N EW NOvELS.
THERE is vigorous stirring life from the beginning to the end of Mr. Henry Kingsley's novel ; and how indeed shouldit beotherwise, when he has got among his dramatis persome seven or eight stal- wart and high-spirited gentlemen, each six feet high in his stock- ings, besides other athletic specimens of humanity, and has given them all such a and field for the development of their restless energies as the back setttlements of Australia afforded in the early times ofj the colony ? But the goodliest group of men, in the midst of a glorious wilderness, and with wild cattle and wilder-human beasts to prove their mettle, are not enough for the novelist's purpose. To away the action of these ruder elements there must be reciprocating influences of a softer kind, and here they are provided in the necessary proportion. Mary Harker, is the Helen of the story, the primary cause of all its moving mod- dents and complex troubles. She is a beautiful girl, ill-trained, wayward, and wilful. She has for lovers no fewer than four of the six feet high gallants before mentioned, and of course makes choice of the only reprobate amongst them, who after eloping with her and quickly gambling away her fortune, leaves her and her infant destitute while he is himself arrested, tried, and transported as a coiner. Mary makes her way home on foot from London to Devonshire, to find that her father is dead, and that such of his old friends as still remain in the neighbourhood are preparing to follow the two whose unhappy passion for herself had driven them from home to seek forgetfulness and peace of mind at the Antipodes. Mary and her child accompany the emigrants, and this brings us to the end of the first volume, the most compactly constructed of the three. There is capital material in the last two volumes but the texture is somewhat loose and straggling. Dispersed through them are some admirable descriptions of Australian scenery, unmistakably original, which the reader ought to dwell on with delight, but he won't. ; nay, we fear he will sometimes be tempted to skip them, for they break the con- tinuity of a narrative which has taken fast hold of his imagination.
Whatever can be said for or against Mr. Charles Reade's new novel it is sure to be read ; for the author has found his way into the good graces of a very numerous audience. He is one of the successful few who minister precisely to the popular taste, and knowing that he is an accepted favourite, he takes all kinds of liberties, forgetting that although 'tis well to have a giant's strength, 'tis tyrannous to use it like a giant. Love Me Little Love Me Long, is a story in which there are very few characters, and almost no plot. It is that of a young heiress who has two guar- dians and a female friend, each destining her to a different suitor ; while she is more humbly sought by a gallant seaman in the merchant marine, who has the disadvantage of help from his sister the female iriendl—for she seeks to place his claims on a false issue. The book is a show up of superficiality and clap-trap, even when sincere, against the thoroughly genuine. The tale is ingeniously simple in construction ; simple even to being un- finished ; for we never lose sight of the bricks and mortar, nor of the conscious superiority of the architect who lightly cements • Recollections of Geofrey Hatnlyn. By Henry Kingsley. 3 vols. Published by Macmillan and Co. Love Me Little, Love Me Long. By Charles Beady. in two volumes. Trlibn:vi Woodleigh. By the Author of Wildflower," &c. 3 yob. 1" The Broad Arrow; being Passages from the His of Maids ateranharai Hurst and Blackett. Lifer. By Clint Kees*. In two volumes. Published by Bentley. them together before our eyes. Much attention appears to have been paid to the style, yet the sentiments are not delivered natu- rally, but with " an affectation of a bright-eyed ease." The heroine is capitally sketched, her tyranny and delicious caprice kept up to the last moment. She is a wonderful mixture of slavishness and independence. Pursued by a number of admirers, she laughs, flirts, manages, enjoys the fun, and remains heart- whole. David Dod is the hero ; he is only mate of an Indiaman, and much beneath Lucy in position. He sighs like a furnace, and for a long time without any effect on his wayward mistress ; but he is handsome, young, clever, loving, and he throws himself heart and soul into his wooing. He .is the only person in the book who is thoroughly single-minded, and so far he has a right to be successful. But in the perversity of his energy, Mr. Reade spoils his best character, by making him rough and un- couth, and by filling his month with sea-slang,—a habit peculiar to seamen of Stratford-atte-Bow or Sadler's Wells, and not the gentlemanly seaman of real life. The same inconsistencies extend to other characters. David is put into humiliating positions, such as riding on horseback with his trowsers half up his legs, and the way in which Lucy takes this contretemps is inconsistent with her pride and her rigid sense of propriety. However the love-making is far better than usual, and several of the scenes are tender, vigorous, and original. The accessories, aunt, uncle, and rejected aspirants, are so many artistic foils ; and although they are all properly accounted for, they fade from the memory like circles from the water.
