REVIEW.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1253, 25 March 1878, Page 3

REVIEW.

SIR GILBERT LEIGH * [fbom the peess.] We approached this new book with the kindliest feelings, prepared to give it the warmest welcome possible. The field for a genuine New Zealand novel was clear and untrodden. What has been done hitherto in this line is of the scantiest kind. Mr Vincent Pyke dealt with only one phase, and that by no means the best, of our colonial life. The work of a well-known Christchurch Incumbeut is concerned with another colony (?) altogether. The opening pages of Mr Butler’s “Erewhon” are splendidly done, giving a vivid picture of the shearing time, and expressing in powerful language the sense of awe which our mountain scenery inspires. Lady Barker’s book would have been good but for its extravagance. The real romance of this interesting young colony was wanted. The materials were ready, the time was opportune, the man only was lacking. The author of “ Sir Gilbert Leigh” has not supplied the want. For, in the first place, the book is a New Zealand one, only so iar as its composition is concerned. The scene, the events, the coloring, are all chiefly found either in Victoria or in India. Once only does the writer touch New Zealand, and then for the purpose of describing the beautiful surroundings of his own lovely Auckland home. “I can see,” he says, “almost from the windows of my room, a scene that great travellers have told me can scarcely be equalled on the wide earth. The sea flashes in the morning sunlight. Islands stud the rolling surface of the great Pacific, as far as the eye can reach, from Rangitoto, with its painted brow piercing the morning clouds, to Tiri Tiri and Kawau, the fairy islands in the distance, and away beyond them ; fifty miles away the clear outline of Little Barrier stands out boldly in the pure atmosphere of this southern land. Wood and stream, mountain and valley, heaven and earth are beautiful.” Wo wish there had been more of this simple and accurate kind of description in the book. In this, as in some other respects, the genuine New Zealand novel has yet to be If the setting of the book is disappointing, its merits, literary and artistic, are still more so. It will be conceded at once that without either pathos or humor, or both, no novel can be considered first-class. The hides-

