THE SYBIL.

BY D'ISRAELI.

As this new novel has excited intense interest in England, we make no apology for giving our readers some extracts from it.

The "Sybil" is, we had almost said of course, a political novel ; the story is the secondary, the enunciation of Young England opinions the primary object. Those opinions are rather startling, The author thinks that everything in the political world of England is unreal, and that people been misled by names. "Oligarchy has been called liberty ; an exclusive priesthood has been christened the national church ; sovereignity has been the title of something that has had no dominion, while absolute power has been wielded by those who profess themselves the servants of the people. In the selfish strife of factions two great existences have been blotted out of the history of England, the monarch and the multitude ; as the power of the Crown has diminished, the privileges of the people have disappeared, till at length the sceptre has become a pageant, and its subject has degenerated into a serf." "But we shall now," says our author, "witness a development of the new mind of England, which will make up by its rapid progress for its retarded action. I live among these men ; I know their inmost souls; I watch their instincts and their impulses ; I know the principles which they have imbibed, and I know, however hindered by circumstances for the moment, those principles must bear fruit. It will be a produce hostile to the oligarchical system. The future principle of English politics will not be a levelling principle —not a principle adverse to privileges—but favorable to their extension. It will seek to ensure equality —not by levelling the few—but by elevating the many."

We proceed to give extracts, which introduce us to the personages, and show the style of the work :—

" Egremont was the younger brother of an English earl, whose nobility, being of nearly three centuries' date, ranked him among our high and ancient peers, although its origin was more memorable than illustrious, the founder of the family had been a confidential domestic of one of the favorites of Henry the Eighth, and had contrived to be appointed one of the commissioners for 'visiting and taking the surrenders of divers religious houses.' It came to pass that divers of these religious houses surrendered themselves, eventually to the use and benefit of honest Baldwin Greymount. The King was touched with the activity and seal of his commissioner. Not one of them whose reports were so ample and satisfactory, who could baffle a wily prior with more dexterity, or control a proud abbot with more firmness. Nor were they well digested reports alone that were transmitted to the Sovereign ; they came accompanied with many rare and curious articles, grateful to the taste of one who was not only a religious reformer, but a dilettante; golden candlesticks and chalices, sometimes a jewelled pix, fantastic spoons and platens, rings for the finger and the ear, occasionally a fair written and emblazoned manuscript—suitable offer to a royal scholar. Greymount was noticed, sent for, promoted to the household, knighted, might doubtless have been sworn of the council, and, in due time, have become a minister ; but his was a discreet ambition, of an accumulative rather than an aspiring character. He served the King faithful in all domestic matters that required an unimpassioned, unscrupulous agent; fashioned his creed and conscience according to the royal model in all its freaks ; seized the right moment to get several grants of abbey land, and contrived, in that dangerous age, to save both his head and his estate."

The heroine is "Sybil," she who gives the name to the book. As in many of Disraeli's former fictions, much of the interest of this turns on the fact of one of his leading personages being a Catholic, and his or her love being a Protestant. "Sybil" is the fascinating idolator in this case, and Egremont her worshipper, and, ultimately, her husband. All those portions of the book that have reference to the disputations about the religious faith of the two parties are exceedingly interesting, even to those who have no taste for such matters when treated in the ordinary way. We cannot, unfortunately, make room for extracts how "Sybil," when the novel opens is in circumstances of life by no means a meet partner for Egremont. Her father, Walter Gerard, is a factory overlooker, who is killed while heading a Chartist riot, but is the heir to a large estate and noble title; and to these his child, after an infinity of adventures, succeeds. Her lover first woos her in an old abbey in his brother's demesne, and afterwards in the capacity of a London reporter in the manufacturing districts, a disguise he assumes, owing to the selfishness of his father, Lord Marney, who leaves his electioneering bills and expenses unpaid.

