MT 'UNCLE THE CURATE. * FICTION in the sense of a
story is not altogether the forte of the author of the Falcon Family. Second only to Thackeray, in some respects, as a sketcher of manners and society, his very cleverness as a delineator tells against him when the tale is to be looked at in any other light than as a medium for depicting singular characters or satirizing current * 31.3. Uncle the Curate; a Novel. By the Author of " The Bachelor of the Albany," and " The Falcon Family." Published by Chapman and Hall.
events and opinions. His slightness of matter and pointed buoyancy of style are rather defects than a merit in a work which requires, as all true fictions do, some solidity both in persons and occurrences. The compo- sition also is too artificial. Clearness, terseness, and point are there, but the effort of the writer is too obvious : a good narrator sinks himself in his subject.
My Uncle the Curate is quite equal to the writer's former works in all that regards sketches of character and pictures of life ; and it is equally readable. It is less satisfying, because neither the subject nor the matter is equal to three volumes ; and we quit its perusal with the same feeling that we rise when we "have n't made half a dinner," from all being very good but not enough of it. There is not perhaps a suffi- cient basis for a story in three volumes ; and the two leading incidents— a false accusation of robbery against the brother of the heroine, and the abduction of the heroine herself—are neither very new nor very agreeable. But the great fault of the story is a want of attraction. Partly perhaps from knowledge of the world, partly from natural bent, there is not suffi- cient interest or weight in the occurrences, or the mode in which they are arranged to form the story. We read for the writing, not for the tale, beyond that feeling of curiosity which the end of a series of events always excites. The scene of the novel is chiefly laid in Ireland ; the time is soon after the Reform Bill bad given a bad character to the Irish Members. One of the most conspicuous persons in the book is Mr. Dudley Dawson of Castle Dawson ; a man of the M.P. class, but assuredly caricatured in his Brummagem gentility, his swaggering presumption, his low tastes, and his thorough want of common honesty. " My uncle the curate " is, externally, a gigantic rough Irish parson, but with the feelings of a gen- tleman and the religious sense of a divine ; his wife, perhaps the best- drawn character in the tale, is his equal in size and good-nature, but with more shrewdness and knowledge of the world. Mr. Spenser, the rector, is the beau ideal of an Irish Protestant clergyman ; learned, re-. fined, well-bred, humane, but with weaknesses, which are necessary to set the story in motion. Besides these prominent characters, there are an Orange Grand Master, a humorous tithe-proctor, some friends of Mr. Dudley Dawson, two yachting young Englishmen, (one of whom becomes the lover,) and the family of Mr. Spenser, whose daughter Elizabeth is the heroine—and a very agreeable one; but her brother Sydney is the strongest-marked character of the family, and perhaps of the book. It will be seen that there is no lack of personages; and the story, though slight, is well enough adapted to furnish a series of sketches of Irish life in the far West : and these sketches are lightly, cleverly, and truly done. As an example, here is Mr. Dawson, in an early stage. "I must try to paint Dawson again, as he appeared on the present occasion, accoutred, it is to be supposed, rather to kill ladies than catch thieves. Take one of those stuffy, pigeon-breasted lay-figures, on whose backs the tailors of Cheapside and the Strand advertise their' fashionable attire'; clothe it in one of their flashiest blue coats with blazing gilt buttons, and let the coat hide as little as possible of a white satin waistcoat, flowered with enormous peonies; let the trousers be the glossiest black, disclosing at the feet silk stockings of a fiery flesh colour, the toes concealed by a square inch of varnished leather, the only visible portion of what is presumed to be a shoe; stud the all-too-beruffied shirt with three massive diamonds, probably not from Golconda; then whisker your Sgure at the hairdresser's next door to the tailor who supplied the coat ; perfume it with musk, or essence of lavender; feed it at the oyster-shops and Haymarket restaurants, until the cheeks become red and bloated; carbuncle the fingers with rings and the nose with brandy-and-water; then inflate it with prodigious s;alf- coneeit; animate it with a spirit of Brammagem patriotism,—any desperate non- sense will do for a political creed, any slang dictionary will furnish a vocabulary, —there is Dawson fbr you, as he approached with a strut and a wriggle to pay his homage to the fair Spensers, the elder of whom certainly returned his salute with as much contumelious disregard as a clever actress with lung study could throw into a glance and a curtsey. The younger, who most disliked him, testified her aversion less; and the coxcomb had the egregious folly to construe in his own favour the mere well-bred suppression of Elizabeth's repugnance. "The table-talk was not the most interesting: there was talk, but no conversa- tion. Those who cannot even talk are too small a minority; and Dawson WAS not one of them. He talked loud and big; making laborious efforts to appear at his ease, while manifestly out of his element in refined society, and also betraying by the incoherence of his observations and the excitement of his manner, a pre- occupation of mind, not uncommon, indeed, in men living from hand to moo and heirs apparent to estates in Chancery. As to the robbery, Dawson more