Part III.

“That man,” says Theophrastus, “is justly called a lover of filthy lucre, to whom the relish and value of a gain are enhanced by the baseness of the means that have been employed in its acquisition.” I had failed in my designs; but my brutal triumph over the cause of this failure was almost equal in effect to success. I did not relent; I felt no remorse; I would have acted the same part again: parental affection was irrevocably dead. I enjoyed a kind of secret satisfaction at the awful result of my violence. A long and lingering illness, augmented by the horrors of our parting interview, had brought Valeria to the verge of the grave. She had given birth to a son. Poverty had sternly asserted its supremacy over the happiness of the young couple. Though since the rupture between us had taken place, I had never visited or enquired about her, there were many interlopers sufficiently officious to convey to me news of her approaching dissolution. These hints I would have disregarded, but for the sinister reports which from this time forth were so liberally circulated to my disadvantage. A note hastily placed in my hands one evening by a muffled figure, in whom, notwithstanding the attempted disguise, I fancied I recognised the manly form and contour of Da Vinci, confirmed me in my determination to witness the results of my violence. It was traced in a tremulous hand, and read as follows:—

“Father!—for Christian meekness and humanity, still compel me to call you by the endearing name—will you not soften your heart toward one, who, by all the laws of nature and of man, should be its solace and its idol; and whose last wish is that death should separate us in amity and mutual affection? Will you not, now at least, when she, who was once the delight of your old age, and the comforter of your bereaved heart, is on the bed of death,—will you not hearken to her dying wish, and grant the boon she so eagerly desires? O, have some mercy, my father—my benefactor! Hasten to the death-bed of your wretched—wretched daughter! May God forgive you, is the prayer of your erring

“Valeria.”

Two motives induced me to comply with the request contained in this note. First, I was anxious to avoid the contumely of those who watched my actions; and secondly, I felt a fiendish desire to behold the consummation of my revenge. Throwing a hasty disguise over my person I sallied out, and rapidly pushed my way through the thoroughfares of Venice, to a remote part of the city called _Francesco della Vigna_. Here, in an obscure lane, and surrounded by filth and poverty, I traced my way to the wretched tenement of Da Vinci and Valeria. A kind of involuntary sickness came over me as I ascended the stairs leading to the miserable loft in which they lodged. It proceeded not from remorse; it was not prompted by humanity; it was instinct conquering nature. With some hesitation I entered the apartment of the dying woman. A spectacle, which to any one but myself, would have appeared heart-rending, caused me to shudder for the immensity of my guilt.

The haggard and wasted form of Valeria was stretched on the bare floor. Her half-famished infant lay upon her breast. She breathed with difficulty. Her eyes were sunken, her complexion pallid and unearthly. Her features betrayed evidences of the most intense agony, both mental and physical.

But the most shocking part of the scene was the ghastly semblance of Da Vinci, as he sat by the bed-side of his dying wife. His hands were crossed—his knees drawn together; his elbows rested on a broken table; his hair fell in long and matted locks from his head; his skin was ashy and squalid; and in place of the manly beauty which every lineament of his countenance had once betrayed, his features were now haggard and care-worn, and his once mellow and intellectual eye, was fixed with an unmeaning stare on the wretch before him. Three days had scarcely elapsed since I had recognised him in the strength and beauty of manhood, but, oh, how changed! how fallen! how wretched!

On drawing near this afflicted group, I was startled and alarmed at the change that came over the countenance of Da Vinci. At first the bereaved man fixed upon me a stupid and sullen gaze; but on recognising the author of his misery, his eyes flashed with maniacal ferocity; his lips became pale and compressed; the large veins on his temples swelled, and throbbed violently; and he exhibited the most alarming symptoms of madness. I endeavored to draw back; but I was too late. His deadly purpose was fixed. With a wild, shrieking laugh he sprang upon me. In an instant his nails were buried in my neck. I struggled with desperate energy. Incontinence and debauchery had sapped my vital principle, and age had laid his searing hand on my frame; but I contended for life, and I was powerful. On the other hand, Da Vinci, nerved by the delirium which had taken possession of him, was irresistible.

“Fiend!” he shouted—“die!—die!—die!”