The following is a view of the town of Marney. It is very beautiful, and no less beautiful than true : —

The situation of the rural town of Marney was one of the most delightful easily to be imagined. In a spreading dale, contiguous to the margin of a clear and lively stream, surrounded by meadows and gardens, and backed by lofty hills, undulating and richly wooded, the traveller on the heights of the dale would often stop to admire the merry prospect that recalled to him the traditional epithet his country. Beautiful illusion ! for behind that laughing landscape penury and disease fed upon the vitals of a miserable population ! The contrast between the interior of the town and its external aspect was as striking as it was full of pain. With the exception of the dull high-street, which had the usual characteristics of a small agricultural town, some sombre mansions, a dingy inn, and petty bowers, Marney mainly consisted of a variety of narrow and crowded lanes, without cement, and, from age or badness of the material, looked as if they could scarcely hold together. The gaping chinks admitted every blast, the leaning chimneys had lost half their original height, and rotten rafters were evidently misplaced, while, in many instances, the thatch yawning in some parts to admit the wind and wet, and in all unfit for its original purpose of giving protection from the weather—looked more like the top of a dunghill than a cottage. Before the doors of these dwellings, and often surrounding them, ran open drains—full of animal and vegetable refuse, decomposing into disease—or sometimes, in their imperfect course, filling foul pits or spreading into stagnant pools, while a concentrated solution of every species of dissolving filth was allowed to soak through and thoroughly impregnate the walls and ground adjoining. These wretched tenements seldom consisted of more than two rooms, in one of which, the whole family, however numerous, were obliged to sleep, without distinction of age, or sex, or suffering. With the water streaming down the walls, the light distinguished through the roof, with no hearth even in winter, the virtuous mother, in the sacred pains of childbirth, gives forth another victim to our thoughtless civilisation—surrounded by three generations whose inevitable presence is more painful than her sufferings in that hour of travail ; while the father of her coming child, in another corner of the sordid chamber, lies stricken by that typhus which his contaminating dwelling has breathed into his veins, and for whose next prey is perhaps destined his new-born child. These swarming walls had neither windows nor doors sufficient to keep out the weather, or admit the sun, or supply the means of ventilation, the humid and putrid roof exhaling malaria like all other decaying vegetable matter. The dwelling-rooms were neither paved nor boarded, and whether it was that some were situated in low and damp places, occasionally flooded by the river, and usually much below the level of the road, or that the springs, as was often the case, would burst through the mud floor, the ground was at no time better than so much clay, while some times you might see little channels cut from the centre, under the doorways, to carry off the water, the door itself removed from its hinges, a resting-place for infancy in its deluged home. These hovels were, in many instances, not provided with the commonest conveniences of the rudest police ; contiguous to every door might be observed the dungheap, on which every kind of filth was accumulated, for the purpose of being disposed of for manure, so that when the poor man opened his narrow habitation in the hope of refreshing it with the breeze of summer, he was met with a mixture of gases from reeking dunghills."

To relieve this state of things is the end and aim of the hero's political labours. One of those who would keep things as they are, Lord de Mowbray, is thus admirably sketched : —

" He was not deficient in abilities, though he had not his father's talents, but he was overeducated for his intellect, a common misfortune. The new Lord Fitz Warens was the most aristocratic of breathing beings. He most fully, entirely, and absolutely believed in his pedigree; his coat of arms was emblazoned on every window, embroidered on every chair, and carved in every corner. Shortly before his father's death, he was united to the daughter of a ducal house, by whom he had a son and two daughters, christened by the names which the ancient records of the Fitz-Warrenes authorised. His son, who gave promise of abilities, which might have rendered the family name really distinguished, was Valence; his daughters Jane and Maud. All that seemed wanting to the glory of the house was a great distinction, of which a rich peer, with six seats in the House of Commons, could not ultimately despair. Lord Fitz Warens aspired to rank among the earls of England. But the successors of Mr. Pitt were strong; they thought the Fitz-Warenes had already been too rapidly advanced. It was whispered that the King did not like the new man; that his Majesty thought him pompous, full of pretence; in short, a fool. But, though the successors of Mr. Pitt managed to govern the country for twenty years, and were generally very strong, in such an interval of time, however good their management, or great their luck, there were, inevitably, occasions when they found themselves in difficulties, when it was necessary to conciliate the lukewarm, or to reward the devoted. Lord Fitz Warens well understood how to avail himself of these occasions : it was astonishing how conscientious and scrupulous he became during Walcheren expeditions, Manchester riots, Queen's trials. Every scrape in the Government was a step in the ladder to the great boroughmonger. The old King, too, had disappeared from the stage, and the tawdry grandeur of the great Norman peer rather suited George the Fourth. He was rather a favorite at the cottage ; they wanted his six votes for Canning ; he made his terms ; and one of the means by which we got a man of genius for a minister was elevating Lord Fitz Warens in the peerage, by the style and title of tho Earl de Mowbray, of Mowbray Castle."

