THE CHANGELING.
WANT of capital in proportion to the trade attempted to be carried on was a main cause of the failures of 1847, and the deficient novel interest of 77a Changeling originates in an analogous source. The book is too big for the story : much that is in the book in the shape of scenes and persons contributes nothing directly to the furtherance of the plot ; but resembles the masquerade or fete scenes of a modern drama, which are made to have some sort of connexion with the hero or heroine, though their principal purpose is to exhibit the " strength " of the establish- ment in dancing, singing, and decorations.
The story, too, such as it is, comes from the circulating library. The
whole plot is based upon the :tale idea of the right heir to a large pro- perty being stolen away in youth, and brought up in poverty and a dis- guised condition, by the wicked uncle who usurps the estate. An effort, indeed, has been made to avoid the triteness of this rather vulgar theme, by sinking the formal proofs and "explanations" of the common novel, passing rapidly over the particulars, and leaving improbabilities as they are. In an artistical point of view, however, this is rather disappointing than effective. The missing papers—the absent witnesses—the scent now warm, now cool, now at fault—with the varying interest as the hopes of the rightful heir seem about to be realized, or the villany of the usurper to triumph in security—may have too much the air of a re- cipe; but, like the forms of a law-deed or the critical rules for an ora- tion, they can only be advantageously dispensed with by rising above them, not by falling below them. As the author and the usurping uncle both admit in The Changeling, towards the close, that there was a mar- riage, and is an heir-at-law, we are bound to believe them; but there is no evidence of the fact, even in a well-worn certificate most providentially preserved and produced in the nick of time ; nor do we see very clearly how the last of the O'Hallarans got married at all. However, as Mr. Whaley, the uncle, confesses by silence as soon as his highminded daugh- ter tells him what she has heard, and they both die of grief, the reader must allow its truth.
It is a greater failure for the purpose of effect, that the injured in- spire little sympathy ; the wishes of the reader going the other way, in fact. The real O'Hallaran having learnt from a half-crazed peasant girl who he is, leaves the island where his uncle had sent him to live and die a peasant; embarks with a smuggler for France, where he lives alter- nately as clerk, soldier, and French litteratear. At the opening of the story, restlessness and a vague longing have driven him back to Ire- land, whither his sister Rose Dillon has also come in search of the bro- ther, who was stolen in his infancy. But little use is made of this, nothing at all as between brother and sister. The true O'Hallaran has no plan ; does nothing but disguise himself as a Ribandman and a travelling Frenchman; and is only righted at last by an accident. The author's metaphysical skill is here injurious to the work. The hero is far too like what an Irishman, with vehement passions, a peasant train- ing, and the irregular education of a French adventurer, would become, to be at all an agreeable personage. The second heroine, Miss Dillon, is a pretty amiable girl, but by no means equal to her original and intel- lectual cousin : in truth, the English reader will be apt to think it a pity that Mr. Whaley, the uncle, did not thrust his nephew into the sea, instead of merely tumbling him down the rocks when they meet at mid- night, preliminary to ending the book. These defects render the story very slow in its progress, and somewhat heavy in the perusal. The true aspect of The Changeling, however, is not so much that of a romance, as a novel of character and manners. The avowed object of the author has been to preserve a certain social state in Ireland which is now in the act of changing, and before long will vanish altogether and become of the past. The gentilities of a small Irish provincial town, mingled with the only visitors they seem ever to receive, the officers of the regiments quartered there, form one sub- ject; the other is the Irish peasantry in their virtues of territorial fidelity and hospitality, in their vices of lying and fraud for objects they con. Bider justifiable. These classes are exceedingly well sketched,—lively, true, and effective without exaggeration, while the individual persons are distinctly marked ; but, being generally made a mere vehicle for intro. diming the actors of the story, instead of directly contributing to carry it on, they have a rather literal air. Read as separate sketches, they would produce a better effect than as part of a three-volumed novel; for the mind is so constituted that it does not confine itself to what is immediately before it, but unconsciously judges by the bearing which the parts have upon the whole. " To what end does this contribute ?" is the question ever present ; and when the mind only sees a very remote purpose, a feeling approaching dissatisfaction ensues. The object of the ladies of the anonymous town of Connaught is bus. band-hunting or match-making; and parties are introduced with the view of developing their respective characters by means of their discourse. At the head of the match-makers is Mrs. Flanagan, whose abilities are known through the county, and whose authority on matrimonial topics is supreme. The following samples of her ideas are from the opening tea-party, when one regiment has just marched out of the town and an- other succeeded it.
