merchant-the true British lion-or satirising the absurdities of the fiery Young Irelanders, or taking a goodhumoured laugh at the broad, white waistcoat of Young England; or, as in My Uncle the Curate, and in Reuben Medlicott, portraying the different styles, manners, and customs of his clerical acquaintances, in all he is most thoroughly at home; and we are at a loss whether to admire him most campaigning with Mrs. Falcon, detailing the humours of the Bachelor of Albany, pic-nic-ing in the wilds of Donegal, or exposing to us the weakness of Reuben Medlicott, the Coming Man, who never came. We take the opportunity afforded us, by the appearance of this last novel, of devoting an hour to the examination of Mr. Savage's four works of fiction, and of introducing and recommending to our readers this last Irish novelist. The Falcon Family, or Young Ireland, a satirical novel, published during the fever-heat of that agitation, was especially directed against the crotchets of the ultra party in Ireland, who menaced England with an arined rebellion. In it the author not only covered with ridicule the leaders of the party, but he so completely exposed their absurd pretensions, their wild rhapsodies and ambitious demeanour, that, in the educated circles of Dublin, and indeed throughout Ireland, his book did more to convince aspiring young men of the folly of the movement, than all the speeches of the House of Commons or the leaders of the Times. The sketches of character in this novel were so natural and true, in fact, the cap fitted so well," that several leading youngsters of the Meagher school, briefless barristers, were highly irate at the accuracy of the portraiture. 64 "Full many a shaft at random sent Finds marks the archer little meant;" yet we question whether Mr. Savage had any one in particular in his mind's eye when he presented Tierna MacMorris to our notice. It is true that, interwoven with the story, were many of the anecdotes which floated about in general society in our Irish capital, and amongst them we may mention the catastrophe of Mrs. Falcon, an actual fact, as recorded in the last page of the a book; and these gave an air of vraisemblance to the story and to the personages in it. But not content with rendering the Young Irelanders laughing-stock, the arrows of his art glanced against the mania for pseudocharitable societies, and in Mr. Falcon's proceedings, as Secretary to the Society for converting the Polish Jews, he declares himself an enemy to such humbug, which diverts the charity of the benevolent from the perishing masses at home to needy adventurers abroad. The "Monastic" scheme of the Tractarian party of the Church of England is sketched with much humour in the description of Mr. St. John Crozier's retreat; and from the chapters relative to it we are tempted to make one extract, first premising that Mrs. Falcon and her two pretty daughters have made a descent on the Abbey, with its inmates in search of solitary religion : Lord Lodore asked whether our hero's tastes were mediæval. "His ideas range much farther back,”’ said Moore; "he is for stone altars like us; but the altar must be a cromlech." I suspect," said Monk, "he has a little hankering after the worship of the sun.” "One of his bright dreams-no more," said Dominick. would consent to have his hand christened." "Yet," said St. Crispin, "I wish he 'He would sooner consent to have it cut off," replied Moore. "How absurd to call these ages dark,” said Lord Lodore. "Dark as night, but night with all her stars," said St. Crispin. "Of all ages the most luminous, in my opinion," said Clement Monk. "Luminous enough for me," said De Goslyn. "But you must admit, Mr. De Goslyn," said the gipsy, fearlessly mixing in the conversation, "that the introduction of gas was a great improvement." "I wanted MacMorris to join us here this summer," said Crozier, observing that Mrs. Falcon had exhausted the topic of the dark ages. "And I hope," said Moore, "you have his cell prepared, for he is coming down; I expect him in a day or two." The hero (a Young Irelander) arrives at dinner. It was some time before Tierna took part in the conversation; but when he did, his natural enthusiasm joined with an in stinctive desire to shine in the presence of a beautiful girl, to whom he knew he was an object of admiration, made him more than commonly brilliant. He took his loftiest flights, broached his most fanciful opinions, and expressed his ideas in more glowing language than he had ever before employed in his finest frenzies. The chiaroobscuro of his diction heightened its effect wonderfully. When Moore was utterly at a loss to penetrate his meanings, Lord Lodore, De Goslyn, and Skiddaw were in raptures; and Emily concluded that she was altogether to blame herself, for her total inability to fathom his depths. He was German, Runic, Ossianic, and politeness happily kept him from being too Celtic. We have seen, indeed, how his views of late had been widening, and how his politics had lost some of their virulence, if not their verdure. Still he was verdant enough in all conscience, and his conversation left no doubt on the minds of any of the company that he was intensely Irish, and thoroughly de voted to the cause of "unbounded nationality." Emily soon discovered that the young statesman at her side was not a whit less romantic than his friend had painted him. Now, however, he propounded schemes to which the Repeal of the Union and the restoration of Stonehenge were poor projects indeed. "Repeal the Union! restore the Heptarchy" said Lord Lodore, using the wellknown argument