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ft&w&*-4 T M A B E R i> 1855.] igvE: & ....
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A BATCH OF FICTIONS. Wearyfoot Common. B...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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The Bey. Geobge Gilpillan. - A Third Gou...
fceaat — a bawling lion " What caa the Scotch Giant have done to the Scotch Dwarf ? ' , ¦ ' , ^ , .,. ,. . ., Mr . Gflfillan ' s criticism Is simple . " He has a . peculiar religious creed , consisting of ultra-scotch orihodoiyr m £ h a belief in the Personal Advent superadSed , and this idea Tie carries with him as a test in his foray , among isefebritiea . If a anan agree with him in these things , he begins by a few general depreciations , and' gradually ' merges into a swelling , bombastic eulogy . J ? a man seem to care little about them , he praises ge nerally , and ^ nds by abusing him . for not making these peculiarities the ruling passion of 3 iisTbeing . But . if a man does not believe in'them , and says so , the rage of GITfillan knows no bounds ; Tie drives the offender out of his article with whips of Billingsgate . We have had the criticism of Jeffery , Hazlitt , Coleridge , Carlyle—this is the criticism of George Gilfillan . Apart from this fundamental principle , he is as changeful as Pxoteus . You never know
Keherfi you have him . " Writing of Dobell , there never was such a poet ; of Alexander Smith , Dobell is full of faults ; of Bigg , Smith wants everything JBigg possesses ; of Gerald Massey , all the others have faults that he is free 3 ? oia . And so on . The same even on his favourite relig ious ground . __ He censures Jeffery , in the prime of his life , for caring nothing for religion : the septuagenarian critic made a pious end , and what says our author : " As to religion , his tone becomes that of childish sentimentalism ; and , unable to ihelasi to give either to the Bible or the existence of God the homageof 41 . manlybelief , he can yet shed over them floods of silly and senile tears . " Again , if "Holyoake assert , and Carlyle and Emerson seem to imply , that Christianity is effete , Gilfillan ' s wrath exceeds decency of expression ; but if a luckless believer says it is not effete , he turns round even more furiously ainon him . and affirms that it is so utterly rotten and used up that nothing
but the Personal Advent of Jesus can set it right . The plain fact is , Mr . Gilfillan has utterly mistaken his literary history . When the fast . Gallery appeared it was hailed with delight by the young and enthusiastic among the strictly orthodox . To them the raciest fields of literature had been hermetically sealed . Here now was a perfectly safe zuan who introduced them to Byron and Shelley , Carlyle and Emerson , even to -Rousseau and Voltaire . Older and wiser men forgave for this good his uncouth language , "wherein sense was drowned amid a wilderness of words , ixuried beneath incongruous metaphors . What is the result ? It was estident that either he must come out or go in . To remain where he then was , wiae not possible . He has gone in . Preserving all his faults of style , and Introducing new faults , he has cast aside all tolerance for doubt or negation , and there is really little left to riistingnish him-from the mass of Exeter Hall
^ dogmatists . _ We close by giving , to use a congenial phrase , a-Galaxy ofGUJUlanisms ; presuming that they are fair specimens of what they represent , and that bad we chosen we could have filled columns with the like : —
. EJ-BGANCSTO * EXPRESSION" . ^ P utrid perfection—dung—belched up—in splendour or in stench— "half-putrid in = « anse— -a diabetes variorum—foul spittle—palace built of dung—a dunghill Olympus —rjpirtrid dust—* diarrhoea of words . ' . - GRAMMAR . , ' 'Gibbering form — the vial whom—this noctes— ' shall' for ' will' passim . ' METAPHORS burst out , like-an expiring flame , into glorious bravuras— a poean sheathed in "blasphemy—Burke ' S High-Churchism is the lofty buskin in which his fancy loves to tread , & c . , LOGIC . Do the Brutes know ¦ each , other on « arth , and shall not the Saints in heaven ?
