A NOVEL. 177 state of mutiny, and he raised from them a regiment of light cavalry, which distinguished itself in a very striking manner at the battle of Minden. In humble imitation of this example, we shall avail ourselves of the present political disaffection and unsatisfactory idleness of many men of rank and consequence, to request their attention to the Novel of Granby-written, as we have heard, by a young gentleman of the name of Lister;* and from which we have derived a considerable deal of pleasure and entertainment. The main question as to a novel is—did it amuse? Were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten, and twelve for eleven? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not-story, language, love, scandal itself, cannot save it. It is only meant to please, and it must do that, or it does nothing. Now Granby seems to us to answer this test extremely well; it produces unpunctuality, makes the reader too late for dinner, impatient of contradiction, and inattentiveeven if a bishop is making an observation, or a gentleman lately from the Pyramids, or the Upper Cataracts, is let loose upon the drawing-room. The objection, indeed, to these compositions, when they are well done, is, that it is impossible to do anything, or perform any human duty, while we are engaged in them. Who can read Mr. Hallam's Middle Ages, or extract the root of an impossible quantity, or draw up a bond, when he is in the middle of Mr Trebeck and Lady Charlotte Duncan? How can the boy's lesson be heard, about the Jove-nourished Achilles, or his six miserable verses upon Dido be corrected, when Henry Granby and Mr. Courtenay are both making love to Miss Jermyn? Common life palls in the middle of these artificial scenes. All is emotion when the book is open-all dull, flat, and feeble, when it is shut. Granby, a young man of no profession, living with an old uncle in the country, falls in love with Miss Jermyn, and Miss Jermyn with him; but Sir Thomas and Lady Jermyn, as the young gen *This is the gentleman who now keeps the keys of Life and Death, the Janitor of the world.-Author's Note. Thomas Henry Lister, 1801-1842, held the office of Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Besides Granby, Mr. Lister published Herbert Lacy, a Novel; Epicharis, an Historical Tragedy, performed in 1829, at Drury Lane; the Life and Administration of Edward, First Earl of Clarendon, and other writings. He was brother-in law of Lord John Russell. 178 POWER OF A NOVELIST. tleman is not rich, having discovered by long living in the world, and patient observation of its ways, that young people are commonly Malthus-proof and have children, and that young and old must eat, very naturally do what they can to discourage the union. The young people, however, both go to town-meet at ballsflutter, blush, look and cannot speak-speak and cannot look suspect, misinterpret, are sad and mad, peevish and jealous, fond and foolish; but the passion, after all, seems less near to its accomplishment at the end of the season than the beginning. The uncle of Granby, however, dies, and leaves to his nephew a statement, accompanied with the requisite proofs-that Mr. Tyrrel, the supposed son of Lord Malton, is illegitimate, and that he, Granby, is the heir to Lord Malton's fortune. The second volume is now far advanced, and it is time for Lord Malton to die. Accordingly Mr. Lister very judiciously despatches him; Granby inherits the estate-his virtues (for what shows off virtue like land?) are discovered by the Jermyns-and they marry in the last act. Upon this slender story, the author has succeeded in making a very agreeable and interesting novel; and he has succeeded, we think, chiefly, by the very easy and natural picture of manners, as they really exist among the upper classes; by the description of new characters, judiciously drawn and faithfully preserved; and by the introduction of many striking and well-managed incidents; and we are particularly struck throughout the whole with the discretion and good sense of the author. He is never nimious; there is nothing in excess; there is a good deal of fancy and a great deal of spirit at work, but a directing and superintending judgment rarely quits him. ...... Tremendous is the power of a novelist! If four or five men are in a room, and show a disposition to break the peace, no human magistrate (not even Mr. Justice Bayley) could do more than bind them over to keep the peace, and commit them if they refused. But the writer of the novel stands with a pen in his hand, and can run any of them through the body--can knock down any one individual, and keep the others upon their legs; or, like the last scene in the first tragedy written by a young man of genius, can put them all to death. Now, an author possessing such extraordinary privileges, should not have allowed Mr. Tyrrel to strike Granby. This is ill-managed; particularly as Granby does not return the blow, or turn him out of the house. Nobody should suffer his hero to have a black eye, or to be pulled by the nose. The Iliad would never have come down to these times if Agamemnon had given Achilles a box on the ear. We should have trembled for the Æne.d, if any Tyrian nobleman had kicked the pious Æneas in the 4th book. Æneas may have deserved it; but he could not have founded the Roman empire after so distressing an accident. PUBLIC-HOUSES AND DRINKING. * WHAT the poor shall drink-how they shall drink it—in pint cups or quart mugs-hot or cold—in the morning or the evening -whether the Three Pigeons shall be shut up, and the Shoulder of Mutton be opened-whether the Black Horse shall continue to swing in the air-or the White Horse, with animated crest and tail, no longer portend spirits within: all these great questions depend upon little clumps of squires and parsons gathered together in alehouses in the month of September-so portentous to publicans and partridges, to sots and sportsmen, to guzzling and game. "I am by no means a friend to