GRYLL GRANGE.*

Amo= the numerous benefits which the invention of novels has con- ferred upon the human race, not the least is to be reckoned that of enabling certain men to convey their ideas to the public who would otherwise be considerably puzzled to devise an appropriate vehicle for their expression. Some persons, no doubt, feel aggrieved at the intrusion of one sort of literature into another ; it confuses their minds, like having soup at the conclusion of dinner • they like novels to be novels, comedies to be comedies, and treatises on matters in general—if there must be such things—to be divided into their ap- propriate heads and published in the organ properly devoted to each species of observation. But it would be an intolerable world if we were obliged to conform to the boundaries of our literary depart- ments with the exact formality of the extracts in a "Speaker," and we should lose a great deal of amusing and genial stuff simply for want of a place to put it in. To disfranchise a writer unless he could show that his work would fit into some recognized pigeon-hole, would be like the mistake of people who send fowls on board ship without a due supply of earthy matter to mix with their food. They lay eggs all the same, but the absence of shells causes a certain de- gree of inconvenience to the consumer. Much of the wit, humour, and learning which now find a place in fictitious literature would be re- absorbed into the writers' systems, or dissipated in the melancholy form of " adversaria," if some ready method did not exist of stimu- lating an author who has something in him by the appeal to an ex- tended audience, comprising those who can appreciate his more re- condite merits, as well as the larger class for whom his livelier faculties are, not =healthfully, called into activity. The reappearance of the author of "Headlong Hall" produces a feeling like that with-which we await a bottle of wine that we re- collect in its "relish fiery-new," but which we have reason to believe calculated to improve by a twenty years' sojourn in the cellar. No one who had read Mr. Peacock's early novels was likely to forget that he had made the acquaintance of a thoroughly original writer, whose conceptions of character might often be crude, and his notions of incident forced, but whose frankness, freshness, love of letters, and cultivated bonhomie would make him always welcome, however far he might deviate from received models in the form he had chosen for • &Ill Orange. By the Author of " Iletidlong HalL" Parker and Bourn. embodying his observation of society. About a man as to whom one is uncertain what he will say or do next, yet certain that he will do nothing disagreeable or ungentlemanly, there is the charm of cariosity and often of real liking; and there 3S the absence of the one unpar- donable fanit—dulness.

Mr. Peacock's "Recollections of Shelley" showed that he had lost none of his former vigour and freshness, and the book before us proves that his other qualities have ripened in their seclusion into a full-flavoured though not too rich a maturity.. Mellow is the word which perhaps most adequately expresses the tone of thought which pervades Gryll Grange, and the kind of associations it awakens. Most readers will probably be aware that it is rreeat4ished from Fraser, and, though it is as far as possible from the idea popularly, and justly, entertained of a "magazine story,' its first medium of appearance was not the less appropriate. Next to a thrilling romance which leaves the hero hanging over a bottomless pit by his eyelids at the close of each number, nothing is so good for magazine fiction as a story which does not pretend to be any story at all, but in which one is always sure of some pleasant reading without the labour occasioned by the tepid intermediate class of novels, of recollecting their last imaginary difficulty or psychological dilemma. Mr. Peacock's characters being simple, distinct, and few in number, cause no such trouble ; and as some of them are remarkable rather for what they say than for what they do, and are only interesting while they are saying it, there could not possibly be an easier piece of reading. The thread of 'the tale is as slight as possible and though every one who takes it up will be interested in seeing how it ends, its principal purpose seems to be that of forming a vent for the author's opinion of the nineteenth century in general, and for his store of scholarship in particular. The events are told in a sort of textual narrative, and to the conversations, which are in smaller type, the names of the speakers are prefixed,, which gives the whole story the aspect of a genteel comedy, with what Mr. Carlyle would call "con- necting elucidations." It is useless to appeal to magazine readers, possibly also to severer critics, without a love affair, and thus the various conversations and incidents tend to the ultimate tying of nine matrimonial nooses, which for so small a book would be ex- travagant, but that seven girls go, as auctioneers say, "in one lot." Mr. Gryll is an epicurean country squire in the New Forest, who boasts a descent from some of the sailors of Ulysses whom Circe turned into swine, and is blessed with a congenial friend in Dr. Opimian, the neighbouring vicar, equally devoted with him- self to classic lore and the cultivation of a refined taste for gastro- nomy. Mr. Gryll has a niece, whom he has named after Morgans, in the "Orlando Innamorato," and who has rejected almost as many suitors as Penelope. Dr. Opimian, in one of his country rambles, unearths a young gentleman named Falconer, who lives in a tower at the top of a hill in the middle of the forest—a sort of inno- cent-minded Bec.kford—with an excellent library in which he spends most of his time, a stock of equally good Madeira, and seven young, pretty, and accomplished housekeepers, whom he regards as his sisters. To avoid scandal they never move about the house except in pairs, and always finish the evening by performing for their

