SHERIDAN KNOWLES'S GEORGE LOVELL.
Is we judge from George Lovell, Sheridan -Knowles is not likely to achieve the same success in prose fiction that he has attained in the drama : and the reason is intelligible enough. By long precedent the drama ad- mits, if it does not absolutely require, more of the startling and impro- bable than the noveL As actions are to be shown to the spectators, they must not only be presented in the most effective way, but the character may be allowed to bottle up his intentions or his knowledge till he can let them off with the greatest pop. hi like manner, since long stories or "explanations" will not be borne by an audience, more suddenness is allowed both to action and emotion : people die, change their minds, and reform their characters, with a jumping rapidity, inadmissible "off the boards." We do not say that these things, without probability or due pre- paration, are absolutely necessary in the drama ; we only say that they are done, and defensible by unvarying precedent, not even excluding some of the inferior dramas of Shakspere. Another great difference between plays and novels is, that the drama does not seem to require, or perhaps to admit, so much of actual life, at least in the plot. Characters, sentiments, and manners, must be those of the times ; and the management of the story should be modified bythe age. An encumbering man cannot be got rid of in a brawl,— though he might have been when swords were worn; nor can a heroine be carried off in streets perambulated by the New Police. Books, or the realities of more romantic ages preserved in books, have been the quarries whence the most original dramatists have drawn their plots. Contemporary life, on the other hand, should be the main resource of a novelist ; and is so, provided we compare plays aninovels of equal de- grees of goodness or badness.
Habits of composition long continued cannot be readily changed ; nor have they been by -Sheridan Knowles in his present attempt. The form of the play is not visible in George Lovell, but the spirit of the play- wright prevails throughout. The story, so far as it has any probability at all, belongs to the past, and is borrowed from books. The characters, and still more the conduct of the characters, in telling things they should keep secret, or in speaking to 'the reader to "instil" into him the plot, are all of the stage. lfhe manner in which the persons are opposed to each other in a species of talking contest, smacks equally of the play.: but the most striking theatrical point is a kind of claptrap view of life and character, with a strong infusion of that indulgent but somewhat lax morality which if not a characteristic of players is certainly so of plays.
Old Lovell (one naturally falls into the playbill style of describing the dramatis personte) is a wealthy jeweller ; with.great objections to public education, and a disposition to make the Apostles the test of condact--- at least in others ; while Mrs. Lovell is more inclined to act up to their probable ideas, so far as she can. 'Young Lovell has been brought up under a private tutor at home ; and at the opening of the story he is
• about to start on his first journey as traveller for the • house. 'In the mail, he encounters Phcebe, the heroine ; whose parentage is unknown; through the threefold accident of a fire, -a paralytic stroke, and a sudden loss-of speech-and action in her mother. 'Phcebe has been brought -up by a poor woman, and subsequently taken under the patronage of a wit- her; but when George Lovell encounters her she is returning by coach, to her poor old friend having been _driven from her situation by the
secutions of Mr. A.rmitage, a young libertine of fortune. 'Every-
• might have gone smoothly but for the presence of .Mr. Franklin, a friend-and procurer of Armitage; who recognizes.the heroine, and par-, sues her, at first on his principal's account and subsequently on his own ; fiKile`George Lovell is ever on the Alert to baffle him. The first volume, which is occupied with this delicate ". love-chase," closes with Lovell's removing Phu& to a boarding-school kept by a friend : and there the trouble might have -ended, since both his father and mother are as much smitten as the lover himself, when -they meet her try a species of con- trivance. But there is the crying necessity Of three volumes. The pur- suit has therefore to be continued through two more ; and in this wise. Arnold, a lower sort of procurer for Armitage, personates Pluebe's father, and, assisted by a quarrel with Lovell, carries her off : -but even he is so struck- with her that he interferes as a " dens ex machina.;" until Lovell and his friends again recover the heroine ; and the novel closes with-a very theatrical kind -of poetical justice. Armitage, the better of the two -who becomes anxious to obtain Phce-be only to marry her, is-killed by two,
in.a duel; this worthy, though also designing marriage, is lamed for life, and left in poverty ; but Arnold, who has been a blackleg and worse, because he turns at last, like Joseph .Surface, a "man .of sentiment," is received as a repentant sinner, and the curtain might fall upon him.as one of a family group. Of oonrse, Phcebe's father. is Adiscovered, in-an old friend of Lovell ; and there is a marriage designed by the old folks for 'George, which serves as a cross-purpose.
'On the improbability of all this, or its utter uselessness for fiction, we need not- expatiate. The extraordinary attractions of Phcebe are such as can only exist as an exception, with every advantage of nature and fortune combined; bat .they are quite unnatural , as the produce of a--milliner's 1111! work-room. Hence, the whole pursuit is felt to be a mere common piece Of pertinacious profligacy, which the author is trying to inflate into in- terest: so that any effect the sirbject might naturally produce is lost by over-expansion and exaggeration. In point of matter, and we must say in taste of topics, George Lovell is below the common run of Minerva Press novels, and would not rank above them but for some qualities pe- culiar to the author. The clearness essential to the drama is preserved throughout. The subject may be unattractive and the style literal, but everything is presented as distinctly as if passing visibly before the eyes. Situation is made the most of : the artifice by -which it is brought about may be too transparent, but the final effect is obtained. The natural cha- racter of Phoebe, apart from its romantic exaggeration, is well conceived and well marked, in her native purity of mind, and simplicity arising from imperfect education and limited views of the world. Old Mr. and Mrs. Lovell are also consistent, and with something of novelty about them; but they owe their birth to the stage. The hearty bonhommie, the genial nature of Sheridan Knowles, pervades the book; and it.might, if anything could, give a living attraction to George Lovell.
Previous page