“You will murder me!” I groaned, already suffocating under his vice-like grasp, “have mercy, for God’s sake!”

“You showed _her_ none!” he answered hoarsely.

“I repent—I shall make amends.”

“Too late—she is dying.”

“Oh, God, stop!—you strangle me! I am not fit to die.”

“So much the better. Die—villain, die!” and with a desperate exertion he bore me to the floor. I essayed in vain to release myself from his deadly grasp. A moment more, and death would have rescued me; but the Almighty ordained that I should live to reap the fruits of my crimes. Involuntarily, as the agonies of dissolution came upon me, my hand sought one of those small daggers, with which an Italian is never unprovided. I drew it from my bosom. I raised it to strike. Da Vinci saw his danger; but he was too late. With irresistible strength I plunged it in his side. He uttered no groan; he rolled from my person a dead man. I stooped over the bleeding corpse in mute horror. The eyes were fixed upon me with a glassy gaze. It was a fearful spectacle—one which was well calculated to strike awe into the bosom of a murderer.

I turned a searching eye toward the prostrate form of my daughter. It was inanimate. No sign of life or recognition illumined her ghastly countenance. She had evidently swooned. As if in mockery of the dreadful tragedy which had just transpired, the infant boy slumbered peacefully by her side. The reproach was more than I could bear. Guilt—guilt was whispered in my ear by a thousand voices. I rushed from the blood-stained spot. I hurried to my desolate home. Here new miseries awaited me, I bolted the doors; but they afforded me no security. I drank deeply—but inebriation came not. I endeavored to sleep; but my horrors were increased. This fearful state drove me to desperation. I tried to pray: the Almighty heard me not. My heart was too black—too guilty. Night had come. My sufferings were too intense for human endurance. The lonely and ruinous garret in which I lay, augmented the dreadful vividness with which I created the most revolting phantasmas in every recess and corner; and the hollow moaning of the wind against the roof filled my soul with ominous and harrowing sensations. A strange—an indefinable desire to return to the scene of death, took possession of my mind. It became too absorbing—too interminable to be resisted. The moon had by this time ascended her throne in all her queenliness and majesty. I rushed rapidly through the empty streets to the quay for the night-gondoliers; and aided by the moonlight, soon succeeded in reaching _San Francesco della Vigna_. Hastily dismissing the gondolier, I won my way to the abode of the dead. An ominous silence reigned around it. I shuddered—I turned pale; but I did not hesitate. Up the tottering stairs I rushed; the door of the death-room was open; and my eyes at once fell upon a picture which is indelibly engraved on my memory.

Valeria had, on recovering her senses, crept to the body of her husband. She held the slumbering babe in one arm, while with the other she raised the head of the dead man and reclined it on her bosom. She knew he was dead—that he would never wake again; she saw the life-blood oozing from his heart; but her devotion was superior to the evidence of her senses; her constancy to the sword of death. She chafed his temples; she fondly smoothed his hair; she kissed again and again his icy lips; and she fervently prayed for the salvation of the dead. A pale, unearthly glow was thrown over the group by occasional glances of the moon-beams; and everything conspired to strike me with awe and remorse. But I was not susceptible of the better feelings of humanity. I possessed no refined sensibility. Whatever I felt was common to the lowest of God’s creation.

“Why,” I cried in a hollow voice, “why must this be? Why must my peace be blasted by such scenes as these? I murdered him—is it not enough that he should die? I seek nothing from him after death. Why—why do you persecute me, Omnipotent God!”

“See!” shrieked a piercing voice, “see what you have done!”

For a moment I could not answer. The anguish of the accuser deprived me of speech. But at length I stammered out,

“I did but defend my life.”

“You drove him mad.”

“He ruined, deceived, beggared me.”

“It is a calumny!” said Valeria, with flashing eyes, seeming for an instant to forget her grief in indignation at the charge, “he honored you!”

“I forgive him.”

“He is dead.”

I was silent. The last words were said in a voice of such exquisite anguish that they went to my heart—stony as it was. If ever a pang of remorse vibrated in my soul it was then. Valeria regarded me with an expression more of sorrow than of anger. She clasped the infant to her arms as if it were now her only solace; and burst into a flood of tears.