" Woodleigh" is a clever novel, and not that only ; better still, it is a consistent work of art. Consciousness of power has not be- trayed the author into the common fault of overhaste to execute ill-matured conceptions. He has evidently taken the trouble in the first place to possess himself with a clear understanding of his own purposes and of the method in which they were to be worked out; and then, having laid down his plan, he has steadily ad- hered to it. The result is a sound, symmetrical, and well finished piece of workmanship. In form it is an autobiography. Robert Woodleigh. narrates the history of his life from boyhood to early manhood, and lets us fully into the secret of his own character. It is not a bad one in the main, but neither is it a pleasant one in itself or in its effects upon the happiness of its owner, poor fel- -low. He is the only son of a widowed mother in straitened cir- cumsialeas, who more than half spoils him by her fond indul- gence, and the process is completed by the injudicious but con- scientious strictness of a /stepfather. He runs away from home, reaches London penniless, and does not go to the dogs. Chance throws a generous cynic in his way who becomes his Mentor, and a prosperous uncle and cousin give him employment. The path to fortune is open to him; but his irritable, jealous, sullen tem- per, which is not at all improved by his falling in love, mars his prospects and makes him miserable for years. Still he has that in him which wins the good will and even the love of some gentle and some stern bosoms, and which comes out brightly at last when time and suffering have corrected the asperities of his na- tare. But all the interest of the tale is not confined to the cen- tral figure. With the fortunes of Robert Woodleigh are mixed up those of many other persons not less strongly individualized than himself, and who talk and act very much after the manner of real human being& There is very little of mystery or romance in the story, no melodramatic incidents nor any of an adventurous caste, with the exception of certain occurrences at Naples amidst the deplorable scenes of 1848 ; and it owes nothing of its attrac- tiveness to well-managed surprises, but rather to the art with which it keeps expectation on the alert.
Convict life in Australia is not a new subject, and it has been forcibly handled in many familiar ways. We do not prefer to see it made subservient to the exigencies of fiction, yet that is a me- thod of bringing the question before a numerous class of readers ; and where the expounder cannot obtain the machinery of a select committee, but must act upon individual responsibility, it is a safer method than direct statements of fact. One of the most re- cent publications on the topic proceeds from the pen of a lady, who speaks of what she knows, and testifies to what she has seen. The Broad Arrow is ostensibly a novel; but it is so full of such serious considerations, that we must look elsewhere if we only seek amusement and relaxation. The whole narrative is intended to illustrate the different phases of convict life in Tasmania, from the felon just arrived, to the comparatively happy " ticket-of-leave." The effect of transportation upon women is a branch of special in- 9niry, and there can be little doubt that the sad picture before us is drawn from the life. The authoress evidently knows the ground upon which she is treading, and she might for that matter be the "Bridget" of her own story, The characters are real and life- like, they have lived, moved, and had their being ; but for obvi- ous reasons they are disguised, perhaps just enough to frustrate individual recognition. They are very well selected, so as to give an idea of all grades and conditions ; but the principal object is to explain the relation between master and convict ser- vant. A convict ship is taken at the time of its arrival in Hobart Town, and on board is the heroine Maids. Gwynnham. Maida has been born and bred a lady, and, moreover, she is innocent both of the forgery and the child-murder for which she has been sentenced, though, to save the life of a " wild" lover, she has consented to lead the life of a felon. The girl who can make such a sacrifice is of course endowed with sensibilities of an unusual
order, and she suffers exquisite tortures from constant collision with the degraded beings around her. We follow her through all the stages of her career, until we are familiar with convict discipline, convict punishments, convict rewards, and—worst " circle" in all that hell—the workings of the convict heart. On the whole, it looks as if a person not over endowed with sensitiveness, and in a fair way of earning his " ticket," might have made himself comfortable in Tasmania under the transporta- tion system ; only there is this drawback,—a model master, like 'Uncle Ev, who cannot be at all singular among Tasmanians, will not allow his servants to forget their degradation. He constantly re- minds them that they are convicts, and on the least show of insubor- dination he threatens " Government" Maida is an exceptional character ; but her fellow servants are realities, and can be judged from a less exalted point of view. Uncle Ev does not succeed with his forcing system and his relentless punishments ; but his brother, a good clergyman, Mr. Herbert Evelyn, shines out like a break in the cloud. It is only fair to say here, that this gentle minis- ter is original, and not copied from Mr. Charles Reads; for the Broad Arrow was "wholly planned, mostly written, and intend- ed for publication several years age." The authoress possesses a good deal of power ; she has taken to heart all the deplorable scenes she has witnessed, and she writes with earnestness and en- thusiasm. Her style is by no means perfect; but a good purpose, like charity, covereth a multitude of sins. She sacrifices the ma- chinery in her eagerness to work out certain opinions, and al- though transportation is not a subject at this moment directly before the public, it is indirectly ; for the one colony. which re- mains open to "assignment," Western Australia, obviously can- not absorb more than a small portion of our convicts, and the prin. ciples elucidated by the Broad Arrow have to be handled with re- ference to the treatment of our convicts at home. One might suspect the writer of hoping at once to reform the convict system and to restore it to Tasmania ; but, the time for any such chance has past. Nor must the reader suppose that, with all its faults of execution, the book is only didactic or stern : there is interest in the story and the incidents, especially in the latter half ; and there is some- thing really grand in the main idea, that of a pure soul passing through such trials untarnished, and bearing back the tale to the outer world for the redemption of the fallen.
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