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NEW POEMS.*
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PSYCHOLOGICAL AND OTHER NOVELS.*
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favourable ; but , according to Mr . ' Fitzpatrick , that able journal owed its existence to her ladyship . It is morally impossible to give our readers any detailed account of this disappointing book . Its ' topics are innumerable , and are so jumbled together , that ' we feel confused While wading through it . Lady Morgan was very well , but she hardly deserved such a defence as the one on our table . Some of her works are able ; and she appears to have been good-natured and sympathizing . JV 1 oreover , she was somewhat hardly dealt with ; but long before ^ death , which happened in 1859 , she appears to have outlived all the troubles and heart-burnings of her youth , and to have been surrounded with all that should accompany old age We thus take leave of her , and invite the reader who is desirous of learning more of her history to study Mr . Fitzpatrick ' s indefatigable volume . 11 it be but a poor biography , they will find abundance of amusing details relative to the Irish stage of seventy years ago , and mucn gossip , literary and theatrical . Should it reach a second edition , we recommend another revise . '
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TT is with much satisfaction that we hail the advent of Mr . West-J . land Marston , the popular dramatist , in the character of a novelist . "A Lady in her Own Right" is , we believe , his first production of the kind ; his efforts having been hitherto chiefly confined to poetical and dramatic compositions . Naturally , the author ' s reputation in the two above-mentioned branches of literature has excited considerable interest and curiosity respecting his present undertaking , an interest which we confess to have shared in no ordinary degree . The work is precisely the style of novel we should have anticipated from Mr . Marstori ' s peculiar turn of mind . The storv is a perfect masterpiece of chaste and delicate conception , in tical
couched " in spirited and eloquent language , abounding poe fancies , high-toned aphorisms , and elegantly-turned figures of speech . Seldom have we met with anything more beautiful , perfect , or fascinating than the heroine of this work / Caroline of Rainford . The reader at once perceives that the author has here not only presented him with a new phase of character , but that he has imposed upon himself a difficult and , at first sight , an almost impracticable task , ultimately , to succeed in which requires on the part of the writer the most delicate and artistic finish in the portrayal of human feelings and emotions , the keenest a _ ntt most unerring insight into the deep , mysterious springs which regulate the actions of the heart and brain , and an intimate acquaintance
mate destruction . And lastly , Ralph Arundel , whose downright honesty of purpose , scorning to couch itself in honied phrases , shoots * straight ahead in the " required direction , neither tinning to theri ^ ht nor to . the left , regardless of the startled nerves of more refined but less genuine spirits , which prove unequal to the shock of his vehement but virtuous protestations . The story ot the sufferings and death of little May Dawson , a sometime ¦ sojonrner in the valley of humiliation , and whose infinite yearnings after the true spirit of Christianity is simply and naturally told , forms a touching- and interesting episode to the book . would have been
" Mainstone ' s Housekeeper , " by Eliza Meteyard , a most interesting and fascinating novel , had the authoress only compressed it into about one-half the space which it at present occupies . A few omissions in the overcrowded dramatis persona ; would also have relieved the stage of much unnecessary confusion , and greatly assisted the reader in distinguishing and individualizing the more ' important characters . At present , there is such a needless array of personages whose actions have nothing to do with the progress of the story , and the story itself is so lost and entangled amidst the tortuous windings of desultory and extraneous matter , that the
general effect is considerably lessened . That Miss Metayard should have allowed herself to fall into these errors is the more to be regretfed , since her present production possesses much that is in the highest degree praiseworthy and meritorious . The character of her heroine , Charlotte Waldo , with her large Christian heart , abounding in love for her fellow-creatures ; her simple , unaffected energy _ purpose , not to be quelled by any untoward accident of time or circumstance ; her watchfulness over the welfare of all around her , and chiefly her love and reverence for her old master , and the personal sacrifice she makes in order to secure his happiness , is all truthfully
and touchingly delineated . The old master himself , with his strange idiosyncrasy , his conscientious integrity , his nervous imbecility , and blind idolatry of his " little Tullia , " is also an admirably drawn specimen of eccentric human nature . The language ( with the exception here and there of a little tautology , which the authoress will do well to guard against m . ' ¦ future ) is not only graceful and fluent , but occasionally full of deep pathos and poetic feeling . Notwithstanding the faults above mentioned , we can heartily recommend this novel to the perusal of the public . " The author of " Artist and Craftsman " has evidently undertaken -the present work with a view to the promulgation of his individual opinions and prejudices against the " dramatic aTt" in all its branchesr He has taken a somewhat one-sided view of the subject
upon which he expatiates , and tramples underfoot with amazing celerity all the hard-won laurels placed upon the brow of the successful artist . He utterly ignores the divine inspiration which dwells in the soul of every true disciple of | art , and urges him - her irresistibly onwards in the career to which they were born ; lie thoroughly repudiates the theory that all . " special gifts " are more or less emanations from the divine spirit , and designed to serve some " special purpose . " He resolutely refuses to acknowledge that genius in virtue of which an individual man or woman can exalt themselves above the ¦ trivialities , which surround their everyday life , and enter as though in a mesmeric trance into the spirit of the grandest passions and emotions . The author comprises this , in coni unction with manv other noble attributes , in his category ' of the
• " frivolities " of art . in order t ^ blMn ^ f < yfWard- ~ lTis-tlnrory--o / f-e utter worthlessness of theatrical exhibitions , he makes his hm » iuea singer ( a young lady , by the bye , full of noble and generous impulses , notwithstanding her profession ) , whom he describes as having * " raised all manner of dust-clouds before her moral eyesight , " by such arguments as " the loftiness of sesthetical culture , and the mere ideality of the creations of genius , " and he knows not ' what other transcendental trash besides . " Verily our novelist is somewhat uncharitable towards his brethren of the " Thespian art . " The idea of the utility of the stage as a moral and educational vehicle does not seeni to have entered into his limited range ot
vision ; he simply cannot recognise anything real and substantial beneath what he considers so flimsy and transparent a covering . I fc is not our intention , however , to quarrel with the author for his opinions , based , as we feel them to be , upon false premises , and are quite willing to extend to him the meed of praise to which his present work entitles him . His story is interesting , though somewhat tedious and exaggerated ; his language exhibits great breadth of style , and much occasional pathos ; and his characters are generally well conceived and consistently developed . It is , in fact , despite the author ' s dissertations on a subject with which lie is little acquainted , a work of considerable merit , and will doubtless claim a fair share of public attention .