“Father,” she murmured, when her agitation had in some measure subsided; “the hand of death is upon me. God in his infinite goodness has given you the means of atonement for your crimes. A few hours and I shall be no more. Take my child—you are rich—rich in worldly things—take him, and have him brought up as he should be. I rely on you—I beseech you—I command you! You cannot be so utterly callous to humanity, as to refuse; let him not die in this miserable place. O, be kind to him—be more merciful to him than you were to my poor, dead husband!”

Exhausted and heart-broken, the young mother sank upon the corpse of the murdered man. Her eyes grew dim; her breathing became short and violent; her hands and lips seemed bloodless; and after a few spasms she lay still. I approached her. I placed my hand upon her heart. Already her skin was cold and clammy. The sufferer was dead!

A chill crept over me as I stooped to examine the corpse. It seemed as if the ghastly expression of the countenance was but the effect of some horrible incubus—so vivid—so real—so revolting was it to the observer. Fearfully did the presentiment of future retribution come upon me at that moment. I was no longer the proud politician, concerting magnificent schemes; I had nothing left of the bold and desperate gambler; the greatness of purpose and energy of execution which had hitherto marked my career, were at an end. I was now, what my crimes had made me—an abject, guilty wretch. I shuddered to think of my awful destination; I felt how terrible would be the punishment I so richly merited; but remorse—penitence—sorrow—entered not my obdurate heart.

Necessity compelled me to comply with the dying request of Valeria. I was aware that my conduct had excited much suspicion. It therefore became my policy to avoid public attention; and I took the earliest opportunity to have the unfortunate objects of my malevolence interred, and the infant orphan confided to the care of a nurse. No suspicion was excited at first; but strange things soon began to be whispered by the individuals who occupied the lower part of the tenement in which the tragedy had been enacted. The storm gradually gathered its forces for a general explosion. Rumors, so liberally circulated at my expense, reached the ears of the official authorities under the Doge. Manini was not predisposed to turn a deaf ear to anything pertaining to my downfall. His suspicions relative to my integrity had long been confirmed. Enemies and interlopers were not wanted to construe every thing into its most criminal aspect. The result was such as might be expected. I was arrested by the city functionaries, on a charge of murder. Universal horror was expressed when my crimes were made known. It was evident that I had nothing to expect from public sympathy.—How many are there who profess benevolence and charity, ever ready to persecute the unfortunate with the most unmitigated severity! I experienced the full effects of this human failing. My trial was long and doubtful. Everything in the shape of evidence, however trivial or absurd, was adduced in order to convict me. But nothing of a positive nature could be brought up against me. It was true I had treated my daughter with severity and inhumanity; but I could not be found guilty on so general a charge. It was also true that a noise had been heard in the apartment of Da Vinci a few hours before his corpse had been discovered by the lower tenants of the house; but I was not seen. The whole affair then though well understood, was in the eye of the law, uncertain and inconclusive. Public opinion in a case like mine was not regarded as having any weight. I was dismissed. My persecutions, however, did not end so soon. A few devoted minions of the Doge, glad to have an opportunity of satisfying their resentment for my former conduct toward them, followed me unceasingly, and spared no pains to ensure my self-conviction.

But I baffled them. My life, however, became one of extreme misery and watchfulness. I feared to sleep lest I should be robbed or assassinated. I dreaded a sight of the human countenance; for in every man I fancied I recognised an enemy. Neither could I hide myself in solitude—my guilt was too fearful—too relentless. I dared not walk in the public thoroughfares; for the utmost detestation was pictured in every face; and my ears were assailed with reproaches and contumely. I could not roam the most obscure parts of the city, without being dogged and persecuted by the blood-hounds of Manini. It was a miserable situation. Health—comfort—happiness, were gone forever. Not even the common enjoyments of life fell to my lot. I could not sleep—I knew no pleasure in drink—I was too decrepid and impotent to enjoy artificial stimulants: what then must have been the depth of my misery? It was too great to be borne. I resolved to leave the theatre of my misfortunes; and to bury myself in the busy haunts of the great English metropolis. In the costume and character of a Jew, I embarked for the city of my destination. Arrived there, I set up a small establishment as a usurer. My thirst for accumulation was not satisfied by my crimes; nor did my honesty profit by inaction. The great object was, however, in some measure effected. I enjoyed as the guilty may enjoy the security of my secluded situation. I passed many years in a state of negative happiness. My internal miseries lost none of their poignancy; but they caused me no physical inconvenience. I was free from immediate conviction; and had every prospect of continuing unmolested. Time soothed my terrors, though I still looked forward with fear and anxiety to the day, when something worse might turn up, than mere imaginary fears.

