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Art. VI. The Farmer's Boy; a Novel, in Four Volumes. By Miss Gunning, Author of Love at first Sight; the Gipsey Countess, &c. &c. Small 8vo. about 220 pages each.
It is a wise maxim in trade, which the booksellers have not disregarded, to proportion the supply of a commodity to the demand for it. The increase in [723] circulating libraries, within the last twenty years, has constituted an immense market for novels; but great as the demand is, we see no reason to apprehend a deficiency in the supply. Where so many tastes are to be consulted, and de gustibus non disputandum, the articles must be variously flavoured, and, therefore, variously compounded. If one appears insipid, and a second be too highly seasoned, we must not make wry faces, and be out of humour at this diversity; the chief duty which devolves on us, who are called upon to taste most of the commodities, will be to give open warning should any thing tainted, any thing unwholesome be exposed to sale; this duty we will most scrupulously perform, if unhappily, it shall ever be required from us. On the other hand, it will give us pleasure to announce any thing of peculiar richness and fine quality; but on articles of ordinary goodness we shall not often give a very peremptory opinion.
Miss Gunning is versed in the art of novel-writing: she keeps up the mystery with considerable dexterity, and the present volumes have altogether amused us. We have, notwithstanding, many heavy faults to find; but, perhaps, they are rather the effect of haste and carelessness, than of incapacity or ignorance. In the first place, the grammatical blunders are almost innumerable: the rare deviations from orthography which we have detected, are, no doubt, to be attributed to the carelessness of compositors, and the oversight of the corrector of the press. Miss G is not sufficiently considerate in the language which her characters speak: When the Earl of Mount-Talbot is on the road to Fairy-Mount, bar-women, peasants, and footmen, are scarcely to be distinguished by their conversation from his lordship himself. The character of the earl is supported with consistency and spirit; the malevolence of Mr Fitzgerald has no adequate cause; his character is extravagant, and, we believe, perfectly unnatural. The loves of Herbert and Rose, - a beautiful flower, not yet full blown - are delineated with delicacy and feeling; and the scene between Herbert and Lady Lismore, in the third volume, where the latter discloses the secret of her maternity, is managed with great address.
In her haste, Miss Gunning has committed an unfortunate anachronism: in the first volume, Lord Mount Talbot, in a conversation with Lady Lismore concerning Rose, says 'Does she not turn out handsome? I thought her an engaging child, but she must be now nearly a woman.' 'Almost sixteen - just two years younger than Herbert;' after this, in the second volume, Rose's father arrives, and says, that 'sixteen years has nearly elapsed since his marriage.'
We decline going into further particulars: had Miss Gunning submitted her manuscript to the revision of some friend, who would have corrected her grammar, chastened her metaphors, and pruned away some redundancies, the Farmer's Boy would have ranked respectably among modern novels. [complete]
Provided by Julie A. Shaffer, January 2000
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