OUT OF THE MESHES.* Tars book can scarcely be called
a novel, but it is a very lively though perhaps not a very impartial sketch of the
* 04 of the Meehes. A Story, 3 TOW, Lyndon; Tinsley,
character of English administration in India, by some clever man who, while he despises the military administration much, despises the civil administration more. The story is of the very slightest and most confused kind,—the importance attach- ing to its principal incident being scarcely intelligible, thoroughly unnatural and provoking, aud yet beaten out like goldbeater's skin over three volumes destitute of any secondary plot, or in- deed of any narrative interest other than that which belongs to the anticipation of the mutinies of 1857. Nothing can be more silly and vexatious than the conduct of the romantic hero of the tale, Captain Ashleigh, in the presence of an imaginary diffi- culty which had ceased to be a difficulty at all at the time when be allows himself to be beaten by it. Indeed this one attempt of the author at drawing an ideal character is a complete failure, if at least it be a failure to make an ideal character wholly unreal. Captain Ashleigh is unreal from beginning to end, nor is there anything to choose between the hero and the plot, which is also unreal, as well as wiredrawn and vexatious.
But when once we put the romantic elements out of view, and look at the lively and cynical sketch of Anglo-Indian society in India, the book cannot be denied to have great ability and vivacity. No doubt the reader feels in every page, " If Anglo- Indians are for the most part like these people, how could our empire have lasted, we do not say for near two hundred years, but for even a decade?" And, as a matter of fact, whatever be the shortcomings of Indian civil servants and Indian officers, no one who knows either service will hold Mr. Livorsege and Mr. Palmer Brown fair specimens of the one service, or Colonel Boshington, or even Major Pulfingtou Belper fair specimens of the other. That all these sketches are lifelike and perhaps not even caricatures in themselves we do not at all dispute, though if this be so, it can scarcely have been justifiable to portray any living persons in pages of this kind, where they may perhaps be recognized, and where, if recognized, they cannot but become ridiculous or odious to the reader without their having any power of reply or self-defence. But whether this be so or not, we are very sure that Anglo-Indian society must have far better elements mingled with puppets such as these, or our empire could never exhibit the tenacity and vitality which even our present author admits and wonders at. That, for instance, the characters ascribed in these pages to Lord Dalhousie and Lord Canning are palpably and grossly unfair, —by defect rather than by excess,—seems certain. But we do not doubt that the sketches of the fast young civil servants and the pert young officers, of the fat diplomatic secretary who is made up of shams, of the Sudder judge promoted to the residency of Nawaubgunge who is ruled by his wife as completely as was Bishop Proudie by the late Mrs. Proudie, of Major Pulfington Belper, and of Charlie Simpkin, are all lively and true enough to some originals. Still, when Anglo-Indian society is pictured as made up entirely of imbecility or dishonesty tempered only by ability and self-restraint in the person of one unreal and romantic shadow, one cannot but see that the picture is not only false, but must even be recognized by the anonymous and lively author as on the whole an unfair one. That there are Mr. Palmer Browns in the service, and that they are too often promoted and petted in direct proportion to their hollowness and unscrupulousness, we do not doubt, for is it not so in England also ? But that without a very large proportion of better materials to mingle with them, the Mr. Palmer Browns of society would soon be cast out and trodden under the foot of men, in India no less than in England, seems to us certain too.
With these somewhat obvious qualifications, we may say freely that the volumes before us, if somewhat spun out, are exceedingly lively and pictorial. The raillery of the ball-room, the chaff of the club, the banter of the officers' mess are admirably rendered, and the physical conditions of Indian life are reproduced with singular vividness and force. Moreover, the heroine herself is a very lively bit of painting. She is made really fascinating, in spite of her instability and coquetry, and the reader is not expected to take her fascinating qualities on the personal assurance of the author. Miss Sophy Brabazon is not, indeed, a very careful or thorough study, but she is thoroughly living and taking so far as she is painted at all,—barring, perhaps, her very impossible and unnatural imbecility on the day of the mutiny at the crisis of the plot. Mrs. Liveraege, the civilian Mrs. Proudie, is not so good. There is no motive for her excessive malignity; and for so blind and poor a creature there is too much obstinacy and too little cowardice in the closing scene. Perhaps the best sketch in the book is the sketch of the grotesque old Major, at once kindly and selfish, at once stupid and clever, helpless and rash, awkward, blundering, self-asserting, undignified. The only fault is in making him so utterly craven when Mrs. Liversege, the Resident's wife, so shamefully and unblushingly insults him. If we understand the Major at all, be was not the man to lay aside his commanding officer's pride in the presence of a scold, however powerful. We give a portion of the scene de- scribing the ball at which the mutiny was to take place as a specimen of the author's graphic power. The lighter conversa- tions, which are in fact his best work, are few of them intelligible out of their context :—
