DON JOHN.*
• Don John. By Jean Ingelow. London: Sampson Low and Co.
"Ix is in the interest of those to whom I speak, that I should read beautiful books," writes Madame de Sevigne. How ex- cellent it would be for the world to constitute itself a sort of Mutual Interest Propagation Society, by always bearing this in mind in its selection of literature ; and how especially does it behove reviewers to do what in them lies for the furtherance of that object ! Regarding this as our bounden duty, and understanding here by the word " beautiful " not only what is agreeable to the eye, but also what is pleasant and acceptable to the moral sense, we have no hesitation in recommending the book before us. There is no foreigner in it, notwithstanding its Spanish- sounding title. The hero makes his first appearance without being recognised, and the reader will probably begin to wonder what has become of him, as we did ourselves. We began to think of the
preacher who delighted in much introductory matter, and of the old woman who went to hear him, and who, when asked what she thoughtof the sermon, replied that the man took so long laying the cloth that she had begun to despair of ever getting any dinner. It seemed to us that we were going to be in the same predica- ment as that old woman, when suddenly we discovered that the complaint was groundless, and that we had in point of fact been already enjoying Don John's company for some time past. His identity, however, is a most confusing affair all through, and at the last page it appears that he had been somebody else all the time ; or is it more correct to say that somebody else had been he ? Anyhow, he had never been himself at all, and is as completely mixed up with his foster-brother as was the man in the song who complained that," When I died, the neighbours came, And buried brother John." This is how the confusion arises. Mr. and Mrs. Johnstone have an only son, for whom they employ a wet-nurse. As the other children get scarlet- fever, the heir is sent to lodgings, under the sole charge of the nurse. She avails herself of the chance to see her own baby boy, who is brought to her by her mother. The mother urges her to change the two infants, pointing out how easily it could be done, and how much she would thereby benefit her own offspring. She yields to the temptation at last, but conceals the deed from her mother. Owing to her sudden illness, both children are left for a short time in the mother's care ; and when the nurse recovers, she thinks it extremely probable that the old woman—ignorant that her advice had already been taken—will have profited by the opportunity to effect the exchange for which she had been anxious. The nurse is thus thoroughly perplexed, and the sudden death of the mother leaves the question of which child is which in a hopeless muddle. The nurse confesses the whole story to the Johnstones, and all possible steps are taken to unravel the mystery ; but of course that cannot be done, so the Johnstones determine to take charge of both boys, treat them exactly alike, and trust that time may develop family likenesses which will set the vexed question at rest. By- degrees a decision is unanimously arrived at which quite satis- fies the reader, because it is completely borne out by all that is shown of the respective dispositions of the two sets of parents and children. After having believed the matter to be thus satisfac- torily settled, it is extremely annoying to be told at last that every one has been mistaken, and that the boy who has been received as the undoubted Johnstone son was, in fact, the son of the nurse. No one can dispute the author's dictum in the affair, since she is obviously the only human being who can claim any positive knowledge about it. But we think it a pity that she should have, as it were, accused of false witness, those marked peculiarities of disposition which appeared to be quite conclusive evidence for the universal verdict as to the children's parentage. The one boy, Donald, who is singularly honest, affectionate, strong-natured, and good, has been attributed to the parents in whom the same qualities are found. The other boy, Lancey, with a propensity for stealing, and a shifty, slippery, heartless, sordid, weak nature, has been supposed to belong to a father and mother possessing similar dispositions. And it is almost flying in the face of nature to tell us that the dishonest scapegrace was the offspring of the excellent Johustones, and that the upright and unselfish boy owed his origin to the mean, thieving, lying parents ! For nature's evidence is all in favour of the theory that moral qualities are more or less hereditary. In a previous work, Miss Ingelow gave a quaint and amusing picture of the goings-on of some young people ; and in the present one, she gives fresh proof of her skill in the same line, by her account of the young Johnstones. We like the part of the book that has to do with children best of all. Whether real, live children ever talked and behaved as hers do, may be open to doubt ; but that does not make them any the less funny to read about. They are frank, fearless, wholesome-toned juveniles, who, when they hear a ghost-story, ponder deeply on how it is to be acted ; who say good things continually ; who have instituted an imaginary couple named "Fetch," upon whom to father all their own humorous ideas ; who have " Fetch " seances, of which they keep regular minutes; who fraternise with poor people ; and who are partial to remarks a, "Sam Weller." Some of these last are very absurd, as, e.g., the following :—
It's always a graceful thing to unbend,' as the gold-stick-in- waiting said, when he balanced a peppermint-drop on his nose, as he stood behind the queen's chair." One bit of the book which is particularly charming is the account of Don John's breaking out cf school at night. He is devoted to his foster- brother, who has stolen some money and a watch and buried them in the garden ; and, in order to save the culprit from detection, he resolves to try and dig up the property, and restore it surreptitiously to its owner. Don John accomplishes his object at the cost of a broken arm, and the adventure is described so graphically as to make us suspect that the anther must herself have taken part in some feat of the kind. At the outset, he is discomposed by the tick of the clock, which,—
" Was disagreeably wide-awake ; it seemed quite vicious enough to run down just at the decisive moment, and wake the second master, who might, who naturally would think, a boy must be at that moment climbing down by the washhouse roof into the garden. It seemed equally natural that he should look out, and catch the boy."
He silences this "incorruptible witness" by holding the pen-
dulum, and then gets on to the roof, where he finds a white cat.
"In the dim light, her eyes gleamed on him strangely. He all but slipped—yet no—he reached the eave, and jumped down safely into the soft mould underneath. Then he stooped and put on his slippers, and effaced the marks of his feet in the mould. The cat had jumped down after him, and was looking on. Here he was in the garden at one o'clock in the morning, and the moon was fast going down. How beautiful those tall, white lilies were. They enjoyed themselves in secret all through the night, gave out their scent, drank in the dew, and never let men and women find out that the night-time was their life and their day. The great evening primroses, too, white and yellow, were in their glory, and it seemed as if they also were keeping it secret and still. The cat was very jealous of his being out to see it all. It would be very unlucky for cats, if people in a body should discover how much more jolly it was to be out in the warm golden mist of moonlight, when all was so fresh and sweet, than tucked up in their heated bedrooms, under the low ceiling that shut out the stars."
Could any one have written that without personal experience of the delicious odours, and subtle, indefinable charm to be found out of doors on a summer night? And afterwards there comes
a touch of pathos in the poor boy's utter unconsciousness of having done anything noble and heroic,—he only thinks what a bad boy he must be, to have regarded part of the adventure as rare fun. That simplicity is in keeping with the whole picture of him. Chivalrous goodness, ready self-sacrifice, and staunch loyalty always distinguish him, and mark him out as a "beauti- ful" and lovable theme for the mind to dwell upon, even though it may be objected that he is too nearly blameless to be altogether true to life. The intense affection binding the foster-brothers together is also good to contemplate ; and so is their esteem for Mr. and Mrs. Johnstone, and earnest desire to save them from disgrace and pain,—a desire which is almost the only right feeling that has any power over the good-for-nothing and unimpressionable Lancey.
Much as we like this book, we cannot conscientiously pro- nounce it to be altogether faultless. Here and there the story lags a little ; larger limits than those of a three-volume stage are required to do full justice to the number of persons intro- duced, and the conversations occasionally become somewhat stiff and didactic, when the author is manifestly using her char- acters merely as mouthpieces for the enunciation of her private views about pronunciation, poetry, and various other subjects. But after all, these are not very serious defects in a work like Don, John, which is original, humorous, clever, painstaking, and bears traces of a poetical hand.
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