C ARLES KING-LEY,

Waikato Times, Volume VIII, Issue 453, 13 April 1875, Page 2

C ARLES KING-LEY,

As su-tist, it is a little difficult to rank Mr Kingsley. His best things tire very good, but unless they wcrM vorv short lip was apt either to leave them unfinished or to Hig lunentably in the finishing. His shortest poems are his best, and one or two of them, especially the " Sands of Doe," may be sunn for centuries to com \ His shortest novel, " Yeast," v-i fullest of his genius. Hi* shortest e*saysgixe the greatest impression of power. His sketchiest descriptions of character stride us as being most *di\e. We know of no people whose existence we doubtless than Colonel Bracebridge in ♦ Ye-ist," or the bookseller in ''Alton L >eke "—" — the only humorous person, by the way, whom we remember in all Mr Kingslev'.s works — is Jack Brimblccombe in Westward Ho ! " «>r Lord Scoutbush or M\rk Armsworth in "Two Ye.us ago," or Bishop Synesius, "in livp.iti.t," yet these are the veriest, sketches, mere hints, as it were; of poisons who might hereafter be described, while those who are dcsctibed, and, as it were, analysed — Lancelot Smith, Alton Lwko, Amy.is Leigh and his brother Frank, Tom Tb u mall, and Grace Harvey, and Hypatia herself — ire all blurred portraits. 1 aviug a scarcely definite impression. Hypati.i leaves none at all, except that of a woman who would be perfect if she did not happen to be a prig, while tho two characters on whom Mr KingsU'y bestowed most pains — Raphael Ben Ezriand Tom Thurnall —are like *'onderfully-drawn figures spoilt in puti^sx n the colour. The "^.^JrjTluV^^ ' tyto'";

temphi hh intolerance and liidiffereutisin, bis man-of-the-world geniu-s, coloured by speciality of race and position, who so fascinates readers in the first two volumes, becom-a an average Rttgliv boy in the third ; while Tom Thimwll, the English Raphael BjuEzim, the cviical, able, s^mi-P.tgin tlwtor, with his perennial elasticity and en Hess resources, is washed out at last into the sort of manly curate won young ladies used to write novels about, tothecuriousaud , ijhtVcomcirritationofeverybo' y n.)t in H)ly Oiders. Cyril, the great propignu ist Bishop of Al xmdria, Mr KingJey did not under-. stuid, even with the sympithy o hate; and fat*failure to give life to theS.Xjn pitiiot and bng.nd Herew »rd was gi-e iter than Lord Ly ttou's failure to depict Harold, the last of the Sixon Kings, lhe glow, however, and rush ot his style, his thorough sympathy with his heroes, and his remarkable dramatic power— take, as an example, Major Campbell s curs- oa the rantiig preacher in " Westward Ho ! - blind the reader to th-s^ defects, and leave him full power to ci.joy Mr Kingsley at his b -st, in his descriptions of country life and the scenery of nature. Whenever he appeared as naturalist—whenever, that is, he had knowledge to smelt under hv gemus— Mr Kingsley rises at once into the poet» .iT'd can- describe with a poet's insight scenes which he had nev>i\een, and had only gathered from books into his i«A«\ We know of nothing more wonderful in literature than the fact that the man who wrote -S^eat ward Ho!" had never been in the Tropic^ v t>*ve> beheld nature in her malencently luxurious mdbd.,the mood -as of an Asiatic Sovereign, revelling In sj.lenHoui and in death, he jet so magnificently de&cril cd. We 1 aye s-aid nothing of Mr Kingsley personally, for we are not writing his biography, arid noth rg ot his theology, for that would ie"quire a tejiaiate study, and nothing of 1 im as historian, for in that capacity he was to us'm.endurable ; but it would be wrong to forget that, poet by genius and novelist by habit, he was the most faithful of pastors, that' the whole Wefet cmiitry loved the Cheshire man who kntvt Devon to well, and that the poor of Eversley stood weeping by the grave to which the Piince of Wnles sent bis it piesentative. — " Spectator."