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will interfere -with its success , since , although Mr . Reade always writes cleverly , it is possible for him to presume too much -upon his energy of style , especially when he wanders into dreary declamation about Napoleon the First , and other of his particular hobbies . We think , indeed , that Mr . Reade will write himself down if he continue to publish novels of this kind . Admiring the maniacal style as he may , the reader cannot be expected to tolerate a convulsion of interjections , frothing up in a chapter of challenges , and if an author adopts the pyrotechnic fashion , and scatters phrases in capital letters , and notes of admiration , we are naturally disappointed when all this terrific coruscation of capitals plunges into platitude . A sentence composed of five -words is not necessarily an epigram . It may mean something or nothing , and , whatever it means , may not be -very remarkable . We will explain ourselves by quoting two or three examples of the diction which Mr . Reade evidently affects , as he arranges the phrases in separate lines , and ennobles the last in capitals : " For ire and scorn are mighty . And noble blood in a noble heart in a hero . And Love is a Giant . " After a scene intended to harrow those readers at whom was
aimed the lightning-flash of language , " Hating the sunlight and loathing the earth , Norah had fled from the gallows , " the novelist fires another train : " There lie the dead corpses of those words on paper ; but , oh ! my art is powerless to tell you how they -were uttered—those words , potent as a king ' s , that saved a life . They were a cry of terror . They were a cry of reproach . They were a cry of love unfathomable . " The entire story is composed in this hysterical , forced , spasmodic manner , and we are sorry to find the name of Mr . Reade , who is so capable a -writer , attached to a work altogether unworthy of his reputation , —the more so , in that he seems wilfully to pile up the melodramatic exaggeration as the story progresses . With what absurd and shallow dogmatism he sets history right . is shown in the following , which almost fills a chapter : " Forty-eight hours later he was sailing Franceward , with General Bonaparte . That great man dropped Egypt suddenly , -very suddenly to those who confound the date of an act with the determination that has preceded it , who knows how long ? He dropped Egypt , not- ^ -as his small critics fancy—because France and he
could not have contrived to hold a corner of Kgypt to this day , but because he had discovered he could not make of little Egypt the great steppingstone he had intended . Take this clue to Napoleon I . ' The ends of ordinarygeniuses were his means . Their goals his stepping-stones . Goes he to Egypt , be sure he goes for Syria and Assyria , at least . If Moscow—little city of huts—thinks he went to Moscow for Moscow , it pays itself too great a , compliment , and him too small a one . He went to Moscow for Delhi and Canton . And when I think of this trait in him ,-with all its mental consequences , I come by my art , with regret , to the conclusion , " &c . ; the rest Is not worth quoting . Mr . Reade seems nervous about his own position , and perpetually endeavours to suggest a comparison between himself and the"' small' people of the -world . When France was prostrate * Heaven sent her a Man . We might almost fancy , if we believed White Lies , that Heaven never sent more than two Men into the world—Napoleon the First and Mr . Charles Reade . We sincerely regret a literary falling-off ' so unmistakable and so disappointing .
The Handwriting on the Walt . A Story . By Edwin Atherstone , Author of The Fall of Nineveh . ' 3 vols . ( Bentley . )—These three volumes contain the history of three days . We need scarcely add that they are based on the vision of Belshazzar at the Feast . Nearly a thousand pages are occupied with the incidents of seventy-two lours . This , it may be anticipated , will detract from the success of Mr . Atherstone ' s novel . As a writer he possesses considerable faculty . His language is warm , clear , and euphonious ; his narrative glitters as it moves , with all the stateliness and p omp of an Assyrian procession ; he can paint a picture of splendour , and is more free than the genius of Aladdin in his use of jewels , gold , silk , slabs of cedar , alabaster , slaves in rich costumes , dancers all balm and beauty , and floods of purple wine . But the magnificence of the scene is lost in its
extent ; the tragedy is in a hundred acts , and before the third day closes the reader might imagine that he had been labouring through a history of the world . Mr . Atherstone , no doubt , is conscientious in his treatment of events and characters , and builds , so far as it is possible , upon a basis of sacred and profane authorities ; yet we must add that his book , however unusual its merit , and however interesting in parts , is practically an error , the result of an illusion . Its elaboration is fatiguing beyond endurance , while the style is pitched throughout in far too high a key . Mr . Atherstone will not be brief , and cannot be simple . His portrait of Belshazzar on the throne is a horrible grotesque : his account of the tyrant in the dungeon reeks too hideously with foam and blood not to be repulsive . Nevertheless , The Handwriting on the Wall , being by no means a common-place production , may find favour with a special class of readers .