. . . . .

The Chartist commotion, in which the father of the heroine, "Sybil," is prominently engaged, progresses, and, in the course of it, Lord Valentine (Lord Francis Egerton) is thus introduced upon the scene in converse with Gerard and others of the people's delegates, among whom figures the Rev. Mr Stephens (Stephen Morley) : —

" 'At all events,' said Lord Valentine, 'the respective advantages of aristocracy and democracy are a moot point. Well, then, finding the question practically settled in this country, you will excuse me for not wishing to agitate it. I give you complete credit for the sincerity of your convictions : extend the same confidence to me. You are democrats : I am an aristocrat. My family has been ennobled for nearly three centuries : they bore a knightly name before their elevation. They have mainly and materially assisted in making England what it is. They have shed their blood in many battles. I have had two ancestors killed in the command of our fleets. You will not undertake such services, even if you do not appreciate their conduct as statesman, though that has often been laborious, and sometimes distinguished. The finest trees in England were planted by my family ; they raised several of your most beautiful churches ; they have built bridges, and made roads, dug mines, and constructed canals, and drained a marsh of a million of acres, which bears our name to this day, and is now one of the most flourishing portions of the country. You talk of our taxation and our wars ; and of your inventions and our industry. Our wars converted an island into an empire, and at any rate developed that industry, and stimulated those inventions of which you boast. You tell me that you are the delegates of the unrepresented working classes of Mowbray. Why, what would Mowbray have been, if it had not been for your aristocracy and their wars? Your town would not have existed : there would have been no working classes there to send up delegates. In fact, you owe your very existence to us. I have told you what my ancestors have done. I am prepared, if the occasion requires it, not to disgrace them. I have inherited their great position, and I tell you fairly, gentlemen, I will not relinquish it without a struggle.'

" 'Will you combat the people in that suit of armour, my lord,' said one of the delegates smiling, but in a tone of kindness and respect.

" 'That suit of armour has combated for the people before this,' said Lord Valentine, 'for it stood before Simon de Montfort on the field of Evesham.'

" 'My Lord,' said the other delegate, 'it is well known that you come from a high and honored race ; and we have seen enough to-day to show that in intelligence and spirit you are not unworthy of your ancestry. But the great question which your lordship has introduced, not us, is not to be decided by a happy instance. Your ancestors may have done great things. What wonder! They were members of a very limited class which had the monopoly of action. And the people, have they not shed their blood in battle, though they may have commanded fleets less often than your lordship's relatives? And these mines and canals that you have excavated and constructed; these woods you have planted ; these waters you have drained—had the people no hand in these creations? What share in these great works had that faculty of labor whose sacred claims we now urge, but which for centuries have been passed over in contemptuous silence? No, my lord, we call upon you to decide this question by the result. The aristocracy of England have had, for three centuries, the exercise of power; for the last century and a half that exercise has been uncontrolled. They form, at this moment, the most prosperous class that the history of the world can furnish : as rich as the Roman senators, with sources of convenience and enjoyment which modern science could alone supply. All this is not denied. Your order stands before Europe the most gorgeous of exciting spectacles, though you have of late years dexterously thrown some of the odium of your policy upon that middle class which you despise, and who are despicable only because they imitate you : your tenure of power is not, in reality, impaired. You govern us still with absolute authority, and you govern the most miserable people on the face of the globe.'

"And is this a fair description of the people of England?" said Lord Valentine. ' A flash of rhetoric, I presume, that would place them lower than the Portugese or the Poles, the serfs of Russia or the Lazzaroni of Naples.'

" 'Infinitely lower.' said the delegate, 'for they are not only degraded, but conscious of their degradation. They no longer believe in any innate difference between the governing and the governed classes of this country. They are sufficiently enlightened to believe themselves victims. Compared with the privileged classes of their own land, they are in a lower state than any other population compared with its privileged classes ; all is relative, my lord, and believe me, the relations of the working classes of England to its privileged orders are relations of enmity, and therefore of peril.'

" 'The people must have leaders,' said Lord Valentine.

" 'And they have found them,' said the delegate.

" 'When it comes to a push, they will follow their nobility,' said Lord Valentine.

" 'Will their nobility lead them?' said the other delegate. 'For my part, I do not pretend to be a philosopher ; and, if I saw a Simon de Montford again, I should be content to fight under his banner.'