"Mr. Liversege, on the other hand, viewed the state of affairs with other eyes besides those of the Captain. He had seen a marked change in the natives for some considerable time. A friend had written to him long ago from Delhi, that ever since a certain decision about the succes- sion there had been settled by Government the natives talked openly of the Palace plots. And similar rumours came from the neighbourhood of the King of Oude. The Resident had never liked Fuzl Ali, and had no confidence in him whatever; whereas, on the other hand, he had such an opinion of Captain Ashleigh's judgment that he thought he would never hazard a conclusion without just grounds. The ball must be put off. It was untimely. It was unsafe. Never in his married life was Mr. Liversege more nearly becoming a free agent than now. But again the famous system of 'double government,' of checks and counter- checks, told on him ; as fatally perhaps as it did upon poor Lord Can- ning in the face of the mutinous 19th. And when Mrs. Liversege found that the inspiration of her husband proceeded chiefly from Captain Ashleigh, she dexterously gave her husband a very exaggerated version of the conversation that had taken place between the Captain and herself, at least of such portions of it as she thought would set her husband against the Captain ; and it must be owned that when he heard that he was represented as a shallow schemer who had climbed to a high post on the political ladder merely to make his incapacity more conspicuous and his downfall more summary, the worthy Resident of Nawaubgunge was very much incensed indeed, and I do not think that in this he was unreasonable. And so to-night the scared ladies put on their ball-dresses and the officers their full uniforms, and the English homes of Delhi are smoking, and the great magazine is a blackened ruin, and Willoughby, its brave defender, is no more ; and frightened ladies are scouring the open country ; and the officers of the expiring East India Company are lying down side by side with their assassins, or hastening in harness to their last parade amid the well-known signals of burning houses and dropping musket-shots ; and Canning and Prettijohn are assuring the timorous that their fears are exaggerated ; and John Lawrence and Montgomery are preparing to paralyze half the Bengal Army by a rapid stroke, and Henry Lawrence is fortifying his Residency and getting in- his grain, and the empire of Clive has broken out into flames ; and the fiddles of Nawaubgunge are playing merrily, and the Nawaub's ball- room is brilliantly lighted and profusely spread with flowers ; and the Nawaub in gold embroidery and velvet is paying a Persian compliment to Liversege Sahib, the Preserver of Order and Content and Happiness ; and Fuzl Ali is drilling a body of ruffians to rush in at twelve o'clock with their swords and targes. The wily Fuzl Ali has been scheming for many months, and now it appears his schemes are ripe."
There is still one defect to notice, a Thackerayish mannerism, which fills up scores of pages with reduplicated illustrations taken from the imaginary feelings of imaginary representatives of differ- ent ranks of society concerning some breach of the artificial con- ventions which constitute their favourite snobbery. This sort of thing, for instance, is very tiresome, and excessively common in our modern novel :—
" From the tendency of these remarks, and from what you know before- hand of her character and views, it will be judged that Mrs. Liversege was not at all well pleased to hear that Captain Ashleigh was engaged to be married to Miss Sophy Brabazon. It would be more correct to say that she was half frantic. Imagine the feelings of the Countess of Zany, when sho hears that her daughter is engaged to the Honourable Tom Noddy, instead of Lord Hoddy Doddy, his eldest brother ! Fancy Mrs. Mac Daft, the widow of the Glasgow millionnaire, when hor daughter consents to marry a painter in preference to the Honourable Captain Ninny-Hammer, a sprig of Scotch nobility ! Think of the wife of the Bishop of Bedlam, when her fond child has accepted the Rev. Lazarus Nizy, and jilted the portly Prebendary Dives Dunderhead ! Think of plain, pious Mrs. Looby, when her Hepsibah has eloped with that foreign nobleman, the Conte Maclean, instead of becoming the help- mate of the Rev. Rantipole, of the United Independent Jobbernowls ! I say, think of the several agonized, angry, indignant states of feeling of those excited, warm-hearted, sage, loving mothers, and by adding them all together, I do not think you would have a sufficient conception of the feelings of Indian ladies of the stamp of Mrs. Liversege, when they find out that their young ladies have preferred rouge to noir, arms to the toga, the subaltern's shell jacket to the civilian's coat."
Lord Hoddy Doddy and Mrs. Mac Daft, and Mrs. Looby and Prebendary Dives Dundershead, and the Rev. I-evarus Nizy, are specimens of exercises of satirical invention in the naming art of a kind which seemed to us exceedingly feeble, even in the case of the great satirist who first introduced this sort of " padding" into his stories. But in imitations, they are insup- portably wearisome and vexatious, and carry an air of pert satisfaction with them which enhances their irritating character. The author of these lively sketches of character and scenery can do far better than he has done here. But we willingly admit that his book is full of talent, and that, with very little skipping,—no skip- ping except where our author has obviously resorted to a borrowed style of padding for his story,—we have read it through, with interest, amusement, and not without instruction.
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