COTJBTE 8 T AS A DISPUTANT . , "_ : 3 ^ y ;( Holybake , JHaccall , Combe , & c . ) at least . are-direct and . honest . and . thoroughgoing men—we mean animals—for they are perpetually boasting of their lineal descent fi » m bnrtes onil reptiles and fishes and slime , and everything but God , and we are not 'disposed to' deny their fat-come and dearly-won honours , or to quaTrel , so far as tkeg aieeoncenied , with this mud heraldry . " ( We might . have headed this " Veracity . " ) * ' " Ike iiwoleaco , bigotry , and folly of a Neal « leave all former absurdity floundering l » ekind . "— " That tissue of filihy nonsense "which none but an ape of the first ina # - aitude could have vomited , yclept ' Firmilian . ' " — " The coarse and clumsy paws" ( of J ^ y . toun ) . " The creatures of the Aes-enaiuux and others of the London Press . "
. sacLxcrrr XNsaoKJ * . Mirataau , a Jove-Judas ; Poe , a Yankee-Yahoo , ; Emersoq , a Paul-Pyrrho . And tUia hatch : " By-ends Bacon ; Dema « Dunaont ; Saveall Joe Hume ; Hold-theworld Benthanr ; Feel-the-skull Combe ; Young Atheiat Holyoake ; My-lord-tune-^ erviJr , Macaulay . SKETCHES OF CHARACTER . Louvet , a compound of sentiment and smut ! Napoleon , the marvellous viannifcin ofrCorsica , Carlyle , the cursing Balaam of his day ( is G . G . the other , then ?) . Dickens , a ^ puff of genius . Burke , a mental cameleopard . Rousseau , a winged frog .
FOXCE OF EXPRESSION . "Blunderbuss of blasphemy . MODESTY . The Critic —( to which Mr . Gilfillan is the chief contributor)—that admirable paper , which is now , both in character end circulation , at tho very top of the literary journals of the metropolis .
Ft&W&*-4 T M A B E R I> 1855.] Igve: & ....
ft & w &* -4 T M A B E R i > 1855 . ] igvE : & . 19
A Batch Of Fictions. Wearyfoot Common. B...
A BATCH OF FICTIONS . Wearyfoot Common . By Loitch Ritchie . . Bogue . The Old Chelsea Bun-house . A Tale of . tho Last Century . By tho Author of " 'Mary Powell . " Hall , Virtue , and Co . Tales afFlemiih Zife . By Hendrik Conscience . " Constable and Co . General Bounce ; or , The Lady and the Locusts . By {} . J . Why to Melville . Parker and Son . The Qutet Jleart . By the Author of " Katie Stowart . " Second Edition . Blackwood . DaihiwodJPriory ; or , Mortimer ' s CoTterje Life . By E . J . May , ¦ , lioutlodgo The Trott -upon the Pane . A Christmas Story . Edited by W . B . Bands . W . and F . Gi Cosh . The Trapper ' s Bride , & e . By Percy B . St . John . Ward and Lock . IHppins and Pies , & o ., & c By J . Stirling Coyne . Routledge . maty-Eye ; or , The Scout ' s Revenge . By James Weir . * Ward and Lock . T , h » . best , books in the present Batch arc the three first on our list . Wearyfwt Common is not a atory to keep ladies from going to parties , or to make
gentlemen forget the dinner-hour ; but it is a pleasant , readable isovel , for all that . Mr . Leitch Ritchie knows how to amuse us by quainjfc touches of character , and how to interest us by clever and unaffected passages of description . The tone of the book is . manly and genuine throughout— - the style is simple and straightforward-: —and the moral ( for those who . want a moral , which we ^ ourselves neyer do ) is quite unimp , eachable . The CM Chelsea ~ Bun- > Jiou # e is carefully written in the style of the last century , beautifully , printed in the type of the last century , and brilliantly coloured at the « dges with the bright red of the last century . This sort of skilful imitation of old models , so far as the author ' s part is concerned , has of itself no great charms for us—but the book now under notice possesses higher merits than the one small merit of being a clever costume-picture of
the literary sort . The idea of the story is very pretty and simple , and is very naturally and delicately carried out . The characters , in general , want strength , but they are touched by no unskilful hand . The owner of the Bun-house , who tipples at " Don Saltero ' s , " and ruins himself by purchases of rare China , is excellently imagined ; and the fashionable lady ? g gentle waiting-woman , " Gatty , " is really a charming character . She wins our love and admiration on her first introduction to us , and we lose sight of her at the end with downright reluctance and sorrow . Indeed , the main characteristic of the book is that it is essentially a winning story , which leads the reader on quietly , naturally , and always persuasively , from 'the first page to the last . Mr . Hendrik Conscience ' s Tales of Flemish Life hav e
already made themselves a reputation for simplicity , tenderness , and truth , which they have well deserved . They are the most delicately-treated of Prose-Pastorals . If the author only possessed the art of story-telling , they would be perfect in their way—but either he does not care to cultivate this . allfimportant faculty ( in a . novelist ) , or it has not been given to . him . These Tales want compression in many passages . It is undeniable , with all their great merits of purity of sentiment and truth to Nature , that they are tedious , now and then—not in consequence of their subjects , incidents , or characters , but in consequence of the author ' s manner of telling them . While . Mr . Hendrik Conscience ( judging by his Preface ) repudiates the crimes and horrors of French literature , it would certainly do him no harm if he set himself to acquire some of the exquisite niceties and neatnesses of French story-telling .
