CLIVER STON..
Wirm may be called the novel of mystery was fashionable among the last generation. Marriage, which usually: terminates the story of a common novel, led to the distress in the tales we speak of. True love ran smooth up to fixing the day, and then some parent or guardian interposed an absolute veto, sometimes without specifying the "just cause or impediment." This when reached, whether at once or by slow degrees, usually turned out to be of a startling kind : the father of the lover had murdered the father or some other near relation of the lady; or the affianced were, or were supposed to be, brother and sister while a writer bent upon working up the reader would actually marry the parties, and either featly remove the obstacle or drop the curtain upon a misery that was to last for life. As the incidents were extreme so was the style, which generally rose to Bing Cambyses' vein. The effect of such fictions must depend upon their novelty. Story so rare, narrative inflated, and frequently barren of occur- rences, with an explanation very often repulsive, and the whole easily contrived and executed, could only " take " while the fashion was new; and with many persons not even then. Yet Mr. Charles Mitchell Charles, though evidently a person of ability, and seem- ingly capable of better things, has resuscitated this kind of style in Claverston. Old Mr. Nicol, the owner of the Claverston estate, is a moody, isolated sort of man, just after the approved fashion.• From the hour of his son's birth he neglects and soon banishes him, though he has him sent to school, and in after life sufficiently provided for. When James Nicol applies for consent to marry Emma Dottay, it is peremptorily refused; and after a while the murder literally comes out. It seems that, in early life, Nicol the elder and Douay pere and widower, were smitten with the same lady. In a fit of rage and as it turned out needless jealousy, Mr. Nicol shoves Mr. Douay down a precipice of the Alps, while he Mr. D. is geologizing. Hence the mystery, the isolation, and the forbidding the banns. The shook of confession is too much for the old gentleman ; but before his death he obtains dearer light : he sees no reason why the marriage may not take place, and the lady being of the same opinion, the tale terminates in the usual way. As long as the novel is engaged with anything bearing on the troubles which spring from the taking off of Douay, the manner is quite in the intense style. A good deal of the book is concerned with the persons and events of everyday life in the middle ranks of society. These are painted with truth, though the persons are too individual or rather single for fiction, and their doings are not of sufficient importance to interest. Mr. Charles, however, exhibits a knowledge of life and a power of presenting it, which may give rise to a much better book, if he can contrive a story of greater breadth; and if he eschew the notion which he seems from his preface to entertain, that in time the material or physical will be altogether disregarded, and the soul only be considered,—a heresy in literature, whatever it may be in religion. The drama, to which he appeals, is not a case in point. Description is there supplied by the scene-shifter, the property-man, and the bodily presence of the actor. In perusal these are referred to by the imagination. Even in plays which the writers say are not written to be played, there are always the scenes and stage-directions.
• Claverston ; a Tale. By Charles Mitchell Charles, Author of "Ramon and Catar, or the Two Bases." Published by Saunders and Otley.
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