Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 095.djvu/172

Rh makes her sod, Arthur, a miserable dependent, and his wife—the artless and winning Marian—neglected alien; and it goes far towards raising between these two a cloud of suspicion and discord, charged with ruin to their mutual happinesa The ordeal of discipline through which that haughty spirit has to pass, ere it will bate one jot of its pretensions, is finely and feelingly portrayed. Several parts, indeed, of this novel are marked by more than ordinary pathos; especially the death-bed of Sophia, that mild, pure, most unselfish maiden, who had scarcely ever been parted an hour from her mother's side; "and though Mrs. Armytage's loftiness of spirit seemed to elevate her above all sympathy with the timid girl, as the giant oak above all consciousness of the fragrant violet blooming at its root, yet now that the flower was withered, the tree seemed desolate; for winter was around its leafless boughs." A powerful hand is also visible in the description of the meeting and explanation between Arthur and Edgar Rainsford—and of Arthur's passionate revelation to his mother of her illegal tenure of Holywell—and of the disease-stricken and heart-sore woman's return home, to humble herself and die. There is a larger supply, too, of agreeable acquaintances than one often finds in Mrs. Gore's fictions: the Rotherhams, for instance; and excellent Dr. Grant; and part of the Maranham family; and Arthur, and Sophia, and Marian. Even Winsome Wyn becomes likeable, when transformed to Lord Wildingham—though we fancy he was not originally meant to be endured, nor is the process of amendment very naturally explained. The vis comica is well sustained in the person of honest Jack Baltimore—a man of cunning in the odds, expert at billiards, addicted to punch, knowing in horseflesh and the slang dictionary; and tolerable amusement is to be had out of the aspiring Yankee, Mister Leonidas Lomax, who makes his entrée as a never-say- die antagonist of "aristocratic usurpation," speaking in aphorisms himself, and perpetually correcting the moods and tenses of other people, and proving his incapacity to take a pinch of snuff without connecting the measure with some precept of political economy; but who eventually subsides into a courtly, tuft-hunting sycophant—covers his republican nakedness with gay waistcoats and fine trinkets—and disports himself, padded, pinched, painted, with an Adonis wig and a pair of fixed spurs. Other pleasant sketches we have, in the persons of Dyke Robsey, M.P., "all for railways and radical reform," and his cheery, vulgar, kindhearted spouse; and Miss Avarilla, one of the weird sisters at the Grange, rigidly cold and formal, but ever in a solemn bustle and perplexity of business. The Grange mystery is an episode of indifferent interest.

But we must scramble to a conclusion, in a very immethodical fashion; for how, with stinted limits and an imperfect memory, can we find our way to a finis, along the highways and byways of Mrs. Gore's wide domains, unless in a manner sadly skipping and desultory? To run over the names, then, of some other of her host of novels—there are the "Reign of Terror" and the "Lettre de Cachet," the earliest and, some think, the most graceful and attractive of her opera omnia. Her more recent and characteristic style found its first decided display in "Women as They Are"=a somewhat flippant picture of fashionable and Lady's Magazine existence. It appeared in 1830, and was followed next year