NOTICE OF BOOKS.

Evening Star, Issue 3543, 1 July 1874, Page 2

NOTICE OF BOOKS.

Millicent Courtenay'a Diary ; or, The Experiences of a Young Lady at Horae and Abroad : by W. H, Kingston. Gall aud Inglis, London and Edinburgh; William Hay, Dunedin.

Notwithstanding the strictures so commonly pronounced against light literature, novels continue to be written because people read them ; nor do we think the world is worse in consequence, but infinitely better than it used to be. There may be—perhaps we may go further and say there is a morbid school of writers whose imaginations have not bad that healthy culture necessary to drawing models for imitation, but though many look at their ideals, the common instincts of mankind reject them. It is quite possible that novels of that class may be better unread, but we are inclined to think the damage they do is very much less than is usually supposed. Just as an untruthful picture offends the eye, they create no sympathy in the human mind : like the amours of gods an i goddesses related in the Pantheon, no matter how beautifully told, there is a grossness underneath which excites disgust, flat this is the abuse of imaginative writing. Its use is not to be condemned because it is occasionally turned to bad account. The general run of readers seek relaxation rather than direct instruction, and will read a novel rather than a work on moral science, history, or political economy. Advantage is therefore taken by teachers in every department of human knowledge of this tendency in society, to give publicity to their theories. Mr Disraeli has tried to resuscitate Toryism by writing novels; without, however, having succeeded to any appreciable extent. Those who were Tories remained so, but we do not think he made many converts, mainly because his models do not commend themselves to all classes. We do not know what the de-ign of Sir Walter Scott was in those beautiful sketches of old times brought back to lifelike reality in his writings. Probably he only desired to give to the world vivid pictures of society and of our forefathers ; but he did more than any mo ; ern writer to create a present interest in things gone by. any rate he gave a decided taste for what is pure in mind and conduct. Dickens is admitted by all to have been a great moral teacher, and that design is apparent through all his works. Mr Kingston, in a different track, writes with a similar purpose, but he has moved in a different sphere. His models are not rare plants of moral beauty, growing without culture iu soil not fitted to them, and flourishing amid adverse surroundings! Millicent Courtenay’s Diary is not a disjointed one, dated day by day like that of Richardson's Pamela. It is a family story of the present day. The plot is so devised as to bring the lady and her sister into Australia, although they were bom and nurtured •amidst the luxuries of aristocratic life in London, and it possesses sufficient interest to lead a reader on to the end. Strictly speaking, Millicent’s Djary is what may be termed a religious novel of a high da-s ; for, at the risk of beiug excommunicated, we may freely confess to not being ardent admirers of the general run of religious novels. Mr Kingston has drawn portraits of some very exceptionally nice girls, of a very exceptionably nice governess, of a weak mother, a spendthrift son, some sailors of true English breed, and of some gentlemen—hearty, refined, and worthy—like many we meet with in New Zealand and Australia. If men desire models for wives, they should select the moral prototypes of Millicent, her sister, and her friends; if ladies wish for governesses for their daughters, we have no doubt there are many Mrs Markhams to be had; if young ladies had the power of choosing husbands, which they have not, it would be wise to fix upon a living representative of Beaumont or Philip Kadland, and to avoid Albert Courtenay ; but if any one, lady or gentleman, desire to keep a diary, wo should recommend its sty le to be terse aud graphic, for should life be lenghtened through many years, it would be so overloaded with minutiae as to be too burth oeome to be enjoyed. Mrs Markham gave Milly a hint to that effect. It was a little needed, but on the whole the young lady’s experiences was such as to excuse dwelling upon events as they occurred, and without the vein of trusting piety that occasionally leads to this diffuseness, a very admirable trait would be absent from her character. It is a book that may be read with benefit by young persons of all classes, as it gives models of patience under adversity, courage in danger, perseverance in duty, and refinement under all circumstances although a handsome outside, good type, and paper do not enhance the va ue of the contents of a book, they add to the pleasure be handling it. Millicent Courtenay’s diary possesses these attractions. The binding is elegantly illuminated. There are a few illus (rations, which, however, are not of sufficient merit to require notice.

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Household edition. By the late Charles Dickens. Chapman and Hall, Loudon William Hay, Princes street, Dunedin.

The only notice this celebrated work requires at our hands is the republication of it in a new form. It contains Dickens’s explanation of the circumstances which led to its peculiar plot, or rather no plot, and explains how it happened that the men who went out into the world with so little knowledge of it as to be hoaxed by a cabman, turned out in the end to be well-bred and well-informed gentlemen. The excuse is ingenious, but hardly satisfactory, for we do not agree wiih Mr l dckens that the contrast between Mr Pickwick, astonished at a horse “forty-two” years old seldom taken home “on account of his veakiness,” and borne up “ very tight” and taken up “ wery short” to keep him from falling down, and Mr Pickwick, the intelligent, benevolent man of the world in the last chapter, is explicable on the grounds stated. This household edition of Dickens’s works must become a favorite on account of its readable type and convenient size for the shelves of a library. It is now in a wrapper and can, therefore, be bound to any pattern that may be desired for the sake of uniformity.

Voyage of the Constance ; a Tale of the Arctic Seas. By Mary Gillies. Gall au d luglis, London and Edinburgh. William Hay, Princes street, Dunedin. The ambition of Mrs or Miss Gillies has been to render her tale “a complete history of Arctic adventure and discovery.” It is a fertile field, and she has succeeded to a great extent, although she appears to have

commenced her researches at a period far too modern to justify the admission that it is a “complete" history. The Arctic regions have been fields of adventure for nearly four hundred years, for in the year 1500 Caspar de Cortereal, a Portuguese nobleman, made an attempt to find a northwest passage. Sir Hugh Willoughby, Frobisher, Davis, Hudson, Captain James, and navigators of our own and other nations foil wed, long before the time of Sir John Franklin, Parry, Lyon, or Captain Ross. Many of them suffered privations and encountered dangers that invest their narratives with the interest of the most sensational novel. We remember well reading the story of Capt. James’s expedition, and what he had to endure, r qually exciting was that of the fonr Russian sailors who wintered successfully in Greenland, and were rescued the following whaling season. The history of the unpretending Moravian mission too is replete with adventure. Captain Sooresby, the late scientific investigator of the means of correcting local attraction of the compass needle, or his father, published a very entertaining volume of adventures in the Arctic regions, while he commanded the ship Fame, and tales of thrilling interest might be written, based on the lives and manners of lea Coureura dea Boit, the Canadian fur traders—the pioneers of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Mrs Gillies has, however, confined her researches to the later phases of Arctic discovery, and invested her story with additional interest by introducing the reader to a worthy family, in whose personal risks and escapes youthful readers will sympathise. The story is told in a way to interest youthful readers; the only danger is that of mixing up dates, through uniting portions of different voyages in one continuous narrative. But this is corrected where truth is concerned, and the leading features of the voyages of the celebrated men whose courage and energy were displayed in their dangerous errand, are preserved and attributed to the men themselves. The “ Voyage of the Constance ”is an elegant volume, pleasingly illustrated, very suitable as a present, and worth reading.