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master's solace a hymn to Sat Catherine, whom he has adopted as the object of a kind of ideal worship. Through an accident which obliges Mr. Gryll and his daughter to stay some time at his retreat, this fascinating hermit is brought out and induced to join a party at the Grange, where the germs of an attachment between him and the young lady begin apparently to develop themselves. Matters, how- ever, are complicated by the arrival on the scene of two other persons —a brilliant young nobleman, Lord Curryfiu, whose only steady pur- suit is that of occasionally delivering a lecture on fish at most of the coast towns, and who diversifies his leisure by taking up every pur- suit of the day in turn, with equal success and inconstancy—and a young lady. Miss Niphet, graceful as a Greek statue, but almost as reserved. Which of these four persons shall pair off with which forms the plot, or what stands in place of one. There would be no especial difficulty about matching the two couples in some way or other, but Mr. Falconer is averse to leave his poetic retreat, and does not know what is to become of his seven young Pleiads if he allows them to turn into planets. So he remains irresolute, and goes home occa- sionally to refresh his taste for solitude. Lord Curryfin, on the other hand, is uncertain of which young lady he prefers, and as Miss Gryll is also wavering in her choice, while IFi s Niphet is alternately at- tracted and repelled by the varying aspects of Lord Carryfues rather Protean character, the materials are presented for a problem of which it may be left to the reader's curiosity to investigate the solution. The motif of the book is not a tragic one, and we therefore know we are safe from any harrowing up of our feelings in a manner inconsis- tent with the genial and comfortable spirit in which all the other business is carried on. "Yon will find bream-pie," says Dr. Opimian, in one of the earlier conversations, "set down as a prominent item of luxurious living in the indictments prepared against them [the monks] at the dissolution of the monasteries. The work of destruo- ation was too rapid, and I fear the receipt is lost." This sort of thing is evidently incompatible with blighted hopes. So, too, is the pro- duction of a miniature Aristophanic comedy on the subject of table- turning and other follies of the day, which Li described as being written and performed with appropriate scenery, dresses, and decora- tions in a Greek theatre built for the purpose, with a chorus of clouds, represented by the most charming female performers. Various trans- lations and poems are introduced as part of the evening's amuse- ments, the former of which are so spiritedly done as to make us hope that Mr. Peacock will undertake to introduce us to Boiardo in a more extended form. The spirit of the book is not one of satisfaction with the nine- teenth century, and would please both Dr. Sewell by its satire on Pantoprag-matic societies (i.e. "Social Science" and the like), and Mr. Ruskin by its denunciation of the rapid pace at which people now-a- days think it necessary to live. Increasing years are not of course likely to have made Mr. Peacock, though he is still tolerant, less a laudator temporis acti, a temper humorously expressed in Dr. Opimian's conversation with his spouse: "THE REVEREND Dooms onsuan.

The interest attendant on any action or event is in just proportion to its rarity; and, happily, quiet virtues are all around us, and obtrusive vices seldom cross our path. On the whole, I agree in opinion with Theseus, that there is mora good than evil in the world.

"MRS °TIBETAN.

I think, Doctor, you would not maintain any opinion if you had not an autho- rity two thousand years old for it.

"THE REVEREND DOCTOR OPIBTIAN.

Well, my dear, I think most opinions worth maintaining have an authority of about that age

The same venerable authority holds "the electric tele„araph to be a nuisance, as disarranging chronology, and giving only the heads of a chapter, of which the details lost their interest before they arrived, the heads of another chapter having intervened to destroy it." The following is also amusing, and certainly, since it describes a Scotch- man who is averse to argue, extremely new :

"LORD CURETTIN.

What is your opinion, Mr. MacBorrowdale ?

"MR. MACBORROWDALE.

I think you may just btu that bottle before you.

"LORD CURRYFIN.

I mean your opinion of Greek perspective?

"MR. MACBORROWDAIX.

Troth, I am of opinion that a bottle looks smaller at a distance than when it is close by, and I prefer it as a full-sized object in the foreground.

"LORD CIIHRTP72i.

I have often wondered that a gentleman so well qualified as you are to discuss all subjects should so carefully avoid discussing any.

"MR. MACEORROWDALE.

After dinner, my lord, after dinner. I work hard all the morning at serious things, sometimes till I get a headache, which, however, does not often trouble me. After dinner I like to crack my bottle and chirp and talk nonsense, and fit myself for the company of Jack of Dover.

"LORD OtrifiltTFIN.

Jack of Dover! Who was he?

"MR. MACEORROWDALE.

He was a man who travelled in search of a greater fool than himself, and did not find him."

We might go on multiplying extracts, but the contents of the book are much too various for any adequate idea of it to be so con- veyed. There is not a dull page anywhere, and the few descriptions of scenery which occur are complete and picturesque without being overloaded, and just in the right tone. The poems are peculiar, be- cause the highest note of imaginative feeling is not struck ; yet there is a nameless charm, resulting partly from their having an unusual amount of pith and substance, partly from their very high i

finh, which is likely to make many of them favourites. The lyric called "Youth and Age," reminds us of some of Mr. Thackeray's poems, but without any of the cynicism which the latter sometimes show on similar subjects.

In the set manner in which the characters are presented, the resthetic, epicurean tone which pervades the book, the utter improba- bility of the incidents, the romantic haze which is thrown round them, and the conspicuous position which dramatic affairs occupy, we are re- minded of Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister" more than of any other book. The German work is like a great, confused, half epic, half allegoric sketch in which there is little proportion, and no unity of impres- sion, if of meaning ; Mr. Peacock's is a cabinet picture, with every part equally elaborated, with a lower aim satisfactorily realized. The philosophy of things in general has never appeared in a more genial guise. It is not a book of which it would be worth while to criticize the opinions, nor would the most staunch upholder of the superiority of ourselves over our ancestors care to prove the author an ob- structive or an obscurantist. His ideas are to be enjoyed rather than questioned, and any one who takes up the book in such a belligerent spirit may be assured that he is not looking at it from the right point of view. We cannot get out of the nineteenth century even. if we try, so Mr. Peacock's antagonists, if he has any, are safe in their position. But it is pleasant, sometimes, to lapse into a dream of other things, as one drops down to Burnham Betalies to lose the roar of cab and omnibus in one's ears. It is in same such place that the book should be read—not at railroad speed, or, indeed, any- where near a railway. There is a time for swallowing Swindon soup, and there is a time for sipping Amontillado sherry. Mr. Peacock's volume has an almond-like flavour, which renders it a fit concomitaat of the latter process, and we feel instinctively that it is under such circumstances that he would wish it to be taken up by those best able to appreciate it.