* * * * *

Age and imbecility have come upon me. I have spun out nearly the remains of my guilty existence, in security and prosperity. I have acquired riches; but have never enjoyed them. I have sinned and suffered; but my crimes are not atoned for. A day will come when the fearful debt must be paid. I await it with calmness. I repent of nothing that I have done. I ask forgiveness neither of God nor of man. Let the full measure of His retribution be my eternal ruin. I am content to die as I have lived—fearless—guilty—unrelenting.

* * * * *

Here ends the Autobiography of this false and evil man. It is a highly-colored, but we trust, not an extravagant picture of the effects of avarice. The moral remains to be told. If, in the sequel or fourth part, we can show that sooner or later retribution will fall upon the guilty; we may say of our hero what Scott quotes of Charles the Twelfth:—

“He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, and adorn a tale.”

* * * * *

CHIMES OF ANTWERP.

One, two, and three, with measured stroke and numbers on they go, For Ghentish Charles ’twas thus they woke, for blood-stained Alva so, And still from out their airy cage of wreathed and trelliced stone, They tell us of our pilgrimage another hour has flown.

They float above the Plâce de Mer, and o’er thy roofs and towers, Fair Antwerp, with thy solemn air and antique Flemish bowers; And sweet and stately is the sound, and melancholy too, As it should be where Memory the fabler dwells with you.

One, two, and three, with measured strokes and numbers they awake! ’Twas thus on Rubens’ ear at eve their sounds were wont to break; And still o’er his best monument, with monumental tone, They tell us of our pilgrimage another hour has flown. J. H.

* * * * *

A WINTER SCENE.

BY LYDIA JANE PIERSON.

Oh how magnificent. How beautiful The old grey wood appears. Each sturdy tree Crown’d with a glorious diamond diadem Of wreathen plumes and garlands. Every bush And slender sapling, bending with the weight Of its bright ornaments, seems to the view Like youthful genius shrinking and o’erwhelm’d With the chill weight of the cold world’s applause. The sun is rising now, and every spray, And feathery evergreen, grows radiant With more than earthly glory. One might deem Each twig a chain of gold profusely set With ruby, emerald, and amethyst, Sapphire and living diamond, splendid all And dazzling past description. Yet there lives No balm, no melody of loving birds Amongst the icy branches; grandeur reigns And frigid beauty, without life or joy. No gentle breezes woo the branches now, To bend and kiss their sweetly sighing lips, And fling a cloud of incense, and bright flow’rs Upon their lingering pinions. No young fruits Lie in their curtain’d cradles, rocking soft To the glad lullaby which smiling Hope Sings round the fragrant clusters. No young birds Lie chirping in their nests amongst green leaves. No passing streamlet lingers in the bow’rs, Forgetting, for a while, its morning hymn, To touch the rich lip of the fragile flower That lives upon its love one summer day, Then lays the dying head so gently down Upon its bosom, while the trembling depth Reflects with sympathy the blighted gem, And murmurs promise of another life, And blest re-union at return of spring. No young fawns gambol through the silent wood, In the delight of life’s first consciousness Of freedom, strength, and beauty. No fair child Crushes the sweet buds with its little feet, While bounding after the bright butterfly Which floats upon its rich, brocaded wing In graceful carelessness from bloom to bloom. No merry laughter, no light-hearted lay, No lover’s whisper floats among the bowers; But all is icy beauty, cold and still, Radiant and passionless, and void of bliss; A glory that will quickly melt away And leave no trace behind. And such I deem Is life within a nunnery; pure and bright With heaven’s reflected glory; but all cold And destitute of the fond sympathies That are at once the bliss, the ornament, And agony of life.

