OVER HEAD AND EARS.* Tins story contains perhaps Mr. Dutton
Cook's most careful and finished work, and seems to us to raise him as a novelist to a con- siderably higher level than he has ever before occupied. Much of the painting it contains is not inferior to Mr. Trollope's, and
though there is less vigour, less liveliness, less effervescence than is almost invariably to be found in Mr. Anthony Trollope's tales, and
though Mr. Cook has not the art of keeping his conversations so flowing and interesting as Mr. Trollope's, even where they seem to have least bearing on the development of the plot, always are, there are many scenes and some characters of which Mr. Anthony Trollope would certainly not be ashamed. The defect of the story is the sluggishness of the plot, and Mr. Cook's unfortunate indulgence in lengthy reflections in his own name, after the manner of too many modern authors, commenting in a slightly satiric or apologetic vein on the characters he is setting before us. Mr. Trollope himself does this, no doubt, at times; weighs Phineas Finn in the balance and finds him wanting, or analyzes why the Duke of Omnium, who had lived a bad life and never done any good to his country of any sort, is regarded with a certain thrill of awe, which is not accorded to the hard- working and estimable Duke of St. Bungay. But then he always does it very briefly. He never expatiates. He makes his point and leaves it. Mr. Dutton Cook often says a subtle and some- times, though seldomer than he supposes, a humorous thing, in these chapters of disquisition. But he is lengthy. He goes on at it after he has really done. He makes us turn the pages im- patiently to see how long this sort of thing is going to last. This
is a defect. And now and then he lays a false emphasis on a character of which he had once perhaps an apergu, but which
he cannot help feeling is gone wrong somehow, and which he tries to set right by retouching the lines in vain,—the lines themselves probably being ever solittle false, so that no retouching will set them right. We have a remarkable case of this, as it seems to us, in the character of Miss Elizabeth Brown, the apothecary's senti- mental sister, whom Mr. Dutton Cook had evidently intended to
make a great point of, and to whose portrait he returns again and again, though the reader is quite sick of her, and knows she is coming to no good. But this is the only instance we can adduce of a really manqué sketch in the novel, all the other principal
characters (except, perhaps, Mouse,' who is a loveable young lady, and not meant for anything more) being well, and some of them admirably drawn. The picture of the self-occupied young artillery officer, who is so dreadfully afraid of being thought young, and so much concerned altogether about his personal dignity that he loses it irretrievably, and is " managed " by those who like to take the trouble to manage him, is one of the best sketches in any modern novel. And the domineering, drinking, self-indulgent, ill-bred drawingmaster, with his coarse egotism, his touch of artistic genius, his tenderness for his granddaughter, his love of good cheer, his vulgar hospitality in loving to
have a butt at his table, and yet wishing to see that butt
comfortable and replete, his selfish good-nature, is more than a sketch, a full-length picture which only a man of some genius could have painted. Let us give a specimen of Mr. Rudd. He is enter- taining Frankland Waring,—a very great swell in his eyes,—at his cottage on Shooter's Hill :-
"' How are you, Mr. Waring ?' he said, shaking Frankland cordially by the hand. ' I hope I see you well. I'm very glad you found your- self able to come and see me again. I was very sorry I was out when you called before. But it was one of my Foot's Cray days. I ought to have lot you know beforehand, and I wish I had. But then, perhaps, you mightn't have been hero to-day, and I'm very glad you were able to come, and didn't think it a liberty my asking you.'—' Of course I didn't.'