TRELAWNY OF TRELAWNE.
THE Trelawnies of Trelawne are a Cornish family, so very ancient that they were in full feather at " the Conquest"—that heraldic rera when the majority of genealogical ayes were only bursting the shell. One of the race greatly distinguished himself in the French wars of Edward the Third; another was much beloved by Henry the Fifth, most probably for the qualities of his ancestor. Sir Jonathan Trelawny, temp. Eliz.,might say with the maid in the ballad, "my face is my fortune ;" for, going to London to push his way at court, the Maiden Queen was so taken with his person, that she presented him with her portrait, and a family estate which his ancestors had alienated. Sir John Trelawny is com- memorated by CLARENDON for his loyal exertions in the Civil Wars. His successor was one of the seven Bishops committed by James the Second to the Tower for presenting the " Remon- strance," and subsequently tried in Westminster Hall for libel : and it is with the character of this "worthy," and the loves and distresses of his daughter and nephew, that the three goodly volumes before us deal.
But there is not only a story in the book, but of the hook; and some readers may think this is the best part, as being equally spirited with the fiction, and more real. The old mansion of Trelawne is not only rife with family traditions and Cornish ghost stories, but possesses vast stores of papers from the Conquest down- wards ; consisting of deeds, letters, and all those other family documents which throw so strong a light upon the domestic cha- racter, awl often upon the public events of the age. To these archives Mrs. BRAY had free access; and her curiosity having been excited by a family narrative of the lady of the mansion, con- firmed and expanded by the housekeeper and other old depen- dents, she paid a visit to the hospitable house to find out any papers that might illustrate this "ower true tale." In this search, she was successful, after a variety of small adventures: and these she narrates in the Introduction, besides giving a description of the mansion and grounds, as well of her journey thither.
The novel, thus originated, is thrown into the form of letters ; each writer telling the incidents which fell under his own obser- vation, and developing his own character and acquired peculi- arities atcundum artem. The main interest of the story turns upon events of an equally established kind. One of the daughters of Bishop Trelawny is attached to her cousin ; but the parental decree has already disposed of her to a Sir Francis Beaumont, the villain of the piece. In addition to this dilemma, there are other bars, in the shape of the Bishop's religious scruples, and of a fam,li prophecy, which predoorns the heir to death if first cousins of the Trelawny rare intermarry. When this distress ..has reaelled its climax, it is heightened by plunging the favoured lover into Mon- mouth's rebellion, and the Bishop into the Tower; whence one is released by the verdict of acquittal, and the other by the King's
clemency.
Besides this leading interest, there is the underplot of an or- phan nephew, whom Sir Francis Beaumont has deprived of his estate, hut whose rights are established by means of a ghost and an old Republican. There is also a little love going on with a sister of the heroine, who is stationed in London with her father for the purpose of writing descriptions of the Court and fashions of the time. In addition to which, there are incidents having no direct influence on the story, but introduced either to exhibit anti- quarian or local knowledge,—as the illness of one of the Bishop's. nephews, who dies to be buried in the fashion of the day. So far as interest and skill are concerned, Trelaumy of Trelatone is perhaps the best of Mrs. BRAY'S novels. We are moved by the story as it approaches its close ; we are detained by some of the incidental passages ; and the writer displays considerable knowledge not only of the fashions but of the professional and personal characters of the period. The deep, patient, stupified distress of the heroine on her intended wedding-day, is touchingly, though minutely told; and we thought Dr. Ruddle's rencontres with the spectre one of the most unforced and fascinating ghost narrations we ever read ; till we found, unluckily, that it is copied from a contemporary account by the actual ghost-seer. Those excellences, however, are enveloped in many defects, The antiquarian ponderosity of Mrs. BRAY, which imparts heavi- ness to her matter of fact, renders her fiction too often creeping, dry, and literal. The plot seems not so much to have been formed to carry the action to a conclusion, as to introduce the knowledge of the writer on such matters es ladies' dresses courtly ceremo- nies, historical bon mots, the phraseology, customs, and furniture of the time, as well as county antiquities and natural curiosities. The same objection applies to the characters : they show them- selves too ostentatiously—they parade their idiosyncracies. Hence, in addition to the feeling of heaviness, there is the constant sense of the forced and artificial. Little is spontaneous, little lifelike.
