* * * * *

Sybil, or the Two Nations

      “Sybil, or the Two Nations” was published in 1845, a year
     after “Coningsby,” and in it the novelist “considered the
     condition of the people.”  The author himself, writing in 1870
     of this novel, said:  “At that time the Chartist agitation was
     still fresh in the public memory, and its repetition was far
     from improbable.  I had visited and observed with care all the
     localities introduced, and as an accurate and never
     exaggerated picture of a remarkable period in our domestic
     history, and of a popular organisation which in its extent and
     completeness has perhaps never been equalled, the pages of
     “Sybil” may, I venture to believe, be consulted with
     confidence.”  “Sybil,” indeed, is not only an extremely
     interesting novel; but as a study of social life in England it
     is of very definite historical value.

I.—­Hard Times for the Poor

It was Derby Day, 1837.  Charles Egremont was in the ring at Epsom with a band of young patricians.  Groups surrounded the betting post, and the odds were shouted lustily by a host of horsemen.  Egremont had backed Caravan to win, and Caravan lost by half a length.  Charles Egremont was the younger brother of the Earl of Marney; he had received L15,000 on the death of his father, and had spent it.  Disappointed in love at the age of twenty-four, Egremont left England, to return after eighteen months’ absence a much wiser man.  He was now conscious that he wanted an object, and, musing over action, was ignorant how to act.

The morning after the Derby, Egremont, breakfasting with his mother, learnt that King William IV. was dying, and that a dissolution of parliament was at hand.  Lady Marney was a great stateswoman, a leader in fashionable politics.

“Charles,” said Lady Marney, “you must stand for the old borough, for Marbury.  No doubt the contest will be very expensive, but it will be a happy day for me to see you in parliament, and Marney will, of course, supply the funds.  I shall write to him, and perhaps you will do so yourself.”

The election took place, and Egremont was returned.  Then he paid a visit to his brother at Marney Abbey, and an old estrangement between the two was ended.

Marney Abbey was as remarkable for its comfort and pleasantness of accommodation as for its ancient state and splendour.  It had been a religious house.  The founder of the Marney family, a confidential domestic of one of the favourites of Henry VIII., had contrived by unscrupulous zeal to obtain the grant of the abbey lands, and in the reign of Elizabeth came a peerage.

The present Lord Marney upheld the workhouse, hated allotments and infant schools, and declared the labourers on his estate to be happy and contented with a wage of seven shillings a week.