Even looked at from the low standpoint of
educational value, such a performance as that given last Monday might be
of the greatest service to modern culture; and who knows but a series of
these productions might civilise South Kensington and give tone to
Brompton?

Still it is something to have shown our artists 'a dream of form in days
of thought,' and to have allowed the Philistines to peer into Paradise.
And this is what Mr. Godwin has done.

PLEASING AND PRATTLING

(Pall Mall Gazette, August 4, 1880.)

Sixty years ago, when Sir Walter Scott was inaugurating an era of
historical romance, The Wolfe of Badenoch was a very popular book. To us
its interest is more archaeological than artistic, and its characters
seem merely puppets parading in fourteenth-century costume. It is true
our grandfathers thought differently. They liked novels in which the
heroine exclaims, 'Peace with thine impudence, sir knave. Dost thou dare
to speak thus in presence of the Lady Eleanore de Selby? . . . A
greybeard's ire shall never--,' while the hero remarks that 'the welkin
reddenes i' the west.' In fact, they considered that language like this
is exceedingly picturesque and gives the necessary historical
perspective. Nowadays, however, few people have the time to read a novel
that requires a glossary to explain it, and we fear that without a
glossary the general reader will hardly appreciate the value of such
expressions as 'gnoffe,' 'bowke,' 'herborow,' 'papelarde,' 'couepe,'
'rethes,' 'pankers,' 'agroted lorrel,' and 'horrow tallow-catch,' all of
which occur in the first few pages of The Wolfe of Badenoch. In a novel
we want life, not learning; and, unfortunately, Sir Thomas Lauder lays
himself open to the criticism Jonson made on Spenser, that 'in affecting
the ancients he writ no language.' Still, there is a healthy spirit of
adventure in the book, and no doubt many people will be interested to see
the kind of novel the public liked in 1825.

Keep My Secret, by Miss G. M. Robins, is very different. It is quite
modern both in manner and in matter. The heroine, Miss Olga Damien, when
she is a little girl tries to murder Mr. Victor Burnside. Mr. Burnside,
who is tall, blue-eyed and amber-haired, makes her promise never to
mention the subject to any one; this, in fact, is the secret that gives
the title to the book. The result is that Miss Damien is blackmailed by
a fascinating and unscrupulous uncle and is nearly burnt to death in the
secret chamber of an old castle. The novel at the end gets too
melodramatic in character and the plot becomes a chaos of incoherent
incidents, but the writing is clever and bright. It is just the book, in
fact, for a summer holiday, as it is never dull and yet makes no demands
at all upon the intellect.

Mrs. Chetwynd gives us a new type of widow. As a rule, in fiction widows
are delightful, designing and deceitful; but Mrs. Dorriman is not by any
means a Cleopatra in crape.