feelingly than if he bad been robbed himself; be spoke of blowing up the Black Castle with gunpowder, and agreed with Sydney to ransack it the next day armed 'from top to toe.' lie was of great service to Colonel Dabzac in the eyes of the rector and his second daughter. Dabzac, though only a stiff, grim, vacant, well-dressed nobody, was a gentleman in appearance as well as position ; he was no adventurer, or roue; his knowledge and love of horses was that of a squire, not of a black-leg; and, besides, he was dis- posed to taeiturnity,—an excellent gift in men who have no bank to draw upon for pleasant discourse. He looked to great advantage beside the pre- suming, swaggering, restless Dawson; who, if he had only had the tact to sit still in his chair, and hold his tongue, would have been only one half as disagreeable as he actually was. Even Mr. Trundle rose in estimation from the same cause: bet- ter loan-funds and Loch Swilly to all eternity than Dawson's gross politeness, heartless cordiality, and the continual effort to conciliate, which had only the effect of thoroughly disgusting everybody. Mr. Spenser was not the man to have such a guest at his table: he neither knew how to silence, or how to talk to him. He would fain have shunned politics, but the conversation became political in spite of him. Dawson began by admitting that the Repeal of the Union 'Was all gam- mon; that good measures were all the Repeaters wanted: and when asked why they raised that exciting and dangerous cry, if their real object was only to carry some minor points, he made a very lame attempt to shuffle out of the difficulty; said that the more people asked the more they got, and compared it to the prac- tice of lawyers, who lay the damages in an action at twenty thousand pounds, when they only expect and would be perfectly content with a verdict for perhaps a fortieth of the sum. Mr. Spenser shook his head ; and then DaiVEZIII protested that he did not mean to justify the principle: on the contrary, be admitted it to be highly objectionable; he was always himself an advocate for plain-dealing, and would be one to the end of the chapter.
" Mr. Oliver's eye twinkled more than once during this speech of Master Dailey's."
We must take leave of My Uncle the Curate with one more speci- men, from the waiting-room of Dublin Castle. " Comedy there was strewn thickly about him: nobodies affecting to be some
bodies; people whom nobody knew pretending to know everybody; fellows taking airs of independence, who were ready the next moment to clean the Secretary's shoes if ordered to do so; men pretending to the most conscientious and exalted patriotism, yet having no other business there but to solicit remuneration for their votes at an election. Some came to ask anything; some to ask everything; some to ask nothing, but only to make it known that something would be extremely acceptable. One declared that he cared not a fig for reward himself, but his friends would never let him rest until he preferred his claims ; another thought it his duty to offer his services where he felt he might be of use to the public; a third abhorred the idea of office, but he had a sincere regard for the Whigs, and would accept any little post with a thousand a year, just to oblige them.
" Then to hear some men talk of what they had done, and what they were doing, you would have concluded that they bore the whole weight of affairs on their own shoulders, and that Viceroys and Secretaries did nothing but give din: ners. There was one man there who had been the prime mover in every event of importance which bad taken place for a quarter of a century: he had actually done nine things out of ten; and what he had not actually done he bad suggested Or advised. No matter who thundered, every clap was his; he had documents in his pocket to prove it. Then the degree of intimacy that subsisted between some of the shabbiest people present and the heads of the Government was astonishing. One of the hack writers was evidently the bosom friend of the Lord-Lieutenant, for he never called him anything but Anglesea; just as if he had been a marquis himself, instead of being little above the rank of a printer's devil.
" There was incessant ringing of bells; the Chief Secretary's bell, the Under Secretary's bell, and other bells, which kept such a jangling as was never before heard, except in a Flemish town, or in Mr. Spenser's house when his wife was hysterical. Tom Conolly pretended that he knew by the bells what the result of each interview was. If a bell rang sharply and waspishly, the last person in- troduced was no favourite; the Secretary was provoked by his application, and impatient to get rid of him. If it rang steadily and not immediately after the bowing out, an impression had been produced, and the claim was worth considera- tion. All this time the messengers and junior clerks were bustling to and fro, some with red boxes, some with black, some with bundles of papers, some taking cards and letters from those in waiting, and promising to hand them in at the very first opportunity. Dawson arrested one of the messengers, and said, in an authoritative tone, that he wanted to see Lord —.
" Impossible, Sir, today,' said the ready fellow. " Dawson blazed up, and, presenting his card, ordered the messenger to hand it instantly to the Chief Secretary; adding, so that the whole anteroom heard him, I'm a Member of Parliament.'
" Everybody looked at the self-advertised legislator; and Conolly, who was ac- quainted with everything and everybody. soon made it known who Dawson was; telling dorico of his father and grandfather, and the Dawson nose, which forced his audience to hold their sides."
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