Liberty, Pa. March, 1841.

* * * * *

OH! GENTLE LOVE.

SUNG BY MR. WILSON, IN AUBER’S OPERA OF LESTOQ, ARRANGED BY T. COOKE. Geo. W. Hewitt & Co. No. 184 Chesnut Street, Philadelphia.

Oh gentle love, thy spirit o’er us beaming,

Doth thro’ the soul its tenderness diffuse, E’en as the glow, from morning’s sun light streaming, Smiles o’er the earth, and tempereth its hues Oh! gentle love, thy spirit o’er us beaming,

Doth thro’ the soul its tenderness diffuse, A magic all have felt and feel, how e’er they struggle to conceal A magic all have felt and feel, how e’er they struggle to conceal, Or as the dew upon the flowrets sleeping, Over the leaves a distillation rains, Which tho’ the day dissolve its pearly weeping, Still in their heart reviving them remains.

* * * * *

SPORTS AND PASTIMES.

PARTRIDGE SHOOTING.

Concluded.

Unless there be continual rain, or it be the depth of winter, birds will visit their basking place some time in the course of the day, whether the sun shine or not. The basking place is generally, but not invariably, on the sunny side of the hedge. Birds may be most easily approached in fine weather. All kinds of birds lie better in small enclosures than in large ones, that is, when the cover in each is alike. It need scarcely be added, that the more bushy the brambles, or the higher the grass the more closely will lie the game.

A person who knows how to walk up to a bird will obtain more shots than one who does not, especially in windy weather. Birds will not only allow the shooter to approach nearer to them when he faces the wind, but they present on rising, a fairer mark.

When the legs of a bird fired at fall, it is almost a certain proof that it is struck in a vital part. A bird so struck should be narrowly watched, when, in most instances, it will be seen, after flying about a hundred yards if a grouse, or fifty yards if a partridge, to tower or spire in the air, and fall down dead. When only one leg falls, the bird should be watched, but in the latter case, it generally happens that the leg or thigh only has been struck. Any bird that flinches, on being fired at, or whose feathers are in the least disordered, should be marked down, and followed. Grouse more frequently fly away wounded than partridges. Grouse are often recovered several hundred yards from the gun.

Until November or December, young grouse, black-game, partridges, and pheasants, may be distinguished from old ones by the lower beak not being strong enough to bear the weight of their bodies. The lower beak of an old partridge is strong enough to sustain the weight of a brace of birds; but a young bird cannot be raised by the lower beak without the lower beak bending under the weight.

The number of birds in a covey varies much, perhaps the average may be from ten to fifteen. In some years, when the coveys are larger after a fine hatching season, it is not uncommon to see upward of twenty birds in a covey; and sometimes after a wet season, ten birds may be deemed a fair covey. Birds are most numerous after a dry summer. When there are thunder-storms about midsummer, great numbers of young birds are drowned. The young birds have many enemies besides the elements, such as cats, young dogs, hawks, foxes, and vermin of different descriptions. When the eggs are taken, or the young birds destroyed soon after leaving the shell, there will be a second hatch. Sportsmen often meet with second hatches in September, when the old birds rise screaming, and generally alight within fifty yards, as if to induce the young birds to follow. In that case the fair sportsman will not fire at the old birds, but will call in his dogs and leave the ground. At such times he should look well after the young dogs, as, when they see the birds running, they are apt to snatch up such of them as cannot get out of the way. The very young birds are called cheepers, from their uttering a scream as they rise. Full grown birds never scream as they rise, except when the young ones are helpless, nor do young birds after they are large enough for the table.

There are shooters who acquire an unsportsman-like habit of firing at a covey immediately as it rises, before the birds are fairly on the wing, and, thus without aiming at any individual bird, bring down two or three. And sometimes they will make a foul shot by flanking a covey; the birds being on the wing, come upon them suddenly, and make a simultaneous wheel; they take them on the turn, when, for a moment—and but for a moment—half the covey are in a line, and floor them rank and file. These are tricks allied to poaching, and almost as reprehensible as shooting at birds on the ground, which is nothing less than high treason.