The White Home by the Sea . A Love Story . By M . Betham-Edwards . 2 vols . ( Smith , Elder , and Co . )—This is a novel of a class now uncommon — -it is made up of love , pure and simple , and is in the form of an autobiography . The heroine has two passions , the fate of one being thus shadowed iorth : — " 1 did not faint—X did not utter a sound—but silently , very silently , 1 drew back from the -window , and closing the door of my little room , sat down tearless , marble-like , aud subdued . For the iron had entered into my soul , and the gate of my I * ur ; idise was shut for ever . " The tender-hearted reader , however , must not despair ; there is balm in Grilead ,
for the young girl quafls a sweet nepenthe of second-love , and lives with her own husband in a place of pleasantness where all her paths are peace . Then returns the false one , base and haggard , and begs to ho forgiven , which , being done , he disappears through the shrubbery and embarks for the East , where , we trust , the Sepoys have found him out . The White House by tho Sea is a tale told , apparently , by a youthful writer , and may be commended to readers old enough to sympathize with its ecstasies of joy and grief , and not too old to believe in heart-blights and breathing pubsionliowers .
M-ank Mtllicard . A Novel , By VV . Kenrick . 2 vols . ( Skeet and Co . )—The composition of this story is eccentric . It is a medley of Knglish and German life , social and political opinions , melodramatic fictions and
historical illustrations . The heroic gentlemen are Bayards in dress-coats , and the ladies are Unas and Serenas in something very like crinoline . Wickedness is confounded , and virtue goes to vulgarity for her reward . Taking a very bright and lofty view of the world , Mr . Kenrick marries Lady Fanny St . Clair to Major Meredith , and , through the interest of the Archduke Charles with the Duke of AVellington , obtains a peerage for General Sotnerton . Frank Ellerby becomes a mernber of parliament , but that being insufficient as the apotheosis of so much noble suffering , his father dies , te is made an earl , and the triumph of propriety is complete .
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NORTHERN TRAVEL . Northern Travel : Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden , Lapland , and Nonoaij . By Bayard Taylor . Sampson Low and Co . Few travellers are so earnest in their love of travel as Mr . Bayard Taylor . He has sympathy with all the forms of nature , and delights in the crystalline prismatic North no less than in the sultry magnificence of Asia . He Las visited Egypt , Nubia , Abyssiniii , China , Japan , the Indian Islands and continent , and his narratives of adventure have invariably been variously and richly coloured . Among Swedes , Lapps , and Finns , icy seas , pine forests , plains of snow , and low-lying clouds , under a frozen firmament , we glanced
at him curiously to know whether his artist instincts would enable him to write as vividly and gracefully of Polar groups and landscapes as of Italian evenings or jewelled sunrises in the East . There are no Taj Mahals , no temple splendours , no rosy Circassian cheeks , no Chinese cities of pavilions , no islets drooping with embowering foliage sprinkled with blossoms , no trees laden with flamingoes , lories , or birds of paradise , no summer mornings with ruby-throated sunbirds glittering in the light , which sparkles Again with dew ; it was through a portal of dreary white mists , that Mr . Bayard Taylor groped his way into the North , with the winter as his companion . Like the hero in the fable , however , he wandered through the cavernous darkness to find himself in a land of enchantment . Instead of Pleiads there were the
Northern Lights ; there was no hot sky , suffused even at noon with deep colours ; but there was the Aurora Borealis , with all its kaleidoscopic changes ; a red-roofed Lapland cottage was as picturesque as a Malayan palace ; and as for the maidens who dance round the Arctic Circle , their gold-tinted cheeks and early ripened grace might bear comparison with , the beautiful luxury of any harem in Persia . Therefore 3 the American , traveller , though he sat in his sledge like a snow figure , frozen as hard as a mummy , was contented with the North , and never yearned for palm shades or fruits of Damascus , or the sight of pretty bevies lighting lamps to float on Indian lakes . Frost crystals , turned into topaz and amethyst by the alchemy of the sun , forest tops almost incandescent in the long -unvarying evening glow , strange atmospheric apparitions which seemed to lift the curtains of paradise ,