cribable charm in the writings of George Eliot, George Sand, Thackeray, Dickens, and William Black, lies here. For the possession of either quality implies keen and piercing imaginary power. The true novelist, like the true dramatist, is, of imagination, all compact. He discerns the deep spiritual meaning, the awful issues of life, and so can be truly and impressively pathetic. With the same penetrating faculty he can detect the grotesque combinations of circumstances or inconsistencies of character, and in this way he can be as truly amusing. Now we are compelled to say that there is little either of humour or of pathos in “Sir Gilbert Leigh.” The nearest approach to the former is to be found in these words—“ Colonel Morland, roused from the first sleep to hear that his native soldiers were in open mutiny, and the lives of all Europeans in most extreme peril, was indignant at being so awakened, and laughed at the danger. He did not see it, and therefore for him it did not exist. You may cry ‘Wolf, wolf,’ till you are black in the face, and the average Englishman will stand by with his hands in his pocket, and laugh at your folly, and indeed talk about putting you into a lunatic asylum as a madman, although the wolf may be in deed and truth just at the door Put an average Englishman on the slope of Vesuvius, and tell him that the volcano would certainly burst out, after a long silence, he would most likely, instead of looking out for safety, simply say with an incredulous laugh, ‘Oh, goto Bath.’ ” This being the best specimen in the book, it will be acknowledged that our author’s strong point is not humour. And his pathos, we fear, does not carry the true ring with it. The reader will be often reminded of Dickens, and of Dickens at his worst. Far jeon in his earlier efforts was several removes from his professed master (Dickens), but Mr Rees, though better than Farjeon in some things, is still far below their common model. It is fair and right to quote an author at his best. If there had been many passages in the book like the following, the praise could have been unqualified and well-deserved. The reader of Thackeray will see a distant likeness to Esmond at his mother’s grave : “ Denis Markham was reminded of the story which he heard his mother read when he was a child, of the storm upon the Sea of Galilee, when amid the tempest Christ arose in the stern of the little ship and said to the winds and waves, ' Peace, be still.’ For the moment he could see his mother —the sunlight glancing on her hair, the deep hay window with its border of stained gjass, the golden sun going down into the western sky, the note of the lark floating in from the lofty clouds; he could smell the perfume of the honeysuckle, the clem alls, and the rose,. which clustered round the open window and poured in their sweet and balmy tide; the very pictures on the walls were there. The intervening years rolled away. Time and space vanished. But before the cadences of Mrs Ward’s voice had died away, the scene itself had become cloudy and faded. Oh ! wonderful power of memory, who has not felt it ? In the distant bush, on the tossing wave, in the rush of battle, in the study, or in the lonely woods, in the busy haunts of trade, in the silence of meditation, the gates of memory sweep back, and some scene of bygone happiness comes rolling up, rich with the laughter, brilliant with the smiles, sunny and joyous with the hopes and loves of years and scenes long gone. Yes, but laughter that rang from the lips now cold and still, smiles that beamed from eyes now closed for ever, sunshine and joy, hope and love, whose ashes are buried in the silent grave. No, not all, for love, the beautiful, the immortal love, still lives and bears their images upon his heart for ever. What is the key which unlocks these gates ? A passing word, a faded flower, the shape of a fleeting cloud, a fancied resemblance in feature, a thought, a perfume floating on the air. No human skill, no human wisdom, may reduce to a science this wonderful power of the memory of man.” There are a couple of paragraphs in “A Day’s Ramble in the Bush ” which are terse, true, and really good. But the talk of the two lost babes, especially the theological argument, is too good to be good for anything. It is given to very few to express children’s ideas in such a way as to be childlike without being childish. Pet and Tommy are goody, but not good. To say that Mr Rees has not written a perfect novel is to say he is not a genius. But though not in the first class, “ Sir Gilbert Leigh” may take a good place in the second. The merits of the novel are very considerable. To begin with, its style is remarkably easy and clear. Judging from the rhapsody on Sir George Grey as “ The Great Pro-Consul,” in the appendix of the book, the author has two different styles—the inflated and the restrained. The latter fortunately is in the main the style of the novel. There is a due admixture of long and short sentences, and the whole narrative flows on in orderly and pleasing sequence. All novelists, more or less, go in for description of natural scenery, either as a background for their characters or a$ a medium through which to suggest and depict their feelings and motives. Reading the book the following passage may be quoted as showing the writer’s power in this respect at his his best. It is the scene which Ralph Onslow surveyed as he looked over the Australian cricket ground, between the University and St. Hilda, Melbourne. “ The mighty sun, burning and gorgeous, strode up over the hills of Gippsland and Dandonong, like a shield of burnished paleyellow gold. His mighty rays poured themselves into the shady recesses of innumerable gullies and mountain glens, already echoing to the rapid stroke of the axe and the rustle of the cross-cut saw; over the fields and farms of Eyneton and Bacchus Marsh, of Baroondara, Keilor plains and Bunningyong, already alive with the crack of the bullock-whip and the bark of the sheepdog ; glancing on the scythe of the mower, smiling on laborers proceeding to their work ; on the waters of Hobson’s Bay, and the white sails of ships entering Port Phillip Heads; on the roofs and windows of houses in a hundred towns and hamlets from Melbourne to Albury, from Sale to Warnambool. Above, in the heaven, no cloud as far as the eye could reach, beneath, upon the land and sea, ten thousand evidences of labor, of toil, of pleasure. Only twenty years ago, and the sun rose on silent wilderness. The only sound in the morning air was the splash of the wild fowl in the marsh, or the cooey of the blackfellow calling to his tribe. The only stir in nature was the kangaroo browsing on the banks of the Yarra, the Qoulburn, and the Murray, amid unbroken silence. Now it beams upon a city as large and as populous as Bristol; upon great and busy towns; upon tall chimneys of a hundred manufactories; upon homesteads and stations, vocal with the lowing of mighty herds, the bleating of innumerable flocks; upon theatres and church spires ; upon racecourses, cricket grounds, and public gardens ; upon ships of pleasure, of trade, and of war ; on fields of golden corn and pasture; on the busy haunt sofa world-wide commerce ; on the dense smoke of the steam engine by sea and land; upon the houses of a great community ; in a word, upon an infant nation of antipodean Englishmen.” The best feature in the book is the variety of its incident. If some of the narratives, especially the overseer’s story, are too long, and some of the episodes are too extravagant and sensational, the reader’s unflagging interest is at all events secured. When it is said that the scenes, beginning in a minister’s study, embrace a cricket ground, an Australian station, a voyage to India, thrilling incident!} of the great mutiny, thence 1o an English village, and the return of several wanderers to their respective homes, it will be seen that the materials of the novelist were of the most interesting, most exciting kind. Here and there a touch of mystery rouses the curiosity of the reader, as when Ralph Onslow and Denis Markham, meeting at Melbourne, fancy they know something of each other. It turns out that as children they must have done so, and when they meet together at the bedsidp of the dying Henry Stuart, the readHr’s feeling of curiosity is artistically Mfchficd. The plot of the book is not very difficult to unravel, though, perhaps, the readers will prefer to do tlxia for themselves. We merely remark that there is nothing original in it, Tiie idea of a banished baronet (in tine case

