THREE RECENT NOVELS.*
Tiu author of George Geith is not likely to produce a feeble novel. She understands her art well, and if, as iu the present instance, her story is almost wholly without charm, it is full of vigorous description and a lifelike delineation of character. That some of the dramatis personce are drawn from nature, we need not question ; but this nature is of a sordid and ignoble kind, which it is far from pleasant to contemplate. The real hero of the tale is not Pousnett, the senior partner of one of the first commercial houses in London, but a certain shrewd and " close" Scotchman, Robert M'Cullagh by name, who comes to London without a penny in his pocket, and acquires, as his countrymen are wont to do in novels, a very considerable fortune. He will have nothing to do with the tricks of trade, sells his Scotch goods unadulterated, and takes no credit from his customers. "Auld Rab," as he likes to call himself, lives in a niggardly way, and enjoys no
luxury beyond a nightly glass of whiskey. He had made an unhappy marriage; but his wife is dead, and the house in Basinghall Street, where he lives in the homeliest style above his warehouse, is presided over by his kinswoman, Miss Nicol, and a pitiful and spiteful sort of girl known as Effie.
M'Cullagh is represented as a small, mean-looking, ill- dressed man, with an unpleasant voice and a strong accent. When he " laid himself out to be disagreeable, it is but simple justice to say that he succeeded in his endeavour." Much as he loves money, he is honest to the core, and has no patience with his sons, whose views of business are said to be more modern. He will have nothing to do with swindling companies,
and regards "limited liability" as an invention of the Evil One. Beneath the rough exterior of the old Scotchman there is an honest heart, which shows that if he can be blunt and harsh, he is not without feeling. T-Tis eldest son's wife, to whom he has not spoken for years, fairly conquers him at last, by her noble spirit of self-sacrifice,—and how this came about is told with much pathos. It is almost the only touch of the kind we meet with in the novel, though more than one incident that would, in other hands, be pathetic, is carefully narrated. Neither by humour nor by pathos is the interest of The Senior Partner sustained. There is no " upper air " in the novel, the atmosphere is almost uniformly murky, as becomes the scene of a narrative laid amidst the fogs of the City ; but there is a force of characterisation iu the tale that impels the reader onwards. We confess to liking best the " ne'er-do-weel " Alfred Mostin, one of those luckless individuals who has no conception of money obligations, but can help, and is ready to help, everybody but himself. " The man did not exist who could have made a good thing of life for this All Mostin, since had any one handed over to him a fine estate, he would, without indulgence in a single vice, so called, soon have muddled it away." The best point of his nature is its unselfishness, and in this respect he contrasts strongly with the City personages of the tale, one of whom expresses his con- viction that "the moment when a man forgets himself and commences to think of others, is the moment when he takes his first step towards ruin." Certainly, Mr. Pousnett, "the Senior Partner," never forgets himself, and the method of ac- quiring wealth he is represented as adopting is probably familiar to many commercial charlatans. It is essential to the plot that M'Cullagh's eldest son should rise to the post of manager in Ponsnett's house, which is one of the largest in the City, and also that he should be received as a junior partner; but the improbability of so weak a man ever attain- ing such positions in real life will strike every reader. No doubt, Pousnett makes a tool of Robert, as he wished to make a tool of Mostin ; but his conduct towards these young men is wanting in verisimilitude, for the reputation of his firm would seem to have been as high as that of Overend and Gurney, before the memorable failure of that house. A good deal of labour must have been expended on this tale, but the result is scarcely satisfactory. The moral of the writer, if there be one, • 1. The Senior Partner. By Mrs. J. H. Riddell. 3 vols. London : Bentley & Son.
2. Two Rival Loves. By Annie L. Walker. 2 vols. London : White and Co.
3. The Bride's Pass. A Novel. By Sarah Tytler. 2 vols. London : Chatto and wind,,.
is to exhibit the iniquity of trading under false colours, and with other folk's money. There is something like personal feel- ing in the invective launched by Mrs. Riddell against limited liability.