green , woody glimpses , and long perspectives of cloud , pink , violet , and lilac , set his imagination at work , and he erected , as he rushed over the snowy earth , strange fabrics , and peopled them with dreams . Under the white Moresque arches of the frosted forest he saw kneeling nuns and warriors ; fountains of liquescent crystal , and bediamonded gothic spiresi Then emerging out of this ghostly solitude he came among the warm-skinned Lapps or the tender tinted Finns , and their cordial hospitality sent him always to rest well pleased , and not invidiously thinking of the purple light of Syria , in contrast with eternal congelations within the Arctic Circle . W ithia the Arctic Circle , indeed , lie reposed not less delicately than after a day of tranquillity in Cairo ; for ther-e one of the innocent Finn maidens took him into a bath-house , bathed him , flogged him from head to heel with birch twigs , sent him out to stand a moment in the
snow , dried him with warm towels , and committed him to his sleep in perfect health and comfort . Their unsophisticated manners betoken no grossness or immorality among the people who , in the interior , put to shame the ostentatious formalism , of the Swedish capital . Mr . Bayard Taylor visited Stockholm twice , and also went to Gottenturg and Copenhagen . At Copenhagen , by the way , he introduced himself to Hans Christian Andersen , with whom , he says , he had ' a delightful hour ' s chat . One sees the man so plainly in lm works , that his readers may almost be said to know him personally . ' But the charm of Taylor ' s book' consists in its graphic record of impressions derived from a succession of journeys through the real North , untinged by customs from beyond the Baltic . On the Tana Fjord , with a wind blowing direct from Nova Zenibla , lie for the first time recoiled from the desolate aspects of the regions that lie round the Pole . There , beyond the most northern point of Europe , even at sunrise , * there was no golden transfiguration of the dreadful shore ; a wan lustre played over the rocks—picture of eternal death . * Yet here dwelt a tribe of fishermen at
the bottom of a dismal rocky bight , with only a few tufts of grass © n the roofs of their h uts , a hopelessly barren hill , half enveloped in snow , in the rear , and in front a sea which the light of the sun never deserts , but which is , nevertheless , as cold as an ice-pit . Beyond , in the Voranger Fjord , commences that belt of solid ice which locks up the harbours of the northern coasts of Russia for six months in the year . The Droutheim and Bergen scenery is in complete contrast with the ijord landscapes , being made up of warmly-tinted -waters , cottages , and gardens , deep-green verdure , and piuk and purple hills . On the Bergen-stift the traveller shows us a little damsel in a scarlet bodice , a white chemise , and green petticoat , round , slim , and fair , with eyes ' like the blossoms of the forget-me-not in hue . ' From all parts of the North , indeed , he brings us new and characteristic sketches , brilliantly coloured , vigorous , and natural . All that Mr . Bayard Taylor writes lias its interest and its value , but we rank this narrative , without exception , as the most agreeable and the most original that ho has published .
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THE ADVENTURES OF TWO RUSSIAN PRINCESSES . Captivity of Two Ihuiaian Princesses in the Caucasus . Including a Seven . Months ' Residence in Shatml ' s Seraglio . Communicated by Themselves , and Translated lVoin the Original Russian by 11 . Sutherland YAwards . With a Portrait of Skaiml , &c . . Smith , Klder , and Co . Wiibk the predatory Lesghians invaded ICahctin , in July , 1854 , they carried olF the Princess Chavchnvadzey aud the whole of her family , including her
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No . 403 , December 12 , 1857 . ] THE LEAj ) EB . ¦ _ ' 1193
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 12, 1857, page 1193, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2221/page/17/
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