BOOKS:

BELL'S LADDER. OF GOLD.

THIS. clever book develops in a remarkable degreethe peculiarities of -the. popular modern novel... We do • not. mean_ the • exploded fashionable novel ; nor the brilliant flashy novel of manners,

life, and romantio adventure, in part. derived from. the Trenc , though claiming. the merit of originality, and mow somewhat passed

too.; nor the. specialaovel exhibiting a. ar.mode of life— • as Cooper's sea and. Red Indian tales. T kind of work we -speak ,.. of may include the :readers of the former books, ,but-it addresses- w itself to e. much..more numerous class, -many -of whom never real .. novels before, and the. :greater •'number :perb.aps hardly ever read.. books at all. • .

The most successful author of this: clam is Diokens,lalthough_he_ has many competitors of various- merit;.-.but there is this curious .... trait amongst them all, that while producing novels, their native .. bent.hardly seems to have been to novel-writing. Somelmay have a playwright's turn for structure and dialogue; others'. may have-" so muck of the tale-writer as is necessary to .embody a sketch: or .. -tell a story ; but'not one of them. seems to possess•therfaculty of .. observing the eventsand characters of society, as well as the genius for-narrative and dramatic -dialogue,- which induce a writer to pre- sent the results of his experience in the form:of action; and with those comprehensive views of life which are :requisite to constitute a prose fiction. It may be said.,that t.he.popular mode of publishing:.-- periodically .causes the. peculiarities of the- modern novel: Contri- bute to them it. probably does ;.—to say thatit produces them, is to argue from:cause to effect;- for what originally caused publication,, in the bit-by-hit form? "The root of all. evil ". has possibly some- •• thing to do with this particular evil, especially in those who follow the fashion but its originators most. probably chose it as best adapted_ to their peculiar qualifications...The-periodical form might- . operate injuriously upon the. plan as well as upon the- treatment ; but. it would not induce men with an extensive knowledge of life. o to derive their incidents, :characters, and very often the ,turn uf, u. their composition, from the stage; . or compel: them, if they had a• native taste for • novel-writing or an artistica). -coneeption of it, to ,make such subordinate or equivocal matters as description, • re-

mark, and even reflection pa on to the. essa.y, almost as promi-

nent .as..the narrative itself ocal books may undoubtedly. be . -produced underthe -plan of piecemeal publication extended,over year or so ;. but; stictly speaking, not -a novel; whose prime. attrae- tion should lie in the interest and movement of the story. In those , qualities which. oondnee to vivacity. of effect and to striking situation„Mr.,Bell is not equal to several of his contempor,.. raries. In useful purpose, in elevation of view, in skilfully turn-- ing to account,a passing event, .and in solid strengthof composition; he equals or surpasses •any. of them: The Ladder. of Gold, how,,;-, ever, has the inherent defects of the class .to which. it belongs, very fully; developed by the. .superior 'qualifications ,of the author. in. .1 general-writing. .. The moral sought to be inculcated by Mr. Bell is, that .great wealth, or an undue ambition to rise: in the world and form con- nexions far beyond our original sphere; does not contribute to hap- i • piness. The career he has selected-to illustrate this position is that .. of Hudson, but Hudson adapted to fiction: Richard Rawlings is originally placed in a much, lower, sphere than -George Hudson is :, reported to have sprung from; but he is a man of larger views,. and • , more elevated mind and objects, than the ei-devant potentate of railways.- The object of Richard Rawlings is not altogether money, for the sake of money, or even to rise in the world: In his boy- hood and youth. he had been: trampled on by that world, as he struggled and battled for existence ;• when he has risen to com- parative. affluence he has to bear the -insolence of some proud and unprincipled members of the aristocracy. He is less actuated by any -real regard.for rank or wealth, than to showthe meanness and hollowness of the world; especially..the titled world, in making them cringe to the millionaire, and even.. connect themselves with him by marrying ane-of his 'daughters :•• and. though his busi- ness conduct-is of the hardest and his speculations not of the most honourable cast, the .railway.doings,are kept in the back, , ground,. and the reader is led. ,to infer . that they. are not alto -,;•• ' gether •of the sordid:or fraudulent character that ..have been attri- bated to his prototype. Stripped of its accessories and- expansions; the story of The' Ladder of Gold is brief- When the book opens,.-Richard Raw, lings is a young man, and a drudging clerk tea closefisted old hunkte.7, with a young wife.. The old man..dies ; Rawlings, after act-. ing as factotum to the rich •widow,•carries her off from a couple of rivals, an. apothecary- and. a half-pay captain. - By means of sharp, legal practitioner,, hie,. own sagacity,- and more than all a . strong will directed to a single object, Rawlings attains wealth, increases it by an extensive and judicious railway speculation, goes into Parliament, heads the midway interest, and in short • leads .the 'public and fashionable life which the.newspapers attri- '. bated to Mi. Hudson.. In 'the . more . romantic part, Rawlings.. marries .hiie favourite slaughter, Margaret, to a lord; breaking off... her attachment for Henry Winston-, the son of a country gentle- . man, an old neighbour; by . the worn,out contrivance of an in- tereepted letter and ,other means nearly as stale. In return, , hie lordly son-in-law deserts him when the railway mania sub-. sides mid. .the world turns against him; and his, daughter' has . the • The Ladderaf Gold. An English Story., By Robert Bell, Author el:" Way7ides,it Pictures through France, Belgium,..and Holland,'!&e. &e. -In three volumes.. 1 lished by Bentley: - prospect of a life of married misery, but that Winston discovers the treachery of which he has been the victim, quarrels with the husband, Lord Charles Eton, and shoots him in a dueL The other parties are more fortunately settled. Rawlings finds out that, with moderate wealth derived from a safe business founded with the wreck of his fortune, he is happier than as a millionaire out of - his place : his daughter Clara happily marries the suitor who has been faithful through obloquy and the world's desertion ; and the rest of the dramatis persona' are provided for according to their deserts. There are errors of moral taste in the story, common enough in this kind of novel, but hardly to have been looked for when the superior literary tone of Mr. Bell is considered. To make a suitor shoot the husband of his old lover is not exactly in good moral taste ; it is in very bad moral taste for him to seek an inter- view after the death, and in still worse for the lady to grant it. Of the theatrical and unreal character of this and some other things, we do not speak : that, as we have already pointed out, is

