LANCELOT WARD.* Tuts story presents a more hopeless farrago of
worn-out incidents, shadowy characters, and dull, but malicious political disquisitions than is often presented even in Tory political novels. The style and grammar, as Well as the substance, of the story would lead one to suppose that it was culled from the pages of one of those mysterious publications, the penny dreadfuls. The hero of the book is a young north- country squire, with the "proud, fearless, impulsive carriage of an English country gentleman "—(the English country gentleman will be glad to hear himself described as impulsive)- " who impressed you at first-sight as being no ordinary man." The impression could only have been at first-sight, however, for a more ordinary young man, except in his uncalled-for exit from the world, is not often to be met with, even in the pages of a novelist. We beg pardon. He has one extraordinary trait. He has a perfect passion for soliloquising. No small part of the book is taken up with the lengthened harangues to which he treats himself for the benefit of the reader, of which notes of exclamation, queries, had language, and bad grammar form the staple. He bahs ! like a lamb; forsooths ! like an Elizabethan tragedian ; thanks the Lord ! like a parson ; and damns ! like a trooper, all to himself, and in a mixture of the most colloquial and magnificent language. On one page he informs us " what infernal nonsense these early marriages are," while on another, as his dog begins to growl when he is in bed, he remarks to him- self, "if it's thieves after the poultry, they may loot the hen- house, for aught I care ; I'm too tired to rise." But if he talks " book " in soliloquy, he certainly cannot be accused of doing so in dialogue, as this highly educated gentleman, when his interlocutor, with a kind of wit that is a good sample of the author's success in that line, describes the name of a place as " something like murder-the-Devil,' " suggests " Merthyr- Tydvil, likely." This "infernal" soliloquiser, as he would apparently describe himself, is engaged when the book opens in a for a high-souled-English-country-gentleman not very creditable flirtation carried on by pink notes, and meetings in woods, and so forth, with a publican's fast daughter, named Edith Ladyman ; but he very shortly falls in love also with a high-born, high- souled young lady, called Madeleine Hussey. This personage tells him at a dinner-party that his country life must have been a "mixture of the Georgics and the Eclogues ;" and after- wards, during a ride, harangues him on politics, and declares that she is a Conservative because " all Conservatives think like Englishmen, and all Radicals like Americans ;" not that she " means to say that all Americanism is objectionable—quite the contrary. If she were an American, she would glory in her
Americanism but you can't come in contact with any of the Radical members of the present Government without being struck by the fact that they are thoroughly un-English in their way of looking at things. They are always playing to the American gallery." And so on through a page of similar stuff, which is intended to pass, and no doubt does pass, with the stupid party, for political philosophy. When not diverting himself with the publican's daughter, or the political philosopher in petticoats, our high-souled young friend is imbued with political aspirations. In a fortunate moment the Conservative County Member retires, and the hero is asked to stand, which he does on the strength of £5,000 secretly ad- vanced by the publican's daughter, who also becomes the means of discovering a disgraceful secret about the private life of the Radical candidate, who is, of course, a cad and a scoundrel; and so the great Conservative cause triumphs through beer and scandal.
The source of his money and his victory are, however, quite unknown to Lancelot, who, before the election is over, though he carries the publican's daughter's handkerchief in his pocket, becomes engaged to the political philosopher. It is fair, how- ever, to say that, after this event, he thinks that to compare the latter to the former is " to compare the moon to a candle, or • Lancelot Ward, M.P. : a Lore Story. By George Temple. William Blackwood and Boas, 1884.
the sun to a kerosene lamp." Eventually, owing to the kind machinations of Madeleine's aunt, who makes her believe that Lancelot has been "going it" in gambling and drinking, as well as with the publican's daughter, the engagement is broken off. Lancelot then discovers that he owes the five thousand pounds and his seat in the House to Edith Ladyman, and also that she is dying of love for him. Accordingly he marries her. The day of the wedding he hears that Madeleine had only broken off her engagement because she believed ho was in love with Edith ; and this proud and high-bred Conservative Member promptly cuts his throat in his dressing-room, kindly leaving a note behind him, addressed to his wife, to inform her that he " had given her all he had to give, and that was his name." The tragic character of this catastrophe leaves the reader perfectly unmoved, for so badly is the story told, that the writer somehow gives the impression through the first three- quarters of the book that the hero was equally in love with both heroines, sometimes at the same time, sometimes in turns, but that he was never really in love with either. His desperate love for the one when he is married to the other is, therefore, as surprising as the Conservative Party's sudden affection for Redistribution when it is in possession, or can be in possession at pleasure, of the Franchise. To end this story in a suicide is very much the same as if Boa and Cox had ended in the murder of Box by Cox, or Cox by Box, or both by Mrs. Bouncer. Nor is this sudden catastrophe itself well conceived. Bloody details do not constitute tragedy. When we are told that when "they took her (Edith) up her face and arms were covered with her husband's blood," we feel a sense of disgust, not of horror or pity. We are not in the least moved, except, perhaps, to regret that the author has missed his vocation in becoming a novelist, instead of a reporter in the Police News, or a butcher.
It must be understood that the comparison of the story to Box and Con was strictly limited in its scope, and was not in- tended to imply that the book is funny. Far from it. The writer's notions of comedy seem to be as crude as his notions of tragedy. He appears to think that he has made the Earl of Eglamonr, Lancelot's rival for the female Con- servative philosopher, a mighty funny fellow because he "asked a Bishop if he ever went to the Alhambra, and invited him to dine with him at the Criterion the following night." So funny is this, that not only does his Lordship bury his face in his hands when some one related it to Lancelot in his presence, but Lancelot himself has to repeat it to Madeleine's guardian, as the best of introductions. It is a great hit, too, to make a man retire from Parliament because "it's too rowdy. They're all alike. Gladstone, and Chamberlain, and Dilke, on the one side, Churchill and Wolff on the other, not to speak of Parnell, and Biggar, and Healy, and the rest of these Irish ruffians."
But this is nothing to the excruciatingly funny description by the Earl of Eglamour of his visit to the House of Lords. " Thought I was laid in the family vault and surrounded by my buried ancestors. It gave me the blues. Felt inclined to ask the old gent on the woolsack to oblige with a comic song, just to make things a little more pleasant you know, but did not exactly like." No wonder poor Lancelot was thrown into the shade by a dazzling wit like that. No wonder that in such company at dinner, during a " Lucullian repast," the wines transported our hero "in imagination to many a Rhenish hillside, and many a vineyard of Champagne."
The other comic characters are, perhaps, even more depressing. But the general dullness is agreeably relieved by the elegant style of writing, and the accuracy of the writer. French is freely sprinkled dyer the pages, and it is refreshing to hear that Madeleine's mother was "fat and stumpy, and altogether
bourgeois." We must not be too exacting. The author can use a French dictionary, and find that foot-warmer is called a chauffe-
pied ; but he really cannot be expected to refer to a grammar to find out how to make adjectives agree with their substantives in gender. We might as well expect him not to spell the name of Mr. Moody, of Moody and Sankey, as "Moodie," or to explain the remarkable statement that some one had " given " some one else "material enough away with him to fill three volumes, far less two columns."
But we have lingered too long over a book in which the tragic element is commonplace, out of place, and exaggerated; while the comic element is dull, silly, and vulgar, and in which the style is slipshod and yet stilted, and the story stupid.
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