" 'We have an Aristocracy of wealth,' said the delegate who had chiefly spoken. 'In a progressive civilisation wealth is the only means of class distinction ; but a new disposition of wealth may remove even this.'

" 'Ah ! you want to get at our estates,' said Lord Valentine, smiling ; 'but the effort on your part may resolve society into its original elements, and the old sources of distinction may again develop themselves.'

" 'Tall barons will not stand against Paixhan's rockets.' said the delegate. 'Modern science has vindicated the natural equality of man.'

" 'And I must say that I am very sorry for it,' said the other delegate ; 'for human strength always seems to me the natural process of settling affairs.' "

Chartism and aristocracy are thus further and forcibly contrasted :—

" 'And yet, said Egremont, 'a great family rooted in the land, has been deemed to be an element of political strength.'

'I'll tell you what.' said Gerard, 'there is a great family in this county and rooted in it, of which we have heard much less than they deserved, but of which I suspect we shall hear very soon enough to make us all think a bit.'

" 'In this country ?'

" 'Ay; in this country, and every other one —I mean the PEOPLE.'

" 'Ah! said Egremont, 'that family has existed for a long time.'

" 'But it has taken to increase rapidly of late, my friend—how may I call you ?'

" 'They call me Franklin.'

" 'A good English name of a good English class that has disappeared. Well, Mr Franklin, be sure of this, that the population returns of this country are very instructive reading.'

" 'I can conceive so.'

" 'I became a man when the bad times were beginning,' said Gerard; 'I have passed through many doleful years. I was a Franklin's son myself and we had lived on this island at least no worse for a longer time than I care to recollect as little as what I am now. But that's nothing ; I am not thinking of myself. I am prosperous in a fashion : it is the serfs I live among of whom I am thinking.' Well I have heard, in the course of years, of some specifics for this constant degradation of my people; some thing or some person that was to put all right ; and, for my part, I was not unready to support any proposal or follow any leader. There was reform, and there was paper money, and no machinery, and a thousand other remedies ; and there were demagogues of all kinds, some as base as myself, and some with blood in their veins almost as costly as flows in those of our great neighbor, Earl de Mowbray ; and I always heard that was very choice: but I will frankly own to you, I never had much faith in any of these proposals or proposers; but they were a change, and that is something. But I have been persuaded of late that there is some thing going on in this country of more efficacy ; a remedial power, as I believe, and irresistible ; but whether remedial or not, at any rate a power that will mar all or cure all. You apprehend me. I speak of the annual arrival of more than three thousand strangers in this island. How will you feed them ! How will you clothe them ? How will you house them? They must have given up butcher's meat : must they give up bread? And as for raiment and shelter, the rags of the kingdom are exhausted, and your sinks and cellars already swarm like rabbit warrens.'

" 'Tis an awful consideration,' said Egremont, musing.'

" 'Awful,' said Gerard ; ' 'tis the most glorious thing since the deluge. What kingdom can stand against it ? Why, go to your history—you're a scholar—and see the fall of the great Roman empire. What was that? Every now and then there came two or three hundred thousand strangers out of tho forests and crossed the mountains and rivers. They come to us, every year, and in greater numbers. What are your invasions of the barbarous nations—your Goths and Gisgoths, your Lombards and Huns —to our population returns.' "

The passion of "Sybil" and Egremont is beautifully depicted throughout ; so is the fierce love of Morley for "Sybil;" and "Sybil" and her father's affection for each other. As a true love story, "Sybil" is the very best of the author's; as a political novel, it is hardly equal to "Coningsby ;" and, in the scandal and malignity of that renowned production, it is altogether inferior, and, indeed, makes no pretensions to rivalry.

Thus it will be seen that the political aim of "Sybil" is much the same as "Coningsby," an exposition of the doctrines, and an enforcement of the principles of "Young England." The work has this fantastic and, considering the author's peculiar conjugal relationship, somewhat fiddle-faddle elucidation :—

"I would inscribe these volumes to one whose noble spirit and gentle nature ever prompt her to sympathise with the suffering ; to one, whose sweet voice has often encouraged, and whose taste and judgment have ever guided their pages ; the most severe of critics, but a perfect wife!"

South Australian (Adelaide, SA : 1844 - 1851), Friday 2 January 1846, page 4