MONEY-WORSHIP, A NATIONAL SIN.

43

from our lives; the shame that attaches to the condition of life to which it has pleased God to call us, and the difficulties that surround the station into which we ridiculously call ourselves. Hence domestic miseries, heartrending bankruptcies, gentlewomen left by insolvent fathers to boast in humble servitude of better days, ingenuous youths thrown upon the world to contend with it in the spirit of bitter foes; hence, too, the starvation that glares upon us from the holes and corners of the world, holes in which men, women, and children labour for a crust through the long hours of day and night, that some prosperous, sleek, and "universally respected" tradesman may minister to an inhuman love of cheapness, and fatten upon the flesh and blood of his obscure and helpless fellowcreatures.

Enough! Money-worship, let us not deny it, is a national sin, and he deserves well of society who makes it the subject of his written thoughts, whether he speak in prose or verse. One phase of the passion prominently presented itself in the recent history of railway speculation, and we recommended writers of fiction, whose office it is to catch folly as it flies, not to let the opportunity slip unused. The author of one of the two novels now before us-the Golden Calf-tells us in his preface that when our hint came under his observation

"He had already written at least half of the present volumes upon a plan very similar to the one" laid down by ourselves, "but comprehending other objects which certain events that had recently come before the public with a painful prominence had suggested to him. He desired to show not only the pernicious

influence on society of the great speculators, but the almost equally injurious influence of the great squanderers."

It would afford us real pleasure to say that the success of the endeavour is equal to its aim. The Golden Calf is a meagre sketch by a feeble hand. It takes an inventory of a house, but does not communicate the spirit that pervades it;-the mechanical broker, not the instructed artist, is at work throughout. In the recommendations given in these columns last September, we unhesitatingly affirmed that an author, provided he winnowed his facts well and discharged his self-appointed task in a spirit of conscientiousness and integrity, might deal boldly with names, and be utterly fearless of consequences. And bold enough the author of the Golden Calf is in all conscience. Not only have we Mr. Hudson, Mr. Delafield, and the Duke of Buckingham brought upon the stage, but also the Marquis of Londonderry, old Mr. Coutts, Miss Burdett Coutts, and other individuals, whom there is no more reason to disturb and summon, than there is to drag the author's own father before the public for the unnecessary purpose of making a bow. Yet, though we have a great array of public characters, we learn no more concerning them than we have hitherto gathered from the wellknown records of their lives. The dull level of narrative is never broken by the pungency of satire; personality is never redeemed by brilliancy or force of expression. We have no insight into the souls of individuals whom we do not care to transfer from actual life to the pages of the novelist unless it be to see the springs of action hidden from our gaze in the

SIR EDWARD GRAHAM, AND THE GOLDEN CALF. 45

broad daylight of the world. The lover of scandal will be grievously disappointed who looks for "revelations" in the Golden Calf. The accomplished and instructed novel-reader will find his appetite pall upon insipidity.

Sir Edward Graham, the second novel, is in one respect the very antithesis of the Golden Calf. The object of the latter seems to be a simple clustering together of a few unworthies of the present generation. The intention is declared in the preface. The preface of Sir Edward Graham protests against its being imagined for a moment that the authoress had any man or woman in her eye in the prosecution of her labours. Nobody will suspect Miss Sinclair of the unkind intention. Her ladies and gentlemen are all strangers, and so we wish them to continue. Before Miss Sinclair proceeds to the main purpose of her work, she fills many pages with edifying remarks upon the degenerate tendency of our age, which prefers highly-seasoned and piquant dishes to the rigid and unadulterated fare suited to the palates of rational and enlightened beings; and then, by way of illustration to her lecture, she writes as thrilling, as melodramatic, and as unnatural a story as ever issued from the Minerva press or delighted hall-porters in Grosvenor-square. There is power in her work, such as we do not find in the companion novel above referred to. The lady has skill in dialogue, and can use a delicate pencil in the development of character, but Sir Edward Graham is certainly as admirable au instance of the vice in order to counteract which the book was expressly written as it is possible to place in the hands of the young.

The moral of "Railway Speculation" has yet to be written; the tale that shall instruct mankind has still to be told. It is no journeyman's hand that is competent to the task. It will be the glory of genius to accomplish with a touch that which the tedious and often-repeated efforts of mediocrity will never reach. In the very simplicity and obviousness of the theme consists the difficulty of dealing with it as it deserves.

December 14, 1849.

LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.

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LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

THE time had passed for history to be serviceable either as guide or counsellor to Louis Philippe, King of the French, when he was paying in exile the penalty of opportunity misused in the day of vast prosperity and power. To the Count de Neuilly, the inhabitant of Claremont, with no future before him save the illimitable, which he must share with the meanest, what availed the upbraiding voice of experience of what use the tremendous lesson learned too late, and at a sacrifice that beggars calculation!

Events repeat themselves. In the daily walk of every man scenes, actions and thoughts recur which have already played their part in the mysterious drama of his existence. Amidst the thousand new combinations of life, a well-known series presents itself to startle the actor and to confound his judgment. The public history of the family of Orleans is a continually returning narrative of the same characters, incidents and passions. The first chapter is identical with the last. The most illustrious ancestor exhibits the political features of the least remarkable descendant. Make due allowance for the altered aspect of the age, and the difference between the public career of the crowned representative of the