A Chat About New Books [pp. 414-426]

A CHAT ABOUT NE w BooKs.
Blackmore, he has lost that peculiarity, delicacy, and indescribable quality which made him famous. Fred Foster's gradual
descent from mere idle selfishness to active criminality is well
described. Sabina is forced to endure the amusements of her
husband, whose diversions are those of the ordinary worthless
young man about town. Her husband cannot understand her
not being able to join in his delight in London music-halls,
where even hereditary legislators have been known to disport
themselves. Mr. Black gives several examples of the kind of
gayety in which the patrons of these places delight. One can
easily sympathize with Sabina's disgust as she sits in a box with
two of her husband's male friends. Mr. Black pictures an
amusement of a great city-an amusement which seems to indicate a time of decadence:
"Miss Tremayne was so popular a favorite that even Captain Raby
condescended to bestow a little attention on her. She was attired in all
kinds of cheap finery. Her name was Bank Holiday Ann; she was supposed to be a maid-servant set free for a jollification on Hampstead Heath,
and she proceeded, in a voice about as musical as the sharpening of a saw,
to describe the adventures of herself and her companions, there and elsewhere. As these included the getting drunk of the whole party, their
being locked up for the night, and their appearance before a magistrate
the next morning, there was no lack of incident; while the long-spoken
passages, delivered in a rapid jargon of Cockney accent and Cockney slang,
seemed to find much favor with the audience, who also heartily joined in
the chorus:
"' Bank Holiday Annie,
Bank Holiday Ann;
Up the Heath,
And down the Heath,
And round the Heath she ran.
When the p'leeceman copt her,
She got him one on the eye;
O Annie! I'll tell your mother:
Oh, fie! Annie, fie I "
"'Captain Raby, I wish to go. Do you think you could find my husband?'"
Sabina, high-spirited, high-minded, suffers as her husband
falls lower and lower. We are moved by the fear that her husband may break her heart by claiming her child. But as a rule,
though the novel is well conceived, Sabina does not excite that
intense sympathy which she ought to excite. We must say of
William Black, as we said of the author of Spriungkaven and The
Woodlanders, that he ought not to write another story until he
can equal his best work.
4i6
[June,