Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/907

1858.] perament, and yet who should be respectable, and even venerable, by reason of the soundness of his instincts and his thorough right-heartedness—was not an easy one; but in the execution he has been entirely successful. We cannot but surmise that he has met sometime and somewhere a living man with some of the characteristic traits of Father Terence. Father Ignatius, the conventional type of the dark, wily, and dangerous ecclesiastical intriguer, is an easier subject, but not so well done. He is a little too melodramatic; and we apply with peculiar force to him a criticism to which all the characters are more or less obnoxious, that he is too constantly and uniformly manifesting the peculiar traits by which the author distinguishes him from others. Father Debree and Mrs. Barré are drawn with powerful and discriminating touch, and we recognize the skill of the writer in the fact that we had read a considerable portion of the novel before we had any suspicion of the former relations between them. We may here say that we think that the women who may read this work will want to know, a little more fully and distinctly than the author has seen fit to tell, what were the causes and influences which led to the severing of those relations. We cannot state our meaning more clearly, without doing what we think should never be done in the review of a new novel, and that is, telling the story, and thus removing half the impulse to read it. Skipper George and his household, and the smuggler Ladford, are very well drawn,—not distinctly original, and yet with distinctive individual traits, which sharp observation must, to some extent, have furnished the author with.

But to our commendation of the characters we must make one exception: we humbly and respectfully submit that Mr. Bangs is a portentous bore, and we heartily wish that he had been drowned before he ever set his foot upon the shores of Newfoundland. It is possible, however, that in this case we are not impartial judges; for we confess, that, for our own private reading, we are heartily weary of the Yankee,—we mean as a literary creation,—of the eternal repetition of the character of which Sam Slick is the prototype,—which is for the most part a caricature, and no more to be found upon the solid earth than a griffin or a centaur. And in our judgment the theological discussions between this worthy and Father Terence are not in good taste. The author surely would not have us suppose that the wretched, skimble-skamble stuff which the latter is made to talk is any fair representative of the arguments by which the Church of Rome maintains its dogmas and vindicates its claims. A considerable amount of literary skill and a quick perception of the ludicrous are shown in the ridiculous aspect which the good Father's statements and reasonings are made to assume in passing through Mr. Bangs's mind; but we doubt whether such exhibitions are profitable to the cause of good religion, and whether the advantage thereby secured to Protestantism is not purchased at the price of some danger to Christianity. It is not well to teach men the art of making mysteries ridiculous.

But we take leave of our author and his book with high respect for his powers,—we do not know but that we may say his genius,—and with no small admiration for this particular expression of them. The very minuteness of our criticism involves a compliment. It has been truly said, that many men never write a book at all, but that very few write only one. We think that the author of "The New Priest in Conception Bay" must and will write more. A mind so fruitful and inventive, a spiritual nature so high and earnest, and an observation so keen and correct, cannot fail to accumulate materials for future use. We predict that his next novel will be better than this,—that it will have all its substantial and essential merits, and will show more constructive skill and a more practised hand in literary artisanship. His gold will be more neatly wrought, and not less pure and abundant.

first made the acquaintance of this work in a shilling volume, a "railway-library edition," and were charmed with its genial tone, its nice appreciation of rural scenery, its agreeable and unpedantic