—' That's hearty. I said to myself he's of a friendly sorts and, thinks I, he won't be too proud, I dare say, if ho's asked, to come and eat his mutton with us of a Sunday. We're roughish in our ways, just a bit roughish, you may say ; but you don't mind roughing it for once in a way? Of course you don't. I said you wouldn't. And you're heartily welcome. Can a man say more ? Mary was afraid you might think it a liberty. But, says I, liberty be hanged ! He ain't at • Orer Head and Ears. A Love Story. By Dutton Cook. 3 vols. London: Sarupbou Low. all one of that sort. But women always think theirselvea wiser than anybody else, and Mary was always rather one of the muddle-headed- Poor thing ! she can't help it, you know, it's her way ; there's no sort of harm in her. She was for sending and getting all sorts of fine things to make a splash with—that's the women's way, that is. But I says— No a simple cut of mutton, that's all that's wanted. I chose it myself —I hope it may turn out well—as prime a leg for looks as ever I set eyes on ; and the butcher said he'd warrant it as good a leg as ever he'd had in his shop. I brought it home myself from Woolwich in my trap. That's the way to shop. Pick out what takes your fancy, and carry it away with you, leg of mutton or what not. It's the only way to pre- vent mistakes. I went into the kitchen just now to have a look at ity and see how it was getting on. First-rate it looked ; and it will be done to a turn presently. It smelt uncommon good. I can smell it here. And now will you take anything after your walk ? Just a glass of ale, or a nip of something stronger? It's warm this morning, and stiffish walking up the hill, isn't it ? Just as you like ; you've only to say the word, you know, if you want anything. This is Liberty Hall, this is, so far as it goes. Do as they do in the Friendly Islands, that's what I always say, only don't spoil your appetite for the leg of mutton. But come in. You're tired, and will be glad to set you down for a bit, I dare say.'
You seem to have some nice pictures here, Mr. Rudd,' said Frankland.—, 'I've better in the other room—what I call my workshop —where we're going to have dinner,' Mr. Rudd answered ; yet these are not what you may call to be sneezed at. Some of them's very choice things indeed, though small. I haven't room for anything big in this place. I've got them together at odd times, I scarcely know how. Some of them was presents from the artists themselves ; some I've swopped things of my own for. Of course I've never been able to stand much money out of pocket to got them, but the dealers will generally take things of my own in exchange. You see they're as good as money to them, though they ain't always to me. Yes, they're very pretty specimens, these are, most of them. That's a Copley Fielding, that is ; very sweet, ain't it?. I call that a lovely background.' (Mr. Rudd:pronounced the word bag- ground.') 'Pure gold, that is. Here you have a jolly bit of Constable. Wonderful moist, ain't it ? You can almost see the raindrops falling, and stirring up the puddles, and shining and trickling about those here• palings and stumps of trees in front. Out and out crisp and bright. That's worth money, that is. There's a Davy Cox—slight, but good. Little more than a study of clouds and heath country, only a few strokes of the brush, but you can see the master in it ; he knew what to do with his brush, and what colours to dip it into, which is a good deal more than a many knows. There's duffers in all trades, you know, and there: ain't a few of them as calls themselves artists. Yes, that's a pleasant mementer of old Davy Cox.' It was not possible to resist the enthu- siasm with which Mr. Rudd exhibited and commented upon his art treasures. As he spoke, pointing out their especial charms with his- restless forefinger, he would dust the glasses with his handkerchief, breathing on them and rubbing them to a bright polish. Before the works in oil colour he would moisten the palm of his hand and pass it over them with tender anxiety that they should be seen to the utmost advantage with clean surfaces and unsullied hues. 'Here's a Etty ;- merely a study—nood, of course, or it wouldn't be Etty: juicy, ain't it?' There's flesh !—don't it seem to swell out from the canvas ? Why, you might eat it, you know !' And Mr. Rudd smacked his lips with canni- balistic gusto. 'It's perfectly lovely, the colour of that is ; I don't know where you'd find anything to beat it. The drawing I won't say so much about ; here and there I fancy it ain't quite the thing—not but what in drawing from the nood many things are really right that don't look it, and that people will have are wrong. You see, nature varies a good deal, and perfection's out of the question, in models as in everything else. Etty went straight ahead and painted what he saw—or what he thought he saw—and he may be right here, though I don't say as much ; and the calf of that left leg never did satisfy me, I own. Ho was a out-and-out great painter was Etty ; I don't know when we shall see such another.' And as he passed on, Mr. Rudd gave the late painter's work a friendly, playful slap at parting from it—a sort of affectionate compliment to the realistic aspect of its flesh and blood."
