, he were to point out the iniquity of allowing the law to set traps at all.