General BouAce is not a book to our taste . Reflections in the tnanner of Mr Thackeray occur far too frequently in the story . The " General" is that old-established bore , the crusty , quick-tempered , hearty veteran who has been in India—the officers who are grouped about him are gentlemen whom , weiiave seen quite enough of in other people ' s "books—and the plot is in no respect that we can discover , any fresher than the characters . As a set of £ however , against our own . judgment , it is only fair to add that this Btory was thought worthy to appear originally in Ffaser ' s Magazine ; and only polite to augur in consequence Siftt there jnust be certain select . people secreted somewTiere , who will be" only too happy to make the acquaint ance of General Bounce ., If the' next novel on our list had not been a Scotch story , and if we . had not known that the " kindly Scots bodies" are always ready to encourage anything national * purely ' . for the sake of
nationality , we should have been rather astonished at seeing the words " Second Edition" on the title-page of The Quiet Heart . As it is , of course we bow to success , while we impartially chronicle it . The book seems to us to contain one of the most badly written stories about nothing that we have read for some time past—butw , e are modestly willing ( always in deference to the words " Second Edition" ) to distrust our own opinion , and to regret our defective appreciation . Unutterable qualms prostrated us after our first mouthful of " Haggis ; " horror seized us when we first heard the bagpipesentirely , r of ^ courserfrom-our want of ^ proper taste ; and doubtless for the same reason , weariness and exasperation marked us for their own ., as we toiled through the pages of The Quiet Heart .
Of Dashwood Priory we have nothing to say , but that it is a very religious novel , which is sure to be highly relished by very religious people , fcooks of this sort ought to apply for critical notice to the Pulpit instead of the Press . The Frost on tJieJRanels one of those Christmas stories which would never have been written if Mr . Dickons had not enriched the great library of English fiction with his exquisite " Carol . " Tnere are degrees , however , in imitation ; and The Frost on the Pane is by no means to be ranked among the lowest " studies in the manner of the great master . " We shall be doing this little book the best aervioe we can , if we abstain from judging it by any hi'Th literary standard , and only speak critically of it with reference to stories in general , which are just now struggling wifeh it for public approbation . Estimated from this point of view , the book certainly gams lauits ot tue
by the test of comparison—its faults of manner are not the " smart" school—and it is written by a man who at least knows a better way of appealing to his public than the mountebank way of trying anyhow always to make them laugh . Our next story is another imitation—an imitation of Fenimore Cooper this time . Readers who believe in the " noble savage , " and -who have exhausted all Cooper ' Indian novels , may thank ua fbrintroducing them to Cooper ' s disciple , Mr . Percy St . John , and may find pleasure in reading The Trapper ' s Bride . For our own parts , all we have heard on more than one occasion of tho Red Indians , from travellers who have been so unfortunate as to live among them , has inclined us to believe that savages in America are just as false , bloodthirsty , and bestial aa savages anywhoro else : and that Mr . Fenhnoro Cooper ' s romantic Redmon , while they do infinite credit to his poetical feeling , are altogether untrue to the real , strong-smelling , bloody-minded living model who skulks , squats , ana scalps on the prairies of the " far West . " , . •¦ i „ io , aiy ; n Pippins ami Pies is written to narrate the mischievous tricks . played , m hniiifav time , bv a scampish soltoolboy with a generous ncart , and wwteuded tw
tc -be ' extnamdy amuAig . It has" happened to us , on mon ^ one occasion , to . witness tho performance of a jwitoyao W ^ J ^&^ unutterable melancholy , caused by the exhibition of a lorffe scthm aj , dreary and worn-out " tricks / ' which Hipped smiles in the bud , and made tho bare id <*» of laughter preposterous . Much the flame feeling oppressed uu as wo read Pippins and Pus , which ( perhaps from not being young enough to enjoy it ) we thought Vw too much in the pantomime style , irad from
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 6, 1855, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_06011855/page/19/
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