Old Mr. Rudd is a figure we shall remember almost as we remem- ber Mrs. Greenhow, or the Rev. Mr. Slope, or Archdeacon Grantly, and a great deal better than we remember the mass of our ordinary acquaintances ; for when a true artist once succeeds in painting his picture, he makes it, we may say without a bull, a great deal more life-like than the original would be to ordinary eyes. What else were the magic of art? Almost equally good is Mr. Rudd's daughter, the common-place, overworked Mary Rudd, who is rather proud of having bad dreams, and looks for admiration on account thereof ; and quite equally good, but for the comparative slight- ness of the sketch, is the picture of Mrs. Waring, the sagacious, reserved, moderate-minded, administrative mother, " worldly, but not too worldly" as most people would say, considerate for all her family, reticent with all, yet with a large fund of real affection at the bottom. The scene in which she shakes her younger son's resolve to stick to his youthful engagement is perfect in its way ; and the study it indicates of the moral advantages gained for the purpose of a discussion by special physical incidents to it, is a trait in the very manner of Mr. Anthony Trollope, though obviously not imitated from him. Mrs. Waring gets her son to try en some of his new sets of collars and shirts,—he is being fitted out for Canada, whither• his battery of artillery has been ordered,—and when he is stuck full of pins and humiliated by the adhesion of extrinsic calico to his manly person, she just glides into the subject on which she desires to shake his resolve. The finesse of the good lady and the strict moderation and skilfulness of all she says are beyond praise. Very subtle, too, is Mr. Cook's remark on the moral advantage which
"One gain from this habitual suppression of demonstration is, un- doubtedly, that the slightest departure from such a line of conduct comes with a sort of surprise upon people ; and the ability to surprise is of con- siderable value as an influence. Alfred had seldom heard his mother assume a tone that was distinctly tender or plaintive ; and he at once perceived that if she addressed to him an appeal or a remonstrance in regard to the `Mouse' question, he must meet her by adopting a different line of argument to that with which he had encountered Frankland, and through Frankland his father."
We like, too, Frankland Waring, who is, we suppose, the real hero, and who is life-like enough at the outset, but less so, we think, at the close. He seems to represent, and, we suppose, is meant to represent, the author's own general view of life ; at least, Frankland Waring himself seems to be speaking not unfrequently in the chapters of disquisition to which we have alluded. Now, as a rule, no character, and least of all a character professedly " viewy " and superficial, can be painted effectively without a true contrast to indicate to the reader where such acharacter fails, what are the qualities he wants, as well as those which he has. It is perfectly true that in life you meet with plenty of stories, and plenty of living groups, in which tke characters are not so arranged as in any way to bring out each other's limits and deficiencies. But then art is more than life, if also less. The artistic selection of groups should be more than a " natural " selection, though it should, of course, be natural also. The result of painting Frankland Waring with no other deeper and stronger character to bring him into relief, is to give the story altogether an aii• of superficiality and shallowness which does it little justice. You might be in danger of saying, in putting down the story, " The work of a very clever artist, who sees nothing serious in life except kindly domestic feelings and what is called ' love,'—who interprets the force of the conventional as far beyond what it really is,—who does not see that beneath men's thoughts of business and the social respectabilities, there is any- thing deeper which declines to be always stifled, and not unfre- quently succeeds in influencing their whole lives,—who, in short, takes the light, cultivated, conservative, anti-humbug view of most things, and calls that realism." We do not say that this would be a just judgment on Mr. Dutton Cook's very clever and admirable painting. But if it is not so, the fault is his own. He should have relieved such a hero as Frankland Waring by some character of greater depth, energy, and faith,—greater faults and higher virtues. Still, with all deductions, the novel has scarcely any poor work in it, and no bad, trashy work. The little failure there is, is failure that has only just missed success, and not missed it for want of pains.
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