SIR HARRY EARLSLEIGH, BART.*
" HAVING ensconced my person in the aforesaid arm-chair, my next proceeding was to apply a handkerchief to my forehead and to utter the highly significant exclamation, 'P'phew !' " In these words, on the first page of his narrative, our author has exactly expressed the emotions we continually felt during the perusal of his book. The incidents are so extraordinary, and the language in which they are described is so exaggerated, that we were for some time in doubt whether the author was not playing the public a practical joke, and had not written this veracious chronicle as a satire on the sensation novels of the day. But we soon dis- covered our mistake. It is written in sober earnest, and has for its object the exposure of the misery caused by the illegality of marriage with a deceased wife's sister. Few novels written for an express purpose are quite successful, even when the topic in question is handled with great skill and full knowledge, neither of which is the case here. In fact, the author has none of the requisites of a reformer, except, perhaps, zeal, and of that he has far too much. With the exception of a flippant account of debate in the House on this subject, he does not seek to sustain his convictions by anything approaching to argument, but is con- tent to reiterate them again and again. Perhaps he has had the old motto," Gntta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed srepe cadendo," im- pressed upon his mind, and seeks to influence his readers' judg- ment in a similar manner.
The chief points in the story are as follows :—Harry Earlsleigh is a brieiless barrister (apparently illegitimate, through being the issue of his father's marriage with his deceased wife's sister).
, The Chronicle of Sir Harry Eartsleigh, Baronet. London: SampBon Low and Co.
Going to Ireland, on a visit to a married friend, he meets at his house a girl, Clara Harcourt by name, whom he falls in love with. After saving the life of this lady an indefinite 'number of times, once in a carriage, once on a runaway horse, -once from drowning, and once from the fury of an old woman ; -after having leaped a seven-barred gate on a runaway thorough- bred, and tumbled down a precipice in the endeavour to get her a fern, and so on, he becomes awake to the fact which his readers lave known all along,—that he is madly in love with her. There being not the slightest obstacle on the lady's part (for, of course, be has long since won her heart by the above exploits), there 'would appear to be no reason in particular why they should not marry, and live happy ever after ; but the hero suddenly re- &members that the bastard curse lies upon him, that he is born to an inheritance of shame, and much more to the same effect ; and -the consequence is he bids her a heart-rending farewell, presses -her to his bosom, and departs for London, where, of course, daring his long absence clients have discovered they cannot do .without him, and he is accordingly flooded with work. We should have mentioned that the course of the above adventures ;is agreeably enlivened by frequent word-encounters, and finally, (by a free-fight, with a malevolent cousin, the present occupant of the title and estates, and as pretty a villain as you would desire to see. One of these passages is so admirable an example of Sir Harry Earkdeigh's style of conversation, that we cannot resist the -temptation of pausing to quote it. The speakers are Sir Alfred Earlsleigh and his cousin, the hero :—
", Deceive you!' he cried, with an insolent laugh that sent the blood /tingling through my veins,—' deceive the abject at my feet ! the worm beneath my heel! To what earthly purpose do you flatter yourself I could attempt deception with such as you? No, Sir, it is my wish that you should understand me; that you should understand our relative positions; that you should understand that I do not allow my actions to be questioned by persons of your condition ; that you should clearly and thoroughly understand the reward which is to follow any such
Interference Scoundrel !' I exclaimed, with what do you threaten me?' For an instant he was silent, then, injt low but distinct -tone, said, I find you here, in the bosom of a family of some position, in the full enjoyment of their respect and esteem, as an equal. Now, reflect, Sir, that one word from me regarding the circumstances of your birth would compel you to slink from that family like a mongrel cur.' I cannot convey the intensity of hatred and contempt which he threw into.the last two words, suffice it to say that so thoroughly did they arouse my indignation, that I honestly believe that, but for the intense agony I derived from the slightest movement, I should have strangled him. As it was, I could only murmur, 'Oh, that I were not maimed • thns And then, with a cry of anguish, sank back upon my seat."