banished unjustly), travelling under an assumed name (Sir Gilbert Leigh), vowing vengeance upon his betrayer, and spending his life to avenge the crime, is sufficiently familiar to most lovers of fiction. The meeting of the two at the dying bed of the real criminal is vividly and dramatically desribed.

In drawing character, Mi Rees succeeds best by way of contrast. These photographs of Edward Bren ton and Denis Markham (Sir Gilbert Leigh) are not badly done. “ Denis Markham was well-nigh as lonely in Melbourne as Edward Brenton. He kept all men at a distance. There was such an air of reserve, a self - contained, cold, abrupt haughtiness of manner about him, that men rather shunned him than otherwise. Eew men would have cared to intrude on Denis Markham against his will, but the quiet helplessness of his fellow-lodger seemed to be no intrusion, and they had become such constant companions that the frequenters of the hotel had at length christened them ‘The Lion and the Lamb.’ The men were in all things wide as the poles asunder. One, quiet, meek, passive, purposeless; the other stern, proud, imperious, and moved by one mighty impulse which would evidently bend all things to the accomplishment of its purpose, or sweep them aside from its onward path. The contrasts in these natures seemed to have drawn them together.” In the chapter where Sir Gilbert tells the story of his life there is a very nice word-picture of his lady love, Isabel Stuart. “ Tall and graceful, with long, waty golden hair, and eyes of intense blue, the features were as regular as if carved, and her skin as white and as pure as ivory. But the beauty which is of the skin and features was her least charm. Gentle in manner and yet courageous, unselfish, and always ready to practise self-denial, of excellent judgment, yet modest and retiring, a musician, a linguist, an artist, and a philosopher, it seemed as if nature and art had joined to make a perfect gentlewoman. Nor was she a prude, nor a blue-stocking, nor a beautiful figure of stone. No peasant child that gathered spring flowers in the meadows, or clambered upon a father’s knee at even, when the day’s hard work was done, had a warmer or simpler soul. She wore her heart upon her sleeve, and a purer nobler heart than that of Isabel Stuart beat not in the Queen’s wide empire.” Altogether the book is one that will attract readers. If it was intended his work to appear in three volumes, the author may thank his English publishers for compressing them into one; for it is clearly, though closely, printed, and most readers are more likely to take up a novel in a single volume than when expanded into three. The incidents are occasionally somewhat extravagant, and the writer’s well-known facility of language is not unfrequently indulged to excess. Still on the whole the book is exceedingly creditable to the author, whose life must have been very eventful, if his narrative is in the main a transcript of it.