BANNERFORD, OR THE VALLEY OF GOLD. * LIFE and adventures in
California are the most striking feature of this romance, though complicated and overlaid with other sub- jects: an introduction in England, occurring years before the opening of the principal story ; and a return to England, when the gold necessary to redeem the fortunes of the two young Banner- fords is secured, to wind up matters, reward the innocent, and punish the guilty. One qualification of a novelist the author of Bannerford pos- sesses: his narrative is rapid and full of incidents—there is always • Bannerford, or the Valley of Gold: a Tale of Our Times. In three volumes. Published by Bentley.
something doing or moving. In the way of mere adventure, too, he has invention enough, and, it would seem, an actual knowledge of the country and people where his Valley of Gold is laid ; for although he exhibits no more acquaintance with Californian man- ners than might be obtained by reading, we doubt whether he has invention to embody the spirit of his reading so well. He is, how- ever, along way off the artist. There is as yet no selection in
"He was too warm on picking work to dwell, But fagotted his notions as they fell."
The consequence is, that the book is too crowded with persons and incidents, and the leading interest is lost in a mass of episodes —heroines carried off by Indians, heroes beset by Yankees with a view to robbery, fights, sieges, ambuscades and a real valley of gold to boot, to restore the fortunes of the two young Englishmen. Moreover, Bannerford wants refinement: the nature is coarse and literal, the virtue somewhat mawkish, and the vice or villany ex- treme. In every work the structure and action, and to a large extent the persons, must be reproductions of the author. Be may find matter in nature, but he cannot find art. This he must ori- ginate for himself, or study in other artists; and the models of the author of Bannerford would seem to be the melodramas of a minor theatre.
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