JAMES'S SIR THEODORE BROUGHTON.
M.E. JAMES is certainly one of the "curiosities of literature," and will so figure in literary history for the multiplicity of his works, when the works themselves are forgotten. Without that experience of stirring incident and knowledge of a remarkable kind of life and nature which the naval service impressed upon the minds of Cooper and Marryat, Mr. James holds on the "even tenour of his way" with less signs of exhaustion than they do. His subjects, indeed, have never been so lifelike as theirs, nor his matter so real; and his best works have never possessed their vigour and spirit; so that the range of his variations was much more limited— he could not sink so deep because he had not so far to fall. Still this will not explain the manner in which he speaks off readable ro- mances, several times a year, with the more than regularity of a steam- engine, for that requires rest and repairs. His knowledge of history and die manners of the past may give him greater variety, and be of the same advantage to his mind as change of posture in relieving the muscles of the body ; his acquaintance with moral philosophy, and the skilful manner in which he generally watches over the dramatis personte, and apportions rewards and punishments, may do something; but neither of these things Would avail by themselves. We suspect the secret lies in the reflection that rose to the mind of Gil Blas when he saw the thieves so dexterously concealing the ducats about their persons—" there is nothing like know- ing one's business." If he cannot rise to a structure, Mr. James is great at a plan ; and his excellence is still greater in what we may call narra- tive. We do not mean diction or composition—the mere telling of a story, but the arrangements by which the story is told. Thus, in Sir Theodore Broughton, the opening chapter, by its persons, its discourse, and its incidents, places something distinctly before the reader, and pro- mises more to come; and it does this in a readable and received way. Technicality, routine, and a mechanical manner, there may be ; there also is a good deal too much of reflection and humdrum remark throughout the book, with descriptions of a somewhat similar character : still, there is a story, planned and told with all the usual accompaniments of ro- mance, by a " man who knows his business."
Sir Theodore Broughton, or Laurel Water, is founded upon the case of Donellan, who was hanged some seventy years ago for poisoning his brother-in-law; although John Hunter gave evidence to the effect that the symptoms were not conclusive as to poison—that the post ?nor. tem appearances only indicated decomposition—in short, that it was doubtful if a murder had been committed. Some six years since this subject was chosen by Mrs. Thomson in her Widows and Widowers, but was handled very differently from Sir Theodore Broughton. Mr James has, of course, a knowledge of the age ; and he indicates it suffi- ciently both in manners and incidents ; but he does not exhibit that minute and curious painting of.character and conduct which distinguishes Mrs. Thomson's portraits of the time when " George the Third was King!' Mrs. Thomson, we think, considered that the crime had not been proved against Donellan, and that there were doubts even as to his guilt: Mr. James, from a full report of the trial, which he at last obtained, comes to the same conclusion. Mrs. Thomson felt no scruple in making her Lawson the actual mnr. derer, and in loading him with other crimes to boot ; adhering, however, to the main outline of the story. Mr. James so far acts upon his own conviction as to make the Captain Donovan of his tale only de- sign but shrink from actually perpetrating the murder, of which be is convicted by circumstances and conduct induced by his own fears. Yet greater changes are made by Mr. James : for example, be omits alto- gether the character of Lady Broughton, the murdered man's mother, to whose malignity tradition ascribed the persecution of Donellan ; and we have nothing about the prison scenes, trial, or execution. Sir Theodore Broughton, in reality, is a novel of the time 1770-80; in which a guardian, disappointed of the property he expected would have been left to him, tries various indirect modes of getting rid of the heir, by mounting him on vicious horses, and, at the opening of the tale, let- ting him go to London to try the effect of vicious courses, accompanied by a tutor of the old school—a personage who, strange as it may now seem, is rather underrated than exaggerated. This worthy, Dr. Gamble, prompts and assists his pupil to abduct a young lady in the man- ner of the times ; but their scheme is baffled by Colonel Lut- wich, one of the generous gentlemanly highwaymen of the day, with whom Kate Malcolm the abducted falls in love. Sir Theodore Broughton, however, determines not to be baffled. Gamble gets Lut- wich arrested for robbery, and extorts Kate's consent to marry Theodore on condition of keeping back the convicting witness against Lntwich. Such an agreement is of course invalid, and, as Kate turns out an heiress, both guardians, for different reasons, refuse to sanction the match. The high-spirited girl determines to abide by her promise; the vehement, vicious, obstinate Sir Theodore, is equally determined to enforce it on coming of age: Donovan, almost equally determined to prevent it, distils laurel-water, but is too infirm of purpose to use it. A malignant servant, whom young Broughton has abused and threatened, is less scrupulous ; and there is no obstacle left to the marriage of Kate and Lutwich save probability. Besides the main plot, there is a col- lateral love-story, which does not ran altogether smooth, but ends happily. Mr. James seems to have got a growing taste for the romance of the criminal law. It was but lately that he gave us the innocent convicted; now we have the guilty acquitted ; and, strange to say, the story of the highwayman Lutwich is less disagreeable than that of the wronged " con- vict,"—though fatal to the high interest of Sir Theodore Broughton. But for this blot, the novel might have ranked with the second best of Mr. James's private as opposed to historical fictions-: the age is sufficiently marked, and the persons are well discriminated—metaphysically true without the formality of metaphysics.
Previous page