essential to the school.

Although the scenes are numerous, and in fact, from the original mode of publication in Bentley's Miscellany, the book may be said to consist of a succession of them, yet we do not think that they are the best part of the work. They are well contrived, they are well written, and they produce an effect; but there often appears something laboured or Imitative about them, as if novel-writing were not the writer's forte. The reflections, either standing sepa- rately or intermingled with the narrative, have generally truth and depth ; but perhaps the best are bits of observation or reflec- tion, or sketches of character, indicating the observer of life, though the writer's mind has not been cast in the proper frame of the novelist. The following sketch of a gentleman's family—the Winstons—whose son forms so conspicuous a character in the story, is of this kind. " Mr. Rawlings felt that the social position of the Winstons was an ad- vantage to his family. He was himself only on the threshold of society, and had much to learn. But his instincts led him in the right direction, and his discrimination of character was a safe guide in the choice of friendships. Mr. Winston was a Whig of the old school, with that hereditary touch of aristocracy in his nature which gives to the most careless actions an unmis- takeable air of good-breeding. Everything within his house indicated the habits of a gentleman. There were no affectations of any kind ; no preten- sions to superiority over neighbours ; no backbitings or whisperings, jars, or jealousies ; no starched grandeurs, or clipped voices to show off before

: you never could take them by surprise ; come when you might, there was no flurry or ruffling up of company manners ; the same composure, openness, and sincerity, met you at all hours ; there was no finery set out for visiters, with a domestic background cf meanness and disorder. To the friends who were admitted to the Wren's Nest, the inner and everyday life of the Winstons was as transparent as crystal. Such associations were calculated to exert a refining and elevating influence over Clara and Margaret; and no man, who had not been born amongst them, was better able to ap- preciate them at their full value than Richard Rawlings."

In this summary of the early youth of Rawlings, at the begin- ning of the work, there is an example of the species of claptrap writing which Dickens, Jerrold, and others, expanded and trans- ferred from the stage to the novel; but which receives more truth and largeness from the closer style and greater worldly knowledge of Mr. Bell.

"He went back to his childhood; which called up a picture of a hovel sprawling amongst muddy outworks of sties and duck-ponds, in a clayey hollow on the brink of a stream fringed by alder-trees, with a ragged orchard at the back, choked up by brambles and long grass almost as tall as himself. He recollected a bridge which abutted close to the hovel on the high-road above, and a track leading up to it, upon which he had clambered many a time, crowing and clapping his hands to notify to his mother, who fondly watched him from below, that he had achieved the perilous summit.