the multiplication of publichouses," says a plump perdricide gentleman in loose mud-coloured gaiters, bottle-green jacket and brass buttons. Perhaps not; but you are a friend to the multiplication of inns. You are well aware, that in your journeys to Buxton, Harrowgate, and Bath, the competition of inns keeps down the price of your four post-horses, and secures for you and yours the most reverential awe, from Boots upward to the crafty proprietor himself of the house of entertainment. From what other cause the sudden and overwhelming tumult at the Dragon? Why the agonizing cry of first inn! Why is cake and jelly pushed in at the window? Why are four eyeless, footless, legless horses, rapidly circumscribed by breeching and bearing-reins? Why are you whisked off, amid the smiles of sallow waiters, before the landlord has had time to communicate to you the sad state of turnips in the neighbourhood? Look now a little to the right as you proceed down the main street, and you will behold the sign of the Star and Garter. Make your bow to From an article on the "Licensing of Ale-Houses."— Ed. Rev. Sep., 1826 180 WINE-DRINKERS AND ALE-DRINKERS. the landlord, for to him you are indebted for the gratification of your wishes, and the activity of your movements. His waiters are as sallow, his vertebræ are as flexible-his first turns as prompt and decisive. Woe to the Dragon if he slumbers and sleeps! Woe to the Star if it does not glitter! Each publican keeps the other in a state of vigilant civility; and the traveller rolls along to his journey's end, lolling on the cushion of competition! Why not therefore extend the benefit of this principle to the poor villager or the needy traveller — which produces so many comforts to the landed and substantial Justice? There are two alehouses in the village, the Red Horse and the Dun Cow. Is it common sense to suppose that these two publicans are not desirous of gaining customers from each other? and that the means they take are not precisely the same as those of important inns- by procuring good articles, and retailing them with civility and attention? We really do not mean to accuse English magistrates of ill nature, for in general there is a good deal of kindness and consideration among them; but they do not drink ale, and are apt to forget the importance of ale to the common people. When wine-drinkers regulate the liquor and comfort of ale-drinkers, it is much as if carnivorous animals should regulate the food of graminivorous animals · as if a lion should cater for an ox, or a coach-horse order dinner for a leopard. There is no natural capacity or incitement to do the thing well in the lion to distinguish between clover and cow-thistles -no disposition in the coach-horse to discriminate between the succulence of a young kid, and the distressing dryness of a superannuated cow. The want of sympathy is a source of inattention, and a cause of evil. no power The immense importance of a pint of ale to a common person should never be overlooked; nor should a good-natured Justice forget that he is acting for Liliputians, whose pains and pleasures lie in a very narrow compass, and are but too apt to be treated with neglect and contempt by their superiors. About ten or eleven o'clock in the morning, perhaps, the first faint, shadowy vision of a future pint of beer dawns on the fancy of the ploughman. Far, very far is it from being fully developed. Sometimes the idea is rejected, sometimes it is fostered. At one time he is almost fixed on the Red Horse; but the blazing fire and sedulous kindness of the landlady of the Dun Cow shake him, and his soul labours! Heavy is the ploughed land-dark, dreary, and wet the day. His purpose is at last fixed for beer! Threepence is put down for the vigour of ale, one penny for the stupefaction of tobacco !-and these are the joys and holidays of millions, the greatest pleasure and relaxation which it is in the power of fortune to bestow; and these are the amusements and holidays which a wise and parental Legislature should not despise or hastily extinguish, but, on the contrary, protect with every regulation which prudence and morality would in any degree permit. We must beg leave to go into the Dun Cow with the poor man; and we beg our readers to come in for a moment with us. Hodge finds a very good fire, a very good-natured landlady, who has some obliging expressions for everybody, a clean bench, and some very good ale- and all this produced by the competition with the opposite alehouse; but for which, he must have put up with any treatment, and any refreshment the unopposed landlord might have chosen to place before him. Is Hodge not sensible that his landlady is obliging, and his ale good? How can it be supposed that the common people have not the same distinctions and niceties in their homely pleasures as the upper classes have in their luxuries? Why should they not have? Why should they not be indulged in it? Why should they be debarred from all benefit of that principle of competition, which is the only method by which such advantages are secured, or can ever be secured, to any class of mankind?-the method to which the upper classes, wherever their own pleasures are concerned, always have recourse. The licensers of public-houses are so sensible of this, that, where there is only one inn, nothing is more common than to substitute, and make exertions to set up another, and this by gentlemen who are by no means friendly to the multiplication of alehouses. Public-houses are not only the inns of the travelling poor, but they are the cellars and parlours of the stationary poor. Α gentleman has his own public-house, locked up in a square brick bin. London Particular- Chalier 1802- Carbonell 1803- Sir John's present of Hock at my marriage: bought at the Duke's sale- East India Madeira-Lafitte - Noyau-Mareschino. Such are the domestic resources of him who is to regulate the potations of the labourer. And away goes this subterraneous bacchanalian, greedy |