with the morbid sensibilities and mindless conventionalities of society in general . Mr . Marston has proved himself fully equal to the occasion ; indeed , his genius never appears more brilliant than when lightly stripping 1 off the outside covering which shrouds the deeper workings of our inner nature , and exposing the whole complicated machinery in its nakedness and tru , th . In his heroine , Caroline , lady of Rainford , Mr . Marston has had ample opportunity for the display of his extraordinary powers of diving into the heart and root of character . Intellectually and personally endowed with all the fairest gifts of nature , and possessing—moreoveiv ^ any-stirling-qnah'ties ^ f ^^ her own right" mars her own happiness , and lays herself and
conduct open to gross misapprehensions and misconstructions , by an over-refined fastidiousness of taste . She has formed an ideal standard of moral excellence ; in her mind this latter must be accompanied by a fair and noble exterior ; the outside proportions must artistically correspond with the internal graces , or she fails either to recognise or appreciate their existence ; she does ^ not know the intrinsic value ot a " rough diamond . " She has conjured up a world of imaginary heroes , where the manners are as faultless as the heart is great and noble ; and she has not yet learnt to draw the distinction between the life of romance and the life of reality . In her opinion a breach of etiquette is the greatest of social crimes , and no man who neglects the petty formalities of conventional life ,
however praiseworthy may be his conduct in more important concerns , will be dignified as a hero in the eyes of tine lady of Rainford . And yet is Caroline not only pure and noble in herself but an enthusiastic admirer of deeds of heroism , courage , and self- * sacrifice in others . This character is beautifully delineated by the author , who of course leads his heroine through the ordeal of bitter experience , till at last she perceives her error , and makes a final recantation of her falsely conceived doctrines . Our readers , however , must not run away with the , notion that Caroline of Rainford is the only important personage in the novel ; her mother , the
Dowager Countess of Rainford , Beauchamp Faulkner and Ralph Arundel , not only occupying prominent positions , but being all subtly conceived and elaborately worked out by the author . The Dowager , a weak , ambitious woman , morbidly sensitive to the world ' s opinion , to which feeling she would have sacrificed the happiness of her daughter , had not circumstances and some gleamings of abetter $ iatiire ; at length restrained her . Bettuohamp Faulkner , the polished , subtle , refined man of the world , whose universal distrust of the whole human species and irreverent disbelief in the nobler and diviner attributes of man , becomes the source of his own bitterest disappointment , and ulti-
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WE commenco our notices of new poems with some remarks on an old poet , whose works have been lately reprinted . We refer to William Dunbar , the Scottish poet , whose name is better known than his productions . Scarcely a vestige of them , wo are
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548 The Leader arid Saturday Analyst . [ June 9 , 1 SCO .
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* A Lady in her Own Right . A Norel . By Westxand Mabston . Macmillan & Co . Mainat one ' s Housekeeper . By Eliza Meteyabp ( " Silverpen" ) . Three Tola . Hurst & Blaokett . Artist and Craftsman . Reprinted from the Dublin University Magazine . Macmillan & Oo .
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* The Life and Poems of William Bunbar . By Jambs . Patterson . W . V . Nimmo . Poems containing the Citit of the Dead , By JOHN Commit . Second Edition , revised and enlarged . Longmans . ' JSJfcot of all Moods ; a Collection of Pooma original and translated ' . ' By Shout En field . Ward and Look . Some of my Contributions in llhyma to Periodicals in Bijqono T > ays By a Septuagenarian . W . Blackwood and Sons . , Old Fashioned Wit and Humour in Verse . By \ VlMJAM JAOKSON . James Black wood .
New Poems.*
NEW POEMS . *
Psychological And Other Novels.*
PsvrwoT . OftTrAT , ANT ) OTHER NOVELS . *
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 9, 1860, page 548, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2351/page/16/
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