RECENT NOVELS.*
MRS. OLIPHANT is beyond all doubt the most versatile of living novelists, probably the most versatile novelist we have ever had. In saying this we do not forget the late Lord Lytton, who was equally at home in the realm of romance, peopled by beings like Mejnour and Margrave, and in the prosaic world of fashion, in- habited by Pelham and his friends; but we can track Lord Lytton's individuality through all his books, for his most cunning disguise is not cunning enough to hide it. With Mrs. Oliphant it is different. In her books we find a like variety of theme and handling ; but we also find a variety which is much more inexplicable. Such works as A Beleaguered City and A Country Gentleman and his Family are not merely unlike each other; they are unlike with a kind of unlikeness which would forbid the hypothesis of identity of authorship, were that identity not an obvious fact. There are, at the fewest, two Mrs. Oliphants in the field ; and it is the shrewd, observant, and, in the loose, popular sense of the word, unimaginative Mrs. Oliphant whom we meet with in the pages of The Second Son. As a matter of fact, the novel is highly imaginative, for only by a very sustained effort of imagination could the author have succeeded in rousing and maintaining our interest in a set of people who in real life would be considered irredeemably commonplace; but the faculty at work is that which Mr. Ruskin calls "imagination penetra- tive,"—the imagination which enables us to realise the actual rather than to see the invisible. Perhaps the character who is intrinsically most interesting, because, though a very unpleasant person, he has more life and spontaneity than the rest, is Mr. liitford, the obstinate, bad-tempered, irrational father of the three young men, Roger, Edmund, and Stephen. His estate is unentailed, and the story hangs upon the action of the wrong-headed old man in disinheriting his eldest son, Roger, a very true-hearted, if not specially brilliant young fellow, because he discovers that he has proposed marriage to pretty Lily Ford, the petted, vain, and over-educated daughter of one of the servants on the estate. Edmund, the second son, bravely refuses to abet his father's wicked folly by stepping into Roger's place, and the heirship passes to the youngest son, Stephen ; Mr. Mitford's well- deserved punishment being the discovery, made too late, that his successor has also been a suitor of the fair Lily ; that he has been successful where Roger has been unsuccessful; and that he, too, had not only asked but won the girl's consent to be his wife, only, however, that under cover of the promise of marriage he might effect her ruin under circumstances so disgraceful that, had he accomplished his purpose, the hitherto honourable family name would have been indelibly stained. The story, though not absorbing, is decidedly interesting ; and it owes its interest almost entirely to the very delicate delineation of the characters of the brothers Roger and Edmund, who are redeemed from real commonplaceness by an inherent nobility which does not strive or cry, but is rendered pathetically impressive by its very reserve,—its incapacity to put inself in evidence. Mrs. Oliphant has written many more striking books than The Second SOM but her work, good as it always is, has seldom been more finely finished than it is here.
His Cousin Betty is very different from the book just noticed, but it also is an admirable novel, fresh in conception and artistic in execution,—an expression of opinion which will surprise no reader of that delightful story The Bose Garden, the only pre- vious work of the author with which the present writer is acquainted. We have spoken of the novel as fresh in concep-
* (1.) The Second Son. By Mrs. Oliphant. 3 vols. London : Macmillan and 00.—(2.) His Cousin Betty. By F. X. Peard. 3 vole. London ; R. Bentley and Bon.—(3.) A Double Wedding. By the Author of "&. °lave's." 3 vols. London : Hurst and Blackett.—(4 Every Inch a Soldier. By M. J. Col- quhoun. 3 'PAS. London 'Matto and Wiudus.--(5.) Seth'e Brother's Wife. By Harold Frederic. 2 vols. London : Ohatto and Windos.—(6.) Countess Irene. By the Author of "Lauterdale." 3 vols. Edinburgh and London W. Black- wood and Bons.—(7.) The Heir of Linne. By Robert Buchanan. 2 vols. London : Chat° and Windt's.