The cock partridge is distinguished from the hen by the brown feathers which form a crescent, or horse-shoe, as it is sometimes called, on the breast.

The pointer is decidedly the best dog for partridge shooting.

The dog should fall when the gun is fired, and remain down until he is told to seek, when he should point the dead bird. A pointer that drops to shot, becomes an excellent retriever.

The dog should be taught to obey the eye and the hand, rather than the voice. A dog that will do so is invaluable, in open grounds, when birds are wild.

Whenever speaking to a dog, whether encouragingly or reprovingly, the sportsman should endeavor to look what he means, and the dog will understand him. The dog will understand the look, if he does not the words. The sportsman should never, with a smile on his countenance, punish a dog; nor commend him when he has done well, but with an apparent hearty good will: the dog will then take an interest in obeying him.

* * * * *

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

_“Night and Morning.” A Novel. By the author of Pelham, Rienzi, Eugene Aram, &c. 2 vols. Re-published by Harper & Brothers, New York._

The Right Hon. Charles Leopold Beaufort, of Beaufort Court, England, a proud and misanthropical old bachelor, with a rental of twenty thousand pounds, has two nephews, Philip and Robert Beaufort. The former, who is the elder of the two, and heir-apparent to the uncle’s estate, is thoughtless and generous, with unsteady principles. The latter is a crafty man-of-the-world, whose only honesty consists in appearing honest—a scrupulous decorist. Philip, in love with Catharine Morton, the daughter of a tradesman, and in fear of his aristocratic uncle’s displeasure, is married clandestinely, in a remote village of Wales, by a quondam college friend, to whom he had presented a living—the Rev. Caleb Price. The better to keep the secret, a very old Welshman, certain soon to die, and William Smith, Philip’s servant, are the sole witnesses of the ceremony. This performed, Smith is hired to bury himself in Australia until called for, while the deaf man dies as expected. Some time having elapsed, Philip, dreading accident to the register, writes to Caleb for an attested copy of the record. Caleb is too ill to make it, but employs a neighboring curate, Morgan Jones, to make and attest it, and despatches it, just before dying, to Philip, who, fearing his wife’s impatience of the concealment required, deposites the document, without her knowledge, in a secret drawer of a bureau. The register itself is afterwards accidentally destroyed. Catharine has soon two children—first Philip, the hero of the novel, and then Sydney. For their sakes she bravely endures the stigma upon her character. She continues to live openly with her husband as his mistress, bearing her maiden name of Morton; and the uncle, whose nerves would have been shocked at a mis-alliance, and who would have disinherited its perpetrator, winks at what he considers the venial vice. The old gentleman lives on for sixteen years, and yet no disclosure is made. At last he dies, bequeathing his property to his eldest nephew, as was anticipated. The latter prepares forthwith to own Catharine as his wife; relates to his brother the facts of the clandestine marriage; speaks of the secreted document, without designating the place of deposit; is disbelieved by that person entirely; mounts his horse to make arrangements for a second wedding, and for proving the first; is thrown, breaks his neck, and expires without uttering a word. Catharine, ignorant of the secret drawer (although aware that a record had been secreted), failing to find William Smith, and trusting her cause to an unskilful lawyer, is unable to prove her marriage, but in the effort to do so makes an enemy of Robert Beaufort, who takes possession of the estate as heir at law. Thus the strict precautions taken by the father to preserve his secret during the uncle’s life, frustrate the wife in her attempts to develop it after his death, and the sons are still considered illegitimate. This is the pivot of the story. Its incidents are made up of the struggles of the young men with their fate, but chiefly of the endeavors of the elder, Philip, to demonstrate the marriage and redeem the good name of his mother. This he finally accomplishes, (after her death, and after a host of vicissitudes experienced in his own person) by the accidental return of William Smith, and by the discovery of an additional witness in Morgan Jones, who made the extract from the register, and to whom the rightful heir is guided by this long-sought document itself, obtained from the hands of Robert Beaufort, (who had found it in the bureau,) through the instrumentality of one Fanny, the heroine, and in the end the wife of the hero.

