THE SELECTOR;
AND
LITERARY NOTICES OF
NEW WORKS.
RANK AND TALENT.
By the Author of Penelope, or Love's Labour Lost.
In our last volume we devoted nearly six of our columns to an outline of the predecessor of the present work, or the novel of Penelope. We there stated our opinion of the author's talents in a peculiar style of novel-writing—a sort of mixture of satire and fashion, without the starchness of the one, or the silly affectation of the other—abounding in well-drawn pictures of real life, free from caricature, and teeming with home-truths, in themselves of such plainness and ready application, as to make precept and example follow on with near approaches to probability and truth.
The author's forte unquestionably lies in this species of writing, and his "Rank and Talent" will, we think, bear us out in this opinion. The story or canvass of the novel is simple, and well prepared for his sketches and finished portraits of character. They belong to fashionable and middle life, and the conceits and eccentricities, as well as the straightforward integrity of their stations are illustrated with peculiar force. Sound moral and knowledge of the world are occasionally introduced with great tact, for the author is no stranger to the inmost workings and recesses of the human heart; and he adapts these lessons, and dovetails them with the narrative, in a clever and agreeable style.
The outline of the story may be briefly told. The Hon. Philip Martindale has an action brought against him, at the assizes, for the false imprisonment of one Richard Smith, as a poacher; although the object of the defendant was a beautiful girl residing with the defendant. Clara Rivolta is rudely cross-examined as a witness; whilst the plaintiff's case is conducted by Horatio Markham, an intelligent young barrister, whose parents reside in the town where the action is tried. The cousin of the defendant, Mr. John Martindale, an eccentric old gentleman who builds an abbey for his titled relative to occupy, whilst he himself lives in a cottage on the estate; seeks an acquaintance with Markham. These parties reside at Brigland, and Philip Martindale, a dissipated lover of the turf, who is dependent on his capricious cousin for his supplies; and Horatio Markham, the hero, are thus introduced. Then we have a country curate of the higher order, together with his loquacious half; which are excellent portraits.
John Martindale is one of those eccentric beings—half-aristocrat, and half-liberal, which are more rare in society than they were fifty years since; and upon this curious compound turns the narrative. Clara Rivolta and her mother, Signora Rivolta, the wife of Colonel R. quit their native Italy, and visit Brigland, where old Martindale, on the discovery, acknowledges the Signora as the fruit of an early imprudence on the continent, and finally leaves them a large fortune. Clara is married to Markham, and Philip Martindale, afterwards Earl of Trimmerstone, marries a gay, giddy girl, who elopes with a perfumed puppy of the first fragrance.
The round of the earl's dissipation is but a sorry picture of the prostitution of rank; but the connexion leads us into a succession of scenes of fashionable life, which are vividly drawn, as are two or three of their adjuncts,—a popular west-end preacher, an anti-nervous physician, the dandy already mentioned, a noble gambler, and a rich city knight and his aspiring family—all of which are to the life.
Our extracts must be detached from the narrative; but they may serve to illustrate the felicitous vein in which the characters are drawn.