tion, though the author has certainly taken a hint from Much Ado about Nothing ; but it is only a hint, and in the story the devices which bring the hero and heroine together have for a long time a terribly disastrous result, the book being saved, literally by fire, from inclusion in the category of stories which end badly. Betty, the blunt, impetuous, half-boyish, but wholly gently-bred and loveable heroine, does not seem at all a likely person to be drawn to the quiet, prim, and at first sight rather priggish hero, John Leyburn ; and, indeed, the acquaintance of the cousins—for such they are—begins with a quite unreason- able amount of dislike, not to say hatred, on Betty's side. It happens, however, that just after John has bidden farewell to Betty for an indefinite period, he is struck down by a cowardly blow intended for another, and for weeks plays the part of invalid with Betty in the role of nurse. It is not always true that pity is akin to love, but it is certainly alien to hatred, and Betty and her cousin John are on the way to an honest, unsentimental liking for each other, when a new character appears upon the scene and diverts the current of events. Horatio, Hume, John's widowed sister, is bent upon securing a suitable wife for him, or, rather, a suitable sister-in- law for herself ; and in Betty she thinks she has found the object of her search. It is at this point that the author utilises the hint from Much Ado about Nothing. Very cunningly poor Betty is persuaded that John is in love with her, and still more cunningly—for this feat requires greater delicacy of treatment —John is persuaded not only that Betty loves him, but that she expects him to make her an offer of marriage. The stratagem succeeds ; but before the wedding, John has discovered one half of the truth, and shortly afterwards Betty discovers the other. The situation is both interesting and pathetic, for the poor girl has given the love which she has believed to be spontaneously sought, while the man's passion is only less absorbing and less certain of itself because it has been artificially forced into a hurried maturity. We will not tell more of the story, which from this point onward becomes less and less dependent upon mere incident ; but it is difficult to praise too highly the deftness, the subtlety, the fine imagina- tive insight which mark the book from the time when the hero and heroine are drawn into the wretched labyrinth, to the happy day in which, having threaded all its devious mazes, they emerge upon the bright open land which lies beyond. His Cousin Betty is one of the very few stories based upon a mutual misunderstanding which do not make us first irritated and then positively angry at their crass absurdity ; but it is something more than this,—it is, whether regarded from the intellectual or the literary point of view, a singularly able and attractive novel.
A Double Wedding is a very pleasant and prettily told story of an Eden and a serpent. The Eden is the rectory of an English country parish ; the serpent, a remarkably attractive and fascinating as well as subtle creature, is Miss Seline Consett, who is invited by the Rector for a visit of indefinite length because she is the daughter of the old friend of his youth who is fighting for his country in India, and is compelled to send his girl home to England. The Rector's own two girls, simple- minded and true-hearted as they are, receive the new-corner as a sister ; and she, in return, steals the lover of one, and does her beat to wreck the married happiness of the other, always working her evil will with that uncanny cleverness which prevents her from ever putting herself obviously in the wrong. Seline, with her gaiety, her pretty ways, her perfect taste, and her utterly unscrupulous selfishness, is an admirably drawn portrait, which is all the more satisfactory because it occupies just enough space upon the canvas and no more, falling naturally into a group instead of standing aggressively outside of it. Equally able, though less superficially striking, is the portrait of Rowland Berrithorne, the utterly worldly, popularity-hunting curate, who purrs complacently over the large offertories secured by his pulpit eloquence ; and the fault-finding, mischief-making Lady Matilda is also an unequivocal success. Perhaps, when com- pared with these more or less objectionable people, the pleasant and admirable characters are a little flat and flavourless, but this is so usual, that it is hardly worth remarking upon ; and, indeed, it is difficult to make any remark about A Double Wedding which is at once just and seriously disparaging.
Every Inch a Soldier deals with military life in India just before and daring the great Mutiny, and we are informed, by some who speak with authority that the author's stage " proper- ties " and "business" testify that he—or she—is by no means
"native and to the manner born." If this be so, it is, of course, a fault; and it is not the only fault, for many of the characters are unreal, many of the incidents improbable, not to say impossible, while the construction of the book is sadly wanting in both symmetry and proportion. Still, while it is a melancholy fact, which we have more than once had to dwell upon, that many virtues do not suffice to make a novel readable, so, on the other hand, it is a compensating fact that many faults do not inevit- ably make a novel dull ; and in spite of all its defects, Every Inch a Soldier has enough life and stir to wile away a few hours very pleasantly. When the Mutiny is reached, the material itself is so exciting that hardly anything is demanded from the artist, because the story makes itself; but even while we are working our way to the great crisis, we have no sensation of weariness. We cannot say that such artistic materials as the hidden treasure, and the witch, and the supernatural manifestations, and the philanderings of the disgusting and, happily, impossible Louisa Page, are in them- selves interesting, because we feel they are not anything of the kind ; and yet somehow they are made interesting for the moment by sheer vivacity of narration. Probably most readers of the more cultivated class will, on reflection, feel rather ashamed of having enjoyed Every Inch a Soldier; but the fact that they have enjoyed it—and in the majority of instances it will be a fact—must certainly be placed to the author's credit.
