Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 095.djvu/174

 Rh pungent as ever. More pains she must have taken in working up the power and passion (for there are both in an eminent degree) of "The Banker's Wife; or, Court and City;" but those who chiefly appreciate her, pronounce it comparatively heavy reading. Scenes there are, however, of genuine comedy and humorous relief, such as scarcely any one else could have put on paper. There was some ground for a critic at this period (1843–4) affirming that, "within the last eight or nine years Mrs. Gore had distanced nearly all her contemporaries by a rapid succession of some of the most brilliant novels in our language." Nor, excepting a brief interval, did she abate in literary energy. Emulation, if nothing else, must have sustained a spirit like hers: was not Mrs. Trollope still publishing her thousands, and Mr. James his ten thousands? Besides the consecrated form of these volumes, there were the magazines into which to pour the exuberance of her invention. In this shape she gave us "Blanks and Prizes," "Temptation and Atonement," "Abednego, the Money-Lender]]," "Surfaceism; or, the World and its Wife;" and innumerable stories, such as the "Burgher of St. Gall," the "Scrap-stall of Paris," the "Leper-House of Janval" the ""Royalists of Peru," and other historiettes collectedor a quick fancy cull flowers and fruitage. Recurring to the post-octavo triplets, we have yet to record the names of "Peers and Parvenus," in which she appears to strain a chord already enfeebled by undue tension; and "Sketches of English Character," illuminated by a running fire of witticisms, manufactured by the same accomplished patentee as "Cecil," and fizzing and crackling in every conceivable direction; and then the "Debutante; or, the London Season," another congenial subject for such a lecturer. These three last works all belong to one year, 1846. Her next, "Castles in the Air," betrayed increasing symptoms of over-work, and did little to strengthen, nothing to spread, her reputation. But it would take many a weightier load than such air-castles to sink the reputation she had secured; a score of such mediocrities would not much depreciate the insurance policy she had long since effected in the temple of Fame. In this glancing notice we have omitted several of her ablest, as well as her least-noticeable fictions; nor have we, as dealing simply with a female novelist, alluded to her productions in other walks of literature. If it happened that our printer's—("bad word," as Young Tom Hall's biographer would put it, and as Ellis Bell would not ) were clamorous