"And then the scene changed, and all was gloom and silence in the hovel. A miserable light, fixed in a sconce on the wall, showed the emaciated face of a sick woman lying on a pallet : and then followed mourning and wailing; and he was sent out of the way, while the tender mother, whose voice still vibrated at his heart, was earned to the grave.

"Then came another slide of the dark lanternsthe straggling street of a far-off village, and a hard-featured man, toiling from morning till night, and taking the boy, now grown up to a premature consciousness of daily necessities, into the fields, to help him in his work. This morose man is his father; very harsh at most times, but now and then speaking kind words to

i

him, that make the tears tremble in his eyes. The holydays of childhood are all over—the toddling up steeps, and hunting of butterflies, and the terrible hazards through ditches and stiles, and swinging gates; and the boy, with his instincts yet yearning towards play and pastime, is compelled to labour like a dreary man for his daily food. And mixed with these memories are glimpses of a school, where he pores over books and slates, and somehow learns to read and write, and east up rows of figures, which he never can keep in a straight line or shape into equal proportions, some being of gigantic height, and some dwarfed and crippled, and which, in spite of all his pains, he cannot prevent from running into and tumbling over each other. "Then ensues the dismallest change of all. The hard man is crushed down by poverty and over-work, and the boy is alone in the bleak church- yard. The world is out there in the sunshine on the roads, and in the mea- dows, and on the hills; and crowds of human faces pass and repass, but not one is turned towards him ; and he wanders up and down, begging for food, and ready for any drudgery that can procure it. He hardly knows how he lives from day to day; but he contrives to live through many years, which, looking back upon them at this distance of time, seem like a mist of centu- ries. The terrible images that rise up in that Mist !—the appalling fight for life !—he shudders even now while he thinks of them.

"And so he work', on to manhood ; his sympathies for his kind, if any can be healthily nurtured in such circumstances, perpetually beaten down until his whole faculties become concentrated upon the one object of self-preserva- tion. Perhaps the process has hardened his nature, as it has embittered his life ; but he has no spare time for moral reflections. He is engrossed by a more urgent matter—the prospect of being again cast upon the world to starve. It is of that lie is thinking—of that alone ; and it is filled with horrors., rapidly shaped and huddled together out of the experiences of the pt!. But although such incidental passages may exhibit the best or most original writing, we do not mean to say they will be the most generally attractive. If "the idea" of the scenes and aurae-

ten has been drawn from the stage or other novels, the original has been improved and vivified by Mr. Bell's literary power. Some of the most amusing scenes in the book are in the earlier part, where Pogey the apothecary, and Captain Scott Dingle the

fiee- and-easy half-pay officer, are rivals for the hand of the young widow, and each makes a confidant of Rawlings, who is destined

to carry off the lady from both. In the following interview, where Pogey sets Rawlings on to "pump," the character of Pogey and his mode of discourse are palpably from the theatre; but those who can trace its origin will be amused, as well as those who cannot.

"The messenger was scarcely gone, when a loud voice broke upon Rich- ard's ear. Hilo-yo-yo-yo ! ' cried the voice. It was Mr. Pogey, who had come in as Crikey went out, and who adopted this lusty mode of announcing himself.

" ' Rawlings, my boy,' said Mr. Pogey, wanted to have two words with you—can't stay three minutes—there's a patient expecting me. I begged of her to put it off a little ; but time, tide, and women, will wait for no man. What a wonderful thing it is, Rawlings, to look at the population of the world, and think how much it owes to us. The clergy and the lawyers may cross their legs at their ease, and the great globe itself,' and everything in it, would go on just the same; but if the doctors were to take a holyday for four-and-twenty hours, the whole framework of humanity would be dis- located. Sense in that, I fancy ? What I wanted to say to you was this— when are you going out to see the widow ?'

" ' Tomorrow morning. I have business with her.'