OLD LETTERS.
For a moment I meditated on the melancholy which attaches itself to old letters : they live, and speak of the living. with all the freshness and vivality of feeling which existed at the instant they were penned ; when, alas ! those to whom they may so vividly refer are perhaps numbered with the dead. I re- peat it, old letters are the most painful things in the world ; for they cancel in. a moment all the settled calm, all the subdued recollections with which hose may have invested the past : they make the dead alive again ; we feel their presence, and shudder.
COURT CONDOLENCE ON THE DEATH OF CHARLES THE WORD.
Oh, I.etty, how I wish you could but see Whitehall ! I have never yet to yon, but we were in the Shield Chamber on the great day. There Lady Buller, very good naturedly, came and took me forward, that I might see the ceremony of the Queen Dowager receiving the envoys and gieat people who came to condole with ber—(bless me I I had almost made a mistake and written congratulate her)—on the death of the late King. There was an air of grandeur about the Queen and the room and the company, that was very solemn and impressive. The chamber was all hung with black; and the crown and the royal arms, with the emblems of Portugal, were seen in gold
and silver placed about the hangings. These swept from the ceiling to the
floor, where the carpeting was so soft you could not hear a foot fall. There were, I verily believe a thousand wax.tapers (for day-light was shut out). burning in silver sconces, and a sweet smelling perfume that smouldered in lege vases. - The Queen dressed in the deepest mourning, with no jewels about her (except her diamond cross on her throat, and the diamonds that were about the King's picture, which she had on, (for show, I suppose,) sat lapin a black velvet bed of state; and there she received the Ambassadors, and they knelt down and kissed. her hand ; and the music played slow, sad airs, in the inner chamber; as they came and retired, and everybody looked very .Memo. I thought the Ambassa- dors were very like undertakers; for as I afterwards saw them, when they were returning, in the hall (and some threw off their cloaks before they left the palace,) they were all as merry as May, and gabbled as fast in their outlandish tongues as if they were coming from a fair, rather than from a funeral cere- many. For my part, I did not see one really sad face, without it might be Toby Restates, the page of the back stairs to the late King, who owed all his fortunes to his royal master's favour ; and Toby did seem to have a little more sadness about him than might be found either in his sables or in the courtiers.
CORONATION OF JAMES THE SECOND.
The crowning took place on St. George's Day : it was a very grand show in- deed. The dresses worn by the Queen and the Peeresses were covered with jewels, so that it dazzled one's very eyes to see them. The Peers looked noble in their robes and orders; and the worst-looking person of all, ti my mind, was he who should have looked the best, at least on this day—for that MRS the King. But his crown did not fit him, (many thought it an ill omen ;) for it tame down so low over his forehead as almost to touch his nose, and had a very ungraceful and mean appearance notwithstanding all the jewels; arid his wig underneath I am sure was not French. My brother Charles's new wigs are worth fifty of it, for the King's hail not been, so it was said, sufficiently baked; so the curls came out in places, and looked no better than the flax I have seen hanging ou many an old Cornish wife's distaff. The King passed on, but there was no great cheering ; for the people do not like his Popery, and he does not like their tempers just now ; so there was no such great joy as yen would expect at a coronation that cost so many thousand pounds to the nation. But there was another omen worse than the crown not fitting, in the day's high ceremony. The canopy that was carried over his Majesty's head broke, and nobody could say how the mischance happened—a very wonderful thing ; and as the King was going out of the Abbey to proceed to dine at Westminster Hall, a nobleman, with a sad face, Caine up to buns: it was suun whispered round, that he came to tell his Majesty that his son, by Mrs. Sedley, had died that morniug so his stomach for the feast was broken; and there were many of the divines who on that day thought of David's child by Queen Bathsheba, who was smitten as a punishment for the sins of the father. I am sure, if there is any truth in bad omens, King James the Second had enough of them at his coronation ; and I don't think be would have wished to be crowned again, although it were to get another kingdom. Doctor Turner preached the sermon ; and get forth (which all men said was • bold thing, knowing the King tube a Papist) that part of Coustantitmadortes
history, in which he tried who would be true to their relight*. •• •
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