MRS. FLANAGAN ON OFFICERS.
"I hear this is a very nice regiment, Mrs. Flanagan," Kitty continued; "loads of single men in it." "I desire, Kitty Daly," replied the person addressed, a tall, sinewy woman, with a face which wanted only the appendage of a beard to exclude its owner from all female privileges—" I desire that you'll never open your lips to me again about officers—any of you—the longest day you live ! They are a shabby, sponging set—all of their cloth ever I seen! that will eat your dinners, drink your wine, dance out your carpets, and then some fine day march off, without ever having the manners to make any return for all the civility they have been treated with ! rm heartily sorry I ever let one of them darken my doors l—a parcel of idle vagabonds, dressed out at the expense of the nation—and for what? I declare, latterly, I don't see any use in an army at all! To the last, I thought we would have made something of that confounded —5th. After the way they went on, who could dream they would have the assurance to march without 'with your leave' or by your leave!' My hearty curse after them, the schemers! wherever they go.'
MRS. FLANAGAN ON HUSBANDS.
" Pooh! nonsense, my dear ma'am," cried Mrs. Flanagan, " it's neither peace or war that make men plenty or scarce. Since ever I can remember, and that's a good fifty years, husbands were hard to be had; and if left to themselves, 'fis few of 'em ever you'd see, take my word for it! No; but I'll tell you what done it all: the men have gone to the bad entirely, ever gate they left off drinking and fighting." " Wouldn't one think it ought to be quite the other way?" timidly asked a pretty fair-haired girl, who sat a little behind the last speaker, half-buried beneath her huge sleeves. " Wouldn't one think !" repeated Mrs. Flanagan, deridingly—" wouldn't one think trash. Don't talk of what you don't understand, and I'll be obleeged to you, Anna Maria."
Mrs. Flanagan proceeded in her former oratorical and oracular style.
" I say 'tis leaving off drinking and fighting that done it; and I tell you why. A man when he's drunk says many a thing he'd think twice of before he'd say it sober; and that he'd take good care to forget in the morning, if he wagnt re- minded by a father or brother: there's nothing in the world equal to a pistol for refreshing a man's memory." " I declare then, of all things, I'd hate a man that could be frightened into marrying me!" exclaimed Kitty Daly. " Maybe so, dear; talk's cheap, at any rate," rejoined Mrs. Flanagan. " But for my part, who am not so nice, I'd be glad every girl I wish well to—and your- self among the number, Kitty—had a good husband apiece, no matter how you came by him. Believe it from me, who am old enough to be your grandmother, Kitty, there never was a man yet married a girl who wasn't frightened or bam- boozled into it. Take your choice. Coax, if you're able; why not? But faith, my dear, if you can't manage him one way, you must try the other. All rm sorry for is, they'regrown too crafty to say anything a girl's family can take hold of. There's the devil of it, ladies; God forgive me for cursing!"
MRS. F.'S BASIS.
Mrs. Flanagan's favourite maxim—the maxim—the grand leading maxim upon which all others hinged, was this—" There never was a man yet who was not the devil itself for vanity; and the ugliest crature that ever brathed, who flattered him, would have a better chance of getting round him than an angel from heaven who would take him asy: and there's no flattery equal to seeming dying for love of him."
MEMORY OF THE POOR.
In a word, Isidore M'Clintock did not look upon his tenantry merely as a machinery to procure him the luxuries of life, while he sat with his arms folded looking on; but as members of an extended family circle, over whom he WAS called to exercise a patriarchal sway—for such almost it is among the primitive of that district to which we refer; whose ardent attachment to the lord of the soil, when he at all deserves their love, is so touchingly exhibited, surviving, in some instances, the effects of long absence, and even death. Still do they dwell with a freshness and accuracy of recollection on the manners and the sayings and the peculiarities of those they loved while living, treasuring up each word and act of kindness with a tenacity of memory we would seek elsewhere in vain. The rich soon cease to remember the companion of their social hours, however agreeable, however courted; his place is soon filled up. But the poor seldom forget him who has relieved their wants. The brilliant sally may be forgotten, or be attributed to a rival wit; but the kind expression is carefully held in re- membrance, and has always its right owner. The place of him who has amused the rich will not long remain unoccupied; for pleasure and vanity can never lack votaries. But the man who has served the poor is not likely to be speedily re- placed. He surely will leave a gap after him.
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