of Mr. Canning. "Why not restore the Heptarchy ?" demanded MacMorris; "that is my reply to Mr. Canning, and to you.' Lord Lodore was not prepared with an answer to this bold interrogatory; and De Goslyn was of opinion that MacMorris was right, and that it was ridiculous to consider the Heptarchy sacred. "Recollect," continued Tierna, "that the throne of Athelstane, the first monarch of united England, was founded on fratricide -in the blood of his brother Edwin. My authority is your own historian, Turner." "True," said De Goslyn. "Undeniable," said Skiddaw. "But, Mr. MacMorris," said Miss Crozier, "it is more than twelve hundred years ago since the event you allude to happened." Fratricide is still fratricide," replied Tierna. "Individuals may forget, but nations never do, and never ought." Emily recollected MacMorris's story of the hawk of Kildare, and his remarks on the abuse of memory. "But," continued Tierna, "there are many other reasons why you (I mean young Catholic England) should regard the Heptarchy with peculiar veneration; those D were your great, rude days: there were no poor-law commissioners, no power-looms, no pews, no wooden communion-tables; your religion was primitive, your learning monkish, your polity rudimental. It was a huge, dark, wild, monastic time, with a mighty spirit walking the gloomy tracts of of it. Your feudal aspirations are noble; your mediæval views are sound as far as they reach; but go back a few centuries more, and Young Ireland and Young England may fraternise. On the principle that the age of unions is past, why should not a treaty be ratified ?" "Of political marriage between Celt and Saxon ?" said Moore. "Father Tierna, I'll take wine with you.' "I have long been of opinion that we ought to do something," said De Goslyn, with the gravity of Solon; and the other Young England men as gravely agreed with him. "We have done nothing hitherto but write sonnets, tracts, and novels," said St. Crispin. "Our objects, I repeat," resumed MacMorris, warming, "are in principle the same; we are both for returning to the picturesque times. In our vocabulary, improvement is not progress. If the march of ages has un-Celtified Ireland, has it not un-balladised and un-Chaucerised this country? Let inferior states advance to liberty, civilisation, and renown, it is our illustrious distinction, the proud necessityof our common cause, that we can only improve by going back-that we must retrograde to glory." The "lively young men" applauded this harangue with more than their usual fer vour. But MacMorris was not quite done. "For the preliminaries," he added, "do you join us to Repeal the Union, replace Stonehenge, and one or two little things more, and we will combine, heart and hand, with you to feudalise and conventicalise England-to bring back the great days of Robin Hood, and revive the Saxon Heptarchy.' The Carlyleisms of the day are happily satirised in the concluding remarks of the lively young men, who delight in works on the intolerable splendour of the Dark Ages. Lord Lodore, St. Crispin, Monk, and De Goslyn, formed a little group before they left the refectory, and the genius and enthusiasm of our hero formed the subject of their conversation. "This MacMorris," said St. Crispin, using the jargon of a modern school, which has not done much to improve our language-"this MacMorris, in his own semi-articulate way, had a word to speak." "A strong arm of nature he seems," said Monk, adopting the same style; "there is hero-stuff in that deep, big heart of his." "Discerning," said Lodore, with wild, flashing eye, "what to do, and with wild, lion heart, daring and doing it." "So Norse," said Monk. "Ay, you marked that," said Lodore, "How he worked in his obscure element! Methinks he talks as Novales writes-none of the vulgar comprehensible-a dim nomeaning in his sentences. In fact, I consider him a sincere, helpless man, like Cromwell, with a real speech lying hid in his tortuous utterances. I try to believe that he means something; I search for it lovingly, and I find it." "Blockheads," said Monk, looking for plain meanings. that nothing intelligible is standing.' are always My creed is, worth under "That's mine, too," said De Goslyn, and the Runic conversation closed. The conclusion of the visit, resulting in one elopement and another engagement, is well told : Thus terminated the first attempt to revive monastic institutions in England. Mrs. Falcon had the glory of undesignedly defeating that sapient project, although no conduct could have been more exem plary than hers, either while she was abbess of Theleme, or as a simple sister of the Gilbertine house. To wind-up the history of this memorable undertaking, it only remains to record the following exploit of one who seemed determined, at all personal risks, that the part of a Dowsing should not be wanting to complete the parallel between the present and past struggle of the high and low church parties. On the morning that succeeded the "dissolution," Father St. John Crozier was sitting dolefully in the oratory, ruminating upon his discomfiture, and meditating a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; his sister was ministering such comfort as the case admitted of, and strewing fresh flowers upon the altar, when the former accidently raised his eyes to the picture of St. Sebastian, and after gazing at it for a moment, said: Anastasia, I never observed before that St. Sebastian had an arrow in his face." "Nor I," said Anastasia, glancing at the painted martyr. Why, it's a real arrow !" she quickly added. "You don't think it a