We do not give this as the plot of “Night and Morning,” but as the ground-work of the plot; which latter, woven from the incidents above mentioned, is in itself exceedingly complex. The ground-work, as will be seen, is of no very original character—it is even absurdly common-place. We are not asserting too much when we say that every second novel since the flood has turned upon some series of hopeless efforts, either to establish legitimacy, or to prove a will, or to get possession of a great sum of money most unjustly withheld, or to find out a ragamuffin of a father, who had been much better left unfound. But, saying nothing of the basis upon which this story has been erected, the story itself is, in many respects, worthy its contriver.

The word “plot,” as commonly accepted, conveys but an indefinite meaning. Most persons think of it as of simple _complexity_; and into this error even so fine a critic as Augustus William Schlegel has obviously fallen, when he confounds its idea with that of the mere _intrigue_ in which the Spanish dramas of Cervantes and Calderon abound. But the greatest involution of incident will not result in plot; which, properly defined, is _that in which no part can be displaced without ruin to the whole_. It may be described as a building so dependently constructed, that to change the position of a single brick is to overthrow the entire fabric. In this definition and description, we of course refer only to that infinite perfection which the true artist bears ever in mind—that unattainable goal to which his eyes are always directed, but of the possibility of attaining which he still endeavors, if wise, to cheat himself into the belief. The reading world, however, is satisfied with a less rigid construction of the term. It is content to think that plot a good one, in which none of the _leading_ incidents can be _removed_ without _detriment_ to the mass. Here indeed is a material difference; and in this view of the case the plot of “Night and Morning” is decidedly excellent. Speaking comparatively, and in regard to stories similarly composed, it is one of the best. This the author has evidently designed to make it. For this purpose he has taxed his powers to the utmost. Every page bears marks of excessive elaboration, all tending to one point—a perfect adaptation of the very numerous atoms of a very unusually involute story. The better to attain his object he has resorted to the expedient of writing his book backwards. This is a simple thing in itself, but may not be generally understood. An example will best convey the idea. Drawing near the _dénouement_ of his tale, our novelist had proceeded so far as to render it necessary that means should be devised for the discovery of the missing marriage record. This record is in the old bureau—this bureau is at Fernside, originally the seat of Philip’s father, but now in possession of one Lord Lilburne, a member of Robert Beaufort’s family. Two things now strike the writer—first, that the retrieval of the hero’s fortune should be brought about by no less a personage than the heroine—by some lady who should in the end be his bride—and, secondly, that this lady must procure access to Fernside. Up to this period in the narrative, it had been the design to make Camilla Beaufort, Philip’s cousin, the heroine; but in such case, the cousin and Lord Lilburne being friends, the document must have been obtained by fair means; whereas foul means are the most dramatic. There would have been no _difficulties_ to overcome in introducing Camilla into the house in question. She would have merely rung the bell and walked in. Moreover, in getting the paper, she would have had no chance of getting up a scene. This lady is therefore dropped as the heroine; Mr. Bulwer retraces his steps, creates Fanny, brings Philip to love her, and employs Lilburne, (a courtly villain, invented for all the _high_ dirty work, as De Burgh Smith for all the _low_ dirty work of the story,) employs Lilburne to abduct her to Fernside, where the capture of the document is at length (more dramatically than naturally) contrived. In short, these latter incidents were emendations, and their really episodical character is easily traced by the critic. What appears first in the published book, was last in the original MS. Many of the most striking portions of the novel were _interleaved_ in the same manner—thus giving to after-thought that air of premeditation which is so pleasing. Effect seems to follow cause in the most natural and in the most provident manner, but, in the true construction, the cause (and here we commit no bull) is absolutely brought about by the effect. The many brief, and seemingly insulated chapters met with in the course of the narrative, are the interposed after-thoughts in question.

So careful has been our author in this working-up of his story—in this nice dovetailing of its constituent parts—that it is difficult to detect a blemish in any portion. What he has intended to do he has done well; and his main intention, as we have before hinted, was _perfection of plot_. A few defects, indeed, we note; and note them chiefly to show the skill with which that narrative is wrought, where such blemishes are the sole ones.

In the first place, there are some descriptive passages such as the love adventures of Caleb Price, the account of Gawtrey’s early life, prefaced by that of his grandfather, and the dinner-scene at Love’s, which scarcely come within the category of matters tending to develop the main events. These things, in short, might have been omitted with advantage (because without detriment) to the whole.