" Good—the sooner the better. Well, you know, I have been trying it on brisk in that quarter,' said Pogey. " 'So you have told me,' replied Richard. " 'Can't fathom her. She doubles like a bare. Can't comprehend her. Never at fault with men—see my way to my mark, and generally hit it—eh? But women ! you might know a woman all your life, apd you'll have to be- gin again before you can make her out. Anatomical riddles, sir ! There's Mrs. Raggles—I have her on Monday ; she twists out of the course on Tues- day; think I have caught her on Wednesday ; done again on Thursday ; and so she slips on and off, like a sailor's knot. It tries a man's constitution, Rawlings, and keeps him in a perpetual state of alarm. Mann ? D—n it, sir, I'm beginning to forget everything : I went out the other day without my hat, and only last week sent a dose of calomel, enough to kill a horse, to a child in the measles. What do you think of that ? It won't do, Raw- lings ; it won't do, I tell you.'

"'Wouldn't it be prudent, then, to give it up ?' observed Richard. " Give it up ? After all the time and trouble it has cost me ? Lost three patients in one day, while I was philandering at Bermuda Cottage. Give it up ? That wouldn't pay, my boy. Do I look like a man that would give it up ? I'll tell you what,—I'll try another dodge. Sure of her in the end ; that's tolerably certain. Nobody in the field but Dingle—poor devil !—a naked, worn-out, sallow-faced half-pay ; not an ounce of blood in his body; —she'd as soon set her cap at a lamp-post. Now, Rawlings, she'll never suspect that I have said anything to in about it, and what I want you to do is to sound her ;—sound her—do it n your own way, you know, with that precious solemn face of yours. You'll discover in five minutes how theoat jumps.'

" Do you really believe, Mr. Pogey, that, if you have failed in making this discovery, I should be likely to succeed ?'

"'I do. She'll betray herself to you, although she's as dark as an eclipse to me. Go to work cautiously ; don't seem to know anything ; watch her face—that's it : perhaps she'll not say much, but there are other ways of finding out people's thoughts besides what they say—eh? ru trust you for that.'

" Well—I'll try.'

" Can't stay to say any more to you now ; but I know Pm safe in your hands. Caution, my boy. Never was foiled yet, and not likely to be now. Be careful what you say about me, lest she might see through it ; but for Dingle—you can pooh-pooh Dingle. That's enough for him. See you to- morrow.' And off went Mr. Pogey.

"Richard Rawlings was by no means indisposed to undertake this mission. He had observed for some time that Mr. Pogey was losing ground with Mrs. Boggles, and that Captain Scott Dingle was much in the same predicament; and the necessity of having such an interview with the widow as Mr. Pogey was so anxious to bring about, although not perhaps exactly for the same object, had already presented itself to his own mind."

Some other characters in the book have obviously their source in the stage,—as Costigan, a lax but thoroughgoing Irishman of the past generation, who is Winston's second in the duel. Mr. Trumbull, the American traveller, is not borrowed but invented. He is, however, an abstraction, designed to embody the popular notion derived from travellers, of the self-sufficient, ignorant, "free and enlightened citizen of the model republic," rather than a living individual. But he is very cleverly executed, and answers the au- thor's purpose of satirical showing-up. Mr. Trumbull happens to have put up at the same hotel as that to which Costigan has earned Winston after the duel ; and the traveller, in the unceremo- nious way of his country, introduces himself and the subject of the duello.

" They had scarcely finished dinner, when they were startled by a sharp knock at the door. Costigan, who was one of those men that will never be taken alive, immediately started to his feet ; but before he could secure the door, it was somewhat unceremoniously opened, and Mr. Trumbull, to their mutual surprise, made his appearance in the room. " expect,' said he, ' that you are rather astonished at seeing me : but the fact is, I have picked up at this hotel, and I thought I would just look in to see how you were getting on, as you are likely to be a little out of sorts by yourselves this evening. I'm a pretty good judge of human nature; • and it strikes me that when a man's in trouble a friendly visit is a sort of social duty. That's the way I look at it, Mr. Winston.' " Henry Winston was the more surprised at this friendly visit, as his ac- quaintance with Mr. Trumbull was very slight; but his surprise was con- siderably increased by the knowledge that gentleman seemed to possess of the circumstances in which he was placed. Mr. Trumbull soon left him in no doubt on the subject.

"'It's pretty well known, I calculate, by this time at the West-end' he observed : I was calling this afternoon at Park Lane, and Mrs. Rawlings told me all the particulars.'

"'I hope, said Costigan, you didn't say you bad seen us here ? '

"'I haven't studied the customs of this remarkable nation for nothing, Mr. Costigan. Secrecy is an element in your institutions, which, as a free- born republican, I abjure ; but, as a stranger, I am bound to respect your images while I am enjoying your hospitality. It will be time enough when I get baek to my own everlasting State of Massachusetts to enlighten the world as to my real opinion of England.'

" Yon intend to write a book upon us, then ?' said Winston, glad of any pretest for changing the subject.

"'Most assuredly. I have a sample or two of it in my pocket, if you'd like to hear how I walk into you. But I calculate you're hardly up to the mark for that, Mr. Winston : your mind must be in a pretty considerable fix, and not exactly in a condition to enter upon philosophical inquiries. There again your institutions come in, extinguishing freedom of thought, and riling up your twenty-five millions of human beings, just as if they were so many ruggers. It's my clear conviction that it's only under a de- mocratic form of government the rights of man are eternally vindicated— that's a fact. If one gentleman has a wrong to settle with another, in my country, he may go slick at him and shoot him in the streets. [Hardly in Massachusetts or the older free States.] Now, if that ain't practical liberty, I should like to know under what part of the almighty canopy you're to find it ? '

"'Indeed, we should be at a loss to find it in such perfection anywhere else,' observed Costigan, with a humorous twinkle in his eyes ; you're en- tirely. right, Mr. Trumbull. That's the only country for a gentleman to live in. It's free and easy, it is, at all events ; and Pm sorry to say that, in that particular, we're in a mighty benighted condition.' ' You're out of sight behind us in the grand features of social progress and civilization ; and you'll never rise to a dignified rank in the scale of na- tions till you get rid of your aristocracy, and establish liberty and equality over the length and breadth of the land. Your aristocracy, Mr. Costigan, is a regular system of slavery, and puts its brand upon you, just as the 'farmers brand cattle. The people have no more moral elevation than sheep in this country. I presume you won't deny that. Look at your hotels and public- houses : it seeing to me as if the eternal 'coons gloried in their degradation, for everywhere you go you see them sticking up, in conspicuous signs, The Marquis of Granby' and The Duke of Wellington,' and this lord's arms and that lord's arms. All England is branded over with the family marks of the proprietary class. That's one of the observations in my book.

" 'But in the matter of duels, now,' inquired Costigan ; how do you manage that in America ? '

" There again,' returned Trumbull, ' we're ahead of you in a remarkable manner. All our institutions acknowledge the original law of individual freedom. Every man in the Union possesses the inalienable right of fight- ing a duel in his own way. That's a fundamental principle. Our free citi- zens meet on a perfect equality; each man chooses his own weapon, and uses it at his discretion. They walk up to each other, and fire when they please; a privilege, I reckon, you're not likely, to enjoy in this country till you make a clearance of your hereditary classes.

I'm afraid not,' returned Costigan.

" 'Now, just look at what you call public opinion ; what a teetotal crusher it is of personal independence ! No man can do as he likes here ; he must do what other people like—that's a humiliating truth. If one man shoots another in the Union, it's his own business, and nobody meddles with him; but if you take the law into your own hands here, which you'd have a clear right to do if you were a free-born citizen, you've*no more chance of your life than if you were pitched into a biler and stewed down into soup. Now Mr. Winston that's the precise thing I came to talk to you about. From what I heard this evening, Lord Charles is in rather a dubious state, and if he should sink under it this is no place for you. I don't want to make any professions ; but I esteem it a great privilege to do homage to a man of your stamp.. I was born in Massachusetts, am true whalebone, sub-twisted back and front; and no man in my country stands up against me without losing wind, Now, Fm going back by the States packet-ship Old Virginny, Cap- tain Maddison Sandys; and if you'll put yourself under the shadow of Wash- ington Trumbull, with the eternal banner of stripes and stars floating over you, I'll land you at New York, to the national anthem of 'Hail Colombia!' and cantee you liberty and security for the rest of your life.' a • proposal was made with so much sincerity, that Henry Winston, although a little inclined to be annoyed at the intrusion of a comparative stranger at such a momeght, thanked Trumbull for the interest he took in his affairs ; assuring him, at the same time, that he had no intention whatever of leaving England. In vain Trumbull described the enthusiasm with which he would be received in America, when it came to be known that he had been engaged in mortal combat with a lord; pledging himself that, if money was any consideration, he might make a fortune by lecturing through the States on the custom of duelling, as it is practised under slavish restrictions in the old class-ridden feudal communities. These alluring representations failed to convince the obstinate young gentleman to whom they were ad- dressed. He still held to his resolution.„