Whenever these cousins meet (and they are continually meeting) -they exchange amenities similar to the above, but we must return to the story. The remainder can be told very briefly. After a -great deal of unnecessary delay, it is discovered that Sir Harry Earlsleigh's father was never married to the first sister, owing to -some illegality in the certificate ; hence, of course, Sir Harry is the rightful heir. His wicked cousin, with commendable promptitude, and not knowing that he is a hero, and consequently cannot be killed, shoots him in a wood at night ; but he is discovered by the iaithful hound of his sweetheart, who happens to be passing, and he finally gets well ; the cousin goes more or less mad, and the book ends at last. There is a minor incident, woven up with the main interest, of the betrayal, desertion, and subsequent death of -an Irish peasant girl, the seducer being, of course, the wicked cousin. Of this incident it will be enough to say that it differs in no important particular from the thousand like stories in novels -of this class. Anything like a detailed account of the gross im- probabilities with which this book is crowded would be quite im- possible in our limited space, besides being too severe a trial of -our readers' patience, but we may just mention in passing each incidents as the following :—The attempt of the wicked Baronet to kill his cousin in the first volume, totally without motive, and 'with almost a perfect certainty of being found out ; the jumping -of a seven-barred gate on a runaway horse ; the manner in which -Clara Harcourt is saved from drowning, by being held on Harry Earlsleigh's breast while he swims against a strong current, with one arm ; the manner in which the hero is shot by the cousin in the wood ; the incident of Kathleen Delany, and many other equal -absurdities. Of the utter twaddle of which the majority of this book is composed no words of ours can give an adequate con- .ception ; the following is rather an interesting passage :— " Then, with a gentleness that was most truly womanly, the dear girl rolled up the sleeves of my tattered coat and shirt. A bright blush overspread her beautiful face, as she disclosed my somewhat muscular arm, but this soon gave way to an ashy paleness, on observing the laceration, which—though little more than skin-deep—bled freely. After the examination of the wound, which was pronounced very dreadful ' by her, and laughed at heartily by me, began the operation of bathing."
The whole plot of this book is founded upon what seems to us a totally wrong conception of morality. In the prologue, a dying sister requests her husband and her sister to marry when she is dead. In the words of the author, "She asks a life of dishonour, —she asks a sister's fame." Now it appears to us that, supposing such an unheard-of request to be made, the right thing in the pre- sent state of the law would be to refuse compliance. But to our author, exactly the contrary seems right, and he can find no words to praise sufficiently an act which every moralist should condemn. Later on in the book the same error occurs ; the hero wins the heroine's love, and then leaves her, lest he should tarnish her honour by allying her to one who had his inheritance of shame. Such reasoning is absurd. But perhaps the most depressing part of this book is, not the heart-rending utterances of the hero and his querulous repinings at fate, but the portions of it in which the author attempts to be witty and epigrammatic. Take the following account of the Row on a summer afternoon :—
" Some of the finest horses and some of the worst horsemanship in the world were here, as usual, and afforded me some little amusement by their display. The frisky horse and more frisky young lady, who would gallop as if she had left her wits at home ; and the fat groom, with the face like a lobster, panting and riding after her, like an insane monkey; the man who could ride, and was so anxious that every one should know it; the man who couldn't ride, and was so anxious that nobody should know it; the young lady who had rather less idea of riding than a turtle, and who was quite overcome with the-pride that the fact inspired; the young gentleman who sat his horse like a broom- stick, looked so utterly miserable, and tried so hard to enjoy it ; the young gentleman with the stiff neck, who looked so much like a jackass that he felt quite haughty on the strength of it ; the few pretty women, and the legion of ugly ones, displaying their charms, if they had any, and their vanity, if they hadn't, were all amusing enough in their way."
It would be difficult to find a duller or more pretentious descrip- tion of a well-known scene than this.
One of the most trying habits of this young author (we hope and believe he is young) is his constant repetition of the same word, name, or phrase over and over again. For instance, we should probably be within the mark, if we stated that the hero described the heroine as "a dear girl" or "a charming girl" more than a hundred times in the course of the story. Again, in the third volume there are no less than fifty-three references to a certain laundress, Mrs. kIcGrab by name, in the course of a dozen pages. This is repeated further on, about a Mr. Quills, a lawyer's clerk, whose name occurs twenty-seven times in five pages, and is never heard of again. This, together with being habitually addressed as "Sir," as if he was the president of a meeting, will probably cause many of our author's readers to say, in Sir Harry's own words, " P'phew !" before they get through his story. The worst service we could render to our author would be to quote one of his more high-flown passages, and it would also be the worst trial of our readers' patience. It is a hard thing to say of any book, that there is absolutely no merit in it whatsoever, but, in very truth, little else can be said here. If we except a certain facility in piling up metaphor upon metaphor, and sentence upon sentence, there is nothing to denote that the writer is not the veriest tyro in the art of literature.
"The pumpkin is not much cultivated as a tree for shade," wrote Mark Twain, in his agricultural paper, and the statement, though questionably necessary, was quite indisputable. Equally clear will it seem to those who read this book that the author's wisest plan will be to write no more. There are already more than a sufficiency of bad and indifferent novelists, nothing but the best work in this line is in any way called for, and the best is so far removed from the work of this author that it seems cruel even to mention it.
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