miracle?" asked Crozier, solemnly. "I think not,' " said Anastasia. should say it was rather Master Willy Falcon." "I Whether the impious little archer ever repented of his parting shot at the Puseyites is questionable; but it is certain he did not disclose it in confession to his mother-abbess. But we must not yield to the fascinations of the book too much, though we would wish to extract the Stonehenge scene, the composition of a war-song, or a specimen of the Gipsy's colloquial misadventures in the use of her French phrases, but must forbear, and pass on to the Bachelor of the Albany, which succeeded The Falcon Family. It is not so happy in conception as that novel, but it is redolent of wit and goodhumoured satire. It is an admirable picture of the domestic life of an English merchant; for, after all, the "Spread" family is its chief attraction; Mr. Barker's shrewdness and weakness not gaining so much attention, though some of the scenes in which he figures are among the best in the novel. Without giving a sketch of the story, which would convey about as clear a notion of it, as the four strokes and the round O which a child draws on a slate in school and calls a man, does of humanity and its "face divine;" we will extract from it one or two of its characteristic portraits and sparkling sentences. Take, for instance, this sketch of a Tractarian nobleman, of course meant for no one of that party more than another, so that we beg our readers not to fit it to any member of the aristocracy, who is said to hold such views. Lord John Yore was the son of the Duke of Gonebye, a member of the House of Commons, furious to repeal the laws of mortmain, and as mad about maypoles as Lord Dudley Stuart is about Poles. Lord John believed in nothing more strenuously than that the glory of England fell with monasteries, and that a statesman could propose to himself no nobler object than to propagate a monkish spirit and remove the obstacles thrown by the barbarous policy of Protestantism in the way of the reestablishment of the religious houses. He had failed once or twice in experiments of his own to get up little priories in different places, as models for larger institutions, and to direct the stream of public opinion into the same devout channel; but, un deterred by his ill success, he was now engaged, with only redoubled ardour, in a similar undertaking, upon a part of his father's estates, namely, to organise a peculiar species of eremitical institution of the most venerable antiquity; it consisted of a collection of cells, at some small distance from each other, each hermit having his own, and providing for himself apart, the reverse of the usual conventual system." We think Lord John Yore would be a fitting companion for the noble author of the celebrated lines "Let laws and learning, wealth and commerce die, But give us still our old nobility." In fact, like the two brothers, the Dromios, in the Comedy of Errors, it is almost impossible to recognise them apart. From the admirable description of Mr. Barker's parliamentary career, we might make a selection of passages, every one of them telling and true; for instance, in the following, how often do we make such a remark, after conning with diligence a long parliamentary debate: He had too sharp an eye for abuses of all sorts not to be a reformer; but then he would reform no abuses except at his own time, which was just when the public mind was least prepared, or in his own way, which was always the most impracticable mode imaginable. When parliamentary reform was the question, Barker would hear of nothing but free trade; when the country was thinking of nothing but free trade, he talked of nothing but vote by ballot; and when the potato failed in Ireland, and all the intelligence and humanity of the empire were concentrated upon devising means of averting the horrors of famine, Barker took up the Church question furiously, and would have wheeled the ministry out for not reviving the appropriation clause. What a picture of but too many in our House of Commons! And again, in the same chapter, how admirably Mr. Savage exposes the waste of time and money expended on some of the ponderous Blue-Books : Upon one occasion, being annoyed by an unmeaning quotation from Virgil, he moved for a return of the number of lines of Virgil quoted by members of the House, from the year 1688 to the present day, specifying the lines in each case, the name of the member who used them, and, the particular poem from which each quotation was taken, whether "Eneid,” “ "Georgic," or "Bucolic." The result was, of course, very nearly a complete edition of the Mantuan bard in the form of a Blue-Book. permit of giving the portrait of Doctor We regret that our space does not Bedford, capital in its way, the truly sketched character of Philip Spread, or any account of the doings of Mrs. Harry Farquhar. To the book itself we cordially refer our readers, promising them a hearty laugh, much amusement, and much instruction; but before we leave the Bachelor in their hands, let us say a word to Mr. Savage about one scene of the story-" The Narrowsmith at the Maintenon cutlets, and the purdinner." We cannot forbear a smile suits of literature at a dinner table, but we think the anecdote below him; all her cronies, but inconsistent with the very well for an old lady's gossip with proper sphere of a masculine author. We might point out one or two passages, both in this and the Falcon but do not wish to do more in this Family, coming under this censure, instance than hint a fault. My Uncle the Curate, our author's third essay in fiction, was not so successful as its predecessors. Whether it was that the wit was more beneath the soil, and did not sparkle as before on the surface, or that the wilds of Donegal were not so attractive as the homes of Liverpool, the chambers in London, or the society of Dublin, we do not say, but My Uncle is not in general appreciated as it ought to be. We do not think it inferior to the Falcon Family, in characteristic touches, nor to the Bachelor of the Albany in variety and wit. It is more subdued and quieter in tone than either, and shows that Mr. Savage can be a landscape as well as a portrait painter. We must set him right, however, above Tory Island; it is no desolate rock for a pic-nic, as he leads his readers to imagine, but a large, cultivated, and beautiful island, with meu, women, and children, and a king of its own. Mr. Savage, in this particular, puts us in mind of a story related in the life of Fielding. On one of the days of the rehearsal of a play from his pen, Garrick came with anxiety to entreat of him to omit one scene, which he declared was bad, untrue, and incorrect -in fact, enough to damn the play. "Oh! the public," cried the father of English novelists, "wont find it out; it will do admirably!" and he would not yield to the solicitations of the actor. The night came, the play was produced, the fated scene over, Garrick hissed, and in great perturbation. He hurried into the green-room, and found the author discussing a bottle of champagne and a pipe. "You have ruined me,” said Garrick, in alarm and vexation; "I have been hissed." “How ?” inquired the philosophic playwright. "The scene I wanted you to cut out!" groaned the actor. "Confound them!" replied Fielding; "they have found it out, have they?" So with Mr. Savage he thought, no doubt, that Tory Island and the County of Donegal were such unknown regions, that he could deal with them as he wished, and trusted to chance for his error and freaks not being discovered; and now that, from personal acquaintance with the lone Isle of the Tower, we are enabled to correct him, we doubt not but that he will receive our reproof with the sang froid of the elder novelist. Not but that his pages convey a very good idea of the scenery of our wild coast, though the description of the rectory is compounded of Ramelton and Dunfanaghy, details being taken from both, but he has caught the spirit of the region, and has well transferred it to his book. The portrait of the tax-collector and tithegatherer is as admirable as any of Carleton's or Lover's, while Mr. Savage is quite unequalled in daguerreotyping clergymen in fact, the curate and the rector are so life-like, that we can point out several among our own acquaintances in the Church who might have sat for them. Indeed, he seems perfectly at home in clerical society, whether high or low church, and one may recognise all his books by their sketches of divines. Like D'Israeli, whose novels we know by the Jew chapters, or Mr. Urquhart's or Anstey's speeches, by their continued recurrence to their favourite topics, so Mr. Savage's novels are always discovered by a certain style about his clerical portraitures. There is a good story of the late Father Tom Maguire's about an old widow in Ballinasloe, which we may tell for Mr. Savage's instruction. Mrs. Judy Burke was a great card-player, and night after night was her sedan-chair seen in the streets of the little town, moving from one house to another with great regularity, but her great symposia took place weekly at her own house. One pack of cards, old and worn, but well preserved, she had, nor could she be prevailed on to buy or to accept a new one. When entreated to do so by the priest of the parish, she confided to him the reason. "Och! Father dear, sure 'tis bekase I know the ace of hearts by the print of my thumb marks when I won the three tenpennies from Betsy Callaghan, and would your reverence have me throw away my luck?" Mr. Savage has taken a hint from Mrs. Burke, and does not (it is very evident) wish to throw away his luck, for in all his four novels he introduces clergymen-from the fat, sleepy Doctor Bedford, or the visionary Puseyite Bat Owlet, to the Curate and Rector of Donegal, and the clever Dean in Reuben Medlicott. Cordially do we welcome this last accession, equal, if not superior, to any of our author's former efforts. It is more compact than the vagaries of the Bachelor, more carefully written than the predatory excursions of the Falcons, and more lively than My Uncle the Curate. Its purpose is excellentReuben Medlicott is a young man of talent and ability, and from his history we learn that good for everything is good for nothing; in fact, an illustration of the homely adage-" Jack of all trades, master of none." He labours, and not ineffectually, to show that he who, with great abilities and many opportunities, is yet destitute of decision and energy, is not the man who will be able to fight the battle of life with success. These three volumes are an admirable lesson to many who do not persevere steadily in their ap pointed course. "Concentrate your energy," is the moral of the story; for, how much more powerful is the effect of the sun's rays when collected by means of a burning-glass, than when they are separated and distinct. This novel, like its predecessor, is in three volumes, a form which is now becoming obsolete, and one which, we may venture to say, was an additional reason against the success of My Uncle the Curate. For, though we added the Falcon Family and the Bachelor of the Albany to the shelves of our library |