At page 254, vol. 2, we perceive the first indications of slovenliness, (arising no doubt from the writer’s anxiety to conclude his task) in an incident utterly without aim, and composed at random. We mean the relapse of Philip into a second illness when nursed by Fanny through the first, at the house of old Gawtrey.

At page 21, vol. 1, we are told that Caleb Price, having received from his friend Beaufort a certain letter (whose contents would have been important in the subsequent attempts to establish Catharine’s claim) held it over the flame of the candle, and that “as the paper dropped on the carpetless floor, Mr. Jones prudently set thereon the broad sole of his boot, and the maid servant brushed it into the grate.”

“Ah, trample it out; hurry it among the ashes. The last as the rest,” said Caleb, hoarsely. “Friendship, fortune, hope, love, life—a little flame—and then—and then—”

“_Don’t be uneasy—it’s quite out_,” said Mr. Jones.

Now this is related with much emphasis; and, upon reading it, we resolved to hold in memory that this important paper, although torn, was still unburned, and that its fragments had been thrown into a vacant grate. In fact, it was the design of the novelist to re-produce these fragments in the _dénouement_—a design which he has forgotten to carry out.

We have defined the word “plot,” in a definition of our own to be sure, but in one which we do not the less consider substantially correct; and we have said that it has been a main point with Mr. Bulwer in this his last novel, “Night and Morning,” to work up his plot as near perfection as possible. We have asserted, too, that his design is well accomplished; but we do not the less assert that it has been conceived and executed in error.

The interest of plot, referring, as it does, to cultivated thought in the reader, and appealing to considerations analogous with those which are the essence of sculptural taste, is by no means a popular interest; although it has the peculiarity of being appreciated in its atoms by all, while in its totality of beauty it is comprehended but by the few. The pleasure which the many derive from it is disjointed, ineffective, and evanescent; and even in the case of the critical reader it is a pleasure which may be purchased too dearly. A good tale maybe written without it. Some of the finest fictions in the world have neglected it altogether. We see nothing of it in Gil Blas, in the Pilgrim’s Progress, or in Robinson Crusoe. Thus it is not an essential in story-telling at all; although, well-managed, within proper limits, it is a thing to be desired. At best it is but a secondary and rigidly artistical merit, for which no merit of a higher class—no merit founded in nature—should be sacrificed. But in the book before us _much_ is sacrificed for its sake, and every thing is rendered subservient to its purposes. So excessive is, here, the involution of circumstances, that it has been found impossible to dwell for more than a brief period upon any particular one. The writer seems in a perpetual flurry to accomplish what, in autorical parlance, is called “bringing up one’s time.” He flounders in the vain attempt to keep all his multitudinous incidents at one and the same moment before the eye. His ability has been sadly taxed in the effort—but more sadly the time and temper of the reader. No sooner do we begin to take some slight degree of interest in some cursorily-sketched event, than we are hurried off to some other, for which a new feeling is to be built up, only to be tumbled down, forthwith, as before. And thus, since there is no sufficiently continuous scene in the whole novel, it results that there is not a strongly effective one. Time not being given us in which to become absorbed, we are only permitted to admire, while we are not the less chilled, tantalised, wearied, and displeased. Nature, with natural interest, has been given up a bond-maiden to an elaborate, but still to a misconceived, perverted, and most unsatisfactory Art.

Very little reflection might have sufficed to convince Mr. Bulwer that narratives, even one fourth so long as the one now lying upon our table, are _essentially_ inadapted to that nice and complex adjustment of incident at which he has made this desperate attempt. In the wire-drawn romances which have been so long fashionable, (God only knows how or why) the pleasure we derive (if any) is a composite one, and made up of the respective sums of the various pleasurable sentiments experienced in perusal. Without excessive and fatiguing exertion, inconsistent with legitimate interest, the mind cannot comprehend at one time, and in one survey, the numerous individual items which go to establish the whole. Thus the high ideal sense of the _unique_ is sure to be wanting:—for, however absolute in itself be the unity of the novel, it must inevitