REVIEW.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 93, 27 February 1863, Page 2

REVIEW.

Lady Audley's Secret, by Miss Brunton, Authoress of Lady Lisle, Aurora Floyd, Ac., published in the Sixpenny Magazine. A taste for literature shows that the people who possess and cultivate that taste are a people far advanced on the road of civilisation, and are rapidly progressing to that great culminating point when the destiny of man will be fulfilled. But as literature acts on the mind as food acts on the body, it is necessary, to insure healthy action, that the stimulus applied should be of an invigorating and substantial kind, and not merely of a frothy and evanescent nature, for as unwholesome food acts upon the body of the eater, so does a weak and foolish literature act upon the mind of the reader, to the great damage of its noble functions and the consequent deterioration of the aims, tastes, and

pursuits of that people who countenance it. Our contemporary the Herald, with that thirst for knowledge, and that .eminent desire to propagate by cuttings, all that is useful and entertaining, has just picked up a story which has filled a large portion of the available space in his paper for some time past, and which story would seem, from its occupying such a distinguished position, to be worth reading. We need hardly say that the title of this romance of “ thrilling interest” is “Lady Audley’s Secret,” which appears to have arrived at the columns of the Hawke’s Bay Herald, after having done duty in a variety of shapes and forms, in an equal variety of papers and journals, in different parts of the earth, —by which roundabout course of travelling the story (such as it is) has lost all that freshness and vigour derivable from damp paper and half-dried printers’ inks which alone makes this sort of literature in the slightest degree bearable. Before proceeding to discuss the merits of the work in question, we will say in passing that we deprecate strongly the introduction into the columns of that part of the press, which is commonly known as the newspaper, this sort of trash. People look to their paper to supply them with subjects of interest, bearing upon passing events, and not for a dose of the mere tittle tattle which makes up the substance of fashionable periodicals, and which are a perfectly distinct species. The first chapter of this astonishing tale opens with a long and vivid description of an old English manor house, which, judging of its capabilities from the account given of it, must be one of the most extraordinary of impossible structures ever got together since that profound puzzle to architects was launched upon the waters, — the Ark of Noah. In fact, if it is fair to judge the mansion, which forms the principle feature in the first chapter, by the result of our own observation of edifices of which this purposes to be a truthful representation, we incline to think that such a construction never was, and more than that, could not by any possibility ever be, and in point of fact the talented author, hy making up such a higgledy pigglcdy of a place neutralises what little effect was yet left to he got from such a worn-out subject.

The charming youug Uuly who reduces the baroneted owner of the extraordinary mansion before mentioned, to a state of helpless drivelling, is described with force and eliect as possessed of such intolerably brilliant and irresistible charms, that we cannot wonder at our baronet being completely conquered by the mere first glance at such an adorable creation. So irresistible must have been this delightful young creature, that we imagine if the scene of the story had been laid in cultivated Napier, instead of in some remote part of barbarous England, that our inilammatory friend the Herald would have taken the place of the enamoured baronet, with, if possible, greater warmth, regardless of the “amenities of life.”

The fact is, that the light literature of the present day has so completely exhausted the topic of old country houses with fantastic gables and turreted chimneys, embowered amidst ancestral trees, that this generation is beginning to get rather “ used up ” with that sort of thing, and would like to have a taste of something fresh ; —say, for instance, a peep at the romantic interior of our friend’s printing establishment when under the energetic control of the author of the “ Tracts for the Times,” or some other equally interesting and original subject. Pretty girls pretending not to know that rich and soft old baronets are most stupendously in love with them, is a very old affair, but we never heard of a woman in our life, young or old, pretty or ugly, who was not conscious intuitively of the admiration of a man, particularly if that man happens to be a rich one, whether his admiration be expressed or not. It runs in their bonny blood, and is part of their nature. Chapter two is, without exception, the most silly, witless piece of nonsense that we ever, in the course of a long and well-spent life, came across. Nothing, in our opinion, can equal the insipidity of the whole affair. We have a young gentleman extremely fond of smoking, (but the authoress cautiously avoids the probability of offending the delicacy of her readers by introducing “pipes and baccy”—confining the hero solely to the use of the elegant cigar,) and judging from the manner of his soliloquy and general conduct, it appears to us that smoking, upon the whole, disagrees with that singular youth, and we advise that he do discontinue that bad practice. Anyhow, whether smoking or not smoking, that individual appears to us to be a very poor specimen of a very ordinary kind of mortal, whom you may meet any day in any public conveyance, whether

by land or water, in any public place of amusement or resort, in any part- of the inhabitable globe, and who are remarkable for nothing but the extreme vapidity and smallness of time, without much notice being taken of them ; and not until the date of publication of the work to which we now refer, have we ever met with an instance in which they have been stopped in their harmless and useless career.

The whole of this young gentleman’s story as told by himself, as touching his career previous to emigrating, is so completely a rehearsal of what occurs every day, and is considered anything but remarkable, that it has no power or freshness to recommend it. For notwithstanding his shrewdness in detecting all the pits, &c., &c., laid for the unwaiy to fall in love with his pretty daughter, by that “ drunken old lieutenant,” our hero appears to have been the'first and easiest victim. Then as to his gold-digging experience, the thing is absurd, and the more so as he becomes the richest man in Australia with £20,000. Why, even in this povertystricken laud, we could knock out two or three “parties,” who would be dreadfully disgusted if you said they were only worth £20,000. Now, as we are constant readers of the Herald, and as we have repeatedly assured that journal that we entertain a high opinion of his independent zeal in exposing abuses and remedying evils, and, in short, for general good conduct, (although, by the way, he won’t believe it, for we fear he does not know a friend when he sees him,) -we advise that shrewd and intelligent journal, if it values what little circulation is yet left it, to have done with such outrageous twaddle as this Lady Audley's Secret. If, however, he is really bent upon converting his paper into a miscellany for the diffusion of useless knowledge, he will send an express across to our little Devil, that intellectual youth shall knock him off an original production of any kind or sort the Herald likes to order, at the rate ot £3 3s. the sheet, we need hardly remark, would be dirt cheap at the price.