Two Rival Loves is a story more remarkable for the interest attaching to two or three of the characters than for originality of plot, though the arrangement by which the hero, Hugh Marston, is enabled to keep an estate, which neither he nor the reader believes to be his rightful property, is not without ingenuity; and the hearty earnestness with which the young hero strives to make a beggar of himself is a novel feature also, and would be stranger still, were it not prompted by his love for a young and beautiful widow. Virginie is delightful, and Marston would have been strangely constituted, if he had not felt her charms. How unfortunate that she, who was his junior in age, should be his aunt by marriage ! He frets at the relationship, and when a mysterious man appears in the village, who intimates on his death-bed that Hugh is neither the heir of Summerwood nor related to Virginie, he devotes all his energy to unravelling the mystery. Before the advent of the young Frenchwoman and her little girl, Hugh's every.thought had been devoted to his mother, a woman of strong will, who could love passionately, and hate with equal energy. She is a helpless invalid, but rules her household notwithstanding, and expects from every one implicit obedience. Hugh is her idol, and never for a moment has the son thwarted his mother's wishes, until the appearance of a rival love. Then he feels as if a new life had begun for him, with new claims and duties. He loves his mother still, but another love takes him from her side, and Mrs. Marston's cruel conduct to Virginie makes his resolution all the stronger to devote himself to her interests. The mother feels that a change has come, but does not see that her own jealousy and injustice have caused it. The struggles of the proud woman to retain her influence are described with great force, and many of the subordinate characters have a reality and charm which make the reader ask whether their existence is confined to the pages of a novel P We seem to be already acquainted with "Miss Lydia," but if that kindly, fussy little woman have her prototype in former novels, Lucilla, though slightly drawn, strikes us as fresh in conception. She is a girl to be liked and loved, and one feels sorry, on reaching the end of the story, to find her still unmarried, although she has a devoted admirer in George Gardiner, one of the best fellows in the world. It is evident, though Hugh does not know it, that he has touched Lucilla's warm heart, and that a little time must be allowed for the impression to subside. Of course, she will marry George some day. It would be unjust to Miss Walker to tell more of her story. Enough to say that the man must be a hardened novel-reader who will read Two Rival Loves without emotion and pleasure. The author, moreover, knows how to write English, an accomplishment too often neglected by the followers of her craft.
Several years ago, Miss Tytler published a charming story, which sufficed to win a reputation. Of Citoyenne Jacqueline she deserves to be called the author ; of The Bride's Pass she is simply the manufacturer. The book, despite some excellent features, must be pronounced a clumsy piece of goods, weak and extrava- gant in plot, and weak for the most part in the representation of character. The scene is laid in the Highlands, and a redeeming feature of the story is to be found in the vivid sketches of moun- tain scenery and of Highland manners. But in these sketches, as elsewhere, the writer is apt to prose and to dawdle. She moves slowly when her action should be swift and decisive, she stands still to describe or to moralise at the moment when her plot has reached a crisis. In The Bride's Pass, the hero of the tale, Frank Tempest, is tried for murder, an incident by no means rare in fiction ; but we never remember reading a trial of the kind described with so weak a hand. Then, too, we meet with wearisome descriptions of people who take but a slight part in the action of the story, and there is no beauty in these pictures that induces us to linger over them. The period of the tale, by the way, is laid fifteen years ago, but Miss Tytler conveys the impression that the events she records took place much earlier. We are told, for instance, that country- town solicitors "were distinguished fifteen years ago by linger- ing local extremes of rank and personal refinement, or their opposites ;" whereas, we venture to say that so brief a period has made no change whatever in the habits and peculiarities of the class. But the slight artistic defects of the novel, its occa- sional inaccuracies of language, and even its too obvious pad- ding—a fault rarely quite absent from stories published in periodicals—would be overlooked by the critic and forgiven by the novel-reader, if the chief characters and incidents were true to life, and possessed a powerful interest. The Bride's Pass is, at best, a mildly-attractive story, formed out of occurrences with which all readers of fiction are familiar. Unah Macdonald, the heroine, is the shy daughter of a country clergyman, who, in her mountain home, has acquired a con- siderable knowledge of all the natural objects around her. She is a heroine who begins her ephemeral life as an unformed and rather awkward girl, with a forehead too big and a peaked chin too small, but grows up into a beauty. Her cousin Donald, the laird of Drumchatt, a sickly youth, who seems doomed, like the rest of his family, to an early death, is the girl's chief companion; and the time comes when, owing to Mrs. Macdonald's finesse, he asks her to be his wife. Unah is fond of Donald as a boy-friend, but has no deeper feeling for him, and when a handsome and healthy young Englishman appears upon the scene, she is led to dis- cover imperceptibly the difference between friendship and love. Frank Tempest and Unah are frequently thrown together, and the young man's impetuous disposition and ardour of passion lead him to disregard altogether the prior claims of Drumchatt. Miss Tytler raises the question whether a girl who has formed an early engagement without knowing her own mind, and afterwards discovers that her heart is in another man's keeping, is justified in confessing her mistake. Her conclusion is that a woman ought, as Unah did, to keep loyally to her vows, and that broken pledges are more likely to work misery than un- satisfied affections. Unah, we are told, reverenced her word, and " had a very Christian conviction that she could, by higher help, control her own inclinations." Probably no general rule can be laid down, and each case of the kind must be judged of on its own merits ; but it seems scarcely consonant with the highest morality that a woman should keep pledges outwardly, and take vows upon her which she has broken in heart. Donald Drumcbatt in the tale is a poor, selfish sort of fellow, entirely absorbed with his own affairs and ailments; but it was scarcely fair, even to such a lover, to give only such service as Unah's kind nature prompted, " while her heart was sore for another love." The climax of the plot is little less than monstrous. That the impetuous passion of Frank Tempest should have caused the death of Donald is within the range of possibility, but that, after seven years' penal servitude, he should be accepted by Unah as her second husband, is an instance of the straits to which the manufacturers of novels are sometimes reduced. We may add that the whole interest of the tale rests upon the for- tunes of Unah. The minor characters, although in some cases described with much elaboration, are scarcely better than lay figures.
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