Mr. Harold Frederic seems to be a new American novelist, and he is evidently a writer from whom, if we are not much mistaken, good things are to be expected. If Seth's Brother's Wife is, as it appears to be, a first book, its maturity, both in the matter of substance and style, is certainly remarkable. It has neither amateurish weakness nor amateurish exaggeration ; there is no fumbling, tentative work ; the author evidently knows just what he wants to do, and he does it simply and in a direct, businesslike fashion. The book has the fine finish which is-charac- teristic of the work of the new American school of novelists, but Mr. Frederic, unlike some of his contemporaries, has provided himself with material which is worth finishing. True, the girl Annie, who is a comparatively subordinate character, and, in a less degree, Seth's brother Albert, are the only persons in the book who have even a touch of the heroic, and perhaps of Albert even this is too much to say ; but every one of Mr. Frederic's men and women is a being of palpable flesh and blood, not a shadowy, elusive, intellectual phantom. Perhaps one of the most obvious signs that the author has passed his 'prentice stage, is his studious concentration of force. He scamps nothing, but it is clear that he reserves his most strenuous energy for the portrait in which he is most interested,—that of the vain, false, and heartless Isabel Fairchild, who has secured Albert for a husband, and who does her worst to secure Seth for a lover. The type is as familiar as it is hateful, but Isabel is strongly and impressively individualised, and one scene, in which she comes forward to welcome Seth, who is—as she believes—red-handed from his brother's murder, is exceptionally powerful. Seth himself is neither a scoundrel nor, in the ordinary sense of the word, a fool ; he is at once rather an able man and a poor thing,—not an uncommon combination by any means, but still a combination which few novelists succeed in making so real as it is made here. Nor is the back- ground unworthy of the figures. The sketches of American rural life, journalistic life, and political life, are admirable, and we shall look forward with considerable interest to Mr. Frederic's future work.
Countess Irene, like its author's previous work, Caterina, is at once very brightly and pleasantly written, and very awkwardly constructed ; and we will speak of the awkward construction first, because it is the less important matter, though it is of sufficient importance to be somewhat irritating. Many admirably constructed novels have two stories which run on side by side, but in a really artistic work these stories do not stand to each other in the relation of parallel lines ; they cross and recross, and, as a rule, finally blend, vindicating by their blending the unity of the whole work. It is not so here, for the story of the Countess Irene and that of her protegee, Olga Levinsky, the young Polish singer, are essentially distinct, and the connection between them is not vital, but simply mechanical. There is even a rudimentary third story, that of Irene's sister Natalie, which has hardly even a mechanical relation to the rest of the novel, the two or three Irish chapters, vigorous as they undoubtedly are, being, in the etymological sense of the word, simply an impertinence. These things are defects which no critic can ignore; but having men- tioned them, our fault-finding ends, for if Countess Irene is a disjointed book, it is also a very pleasant one. The scene is, for the most part, laid in Vienna, and the sketches of Viennese society are not merely bright and sparkling, but give one the impression of being transcripts from life. The wilful, impetuous, irritating, but wholly likeable young Countess, who owes to her Irish blood some of her weakness and more of her charms, is much more captivating than she would be were she less imperfect; and we cannot wonder at the complete subjuga- tion of her grave and wise cousin Herbert, though he, poor fellow, has to spend all his time in rescuing her from the very awkward, though quite innocent scrapes in which she is always involving herself. Those ignoble vampires, the Denks, who— to use a somewhat bold metaphor—try to " bleed " the Countess through the weak-minded Olga, are, in their unpleasant way, equally successful; and if the story as a whole wants form, it certainly wants little else.
We think Mr. Robert Buchanan makes a mistake in describing himself on his title-page as the author of The Shadow of the Sword and God and the Man; for though these powerful romances undoubtedly constitute his first claim to the attention of readers of fiction, the mention of them brings home too forcibly the marked inferiority of his more recent work. The Heir of Linne is, however, an improvement upon some of its predecessors, for it is not absurd, like Stormy Waters, or unpleasant, like Foxglove Manor. It is melodramatic, and the treatment of the characters and situations leaves the impression that it has been written with an eye to the stage as well as to the circulating library ; but as dramatic work of a somewhat low kind it is not in- effective, and even as a novel it will be found readable by those who simply want a story which moves along briskly. The true heir of Linne, whose mother has been married though she never knew it, is a hero of the kind oftener seen behind the footlights than before them ; the supposed heir is a villain of the same type; and Willie the preacher, an amiable vagabond who has been deposed for drunkenness from the ministry of the Church of Scotland, is a picturesque deus ex machind rather than a realisable human being. Still, the book has life and vigour, and it is perfectly offenceless. We are sorry that the last remark should be necessary, but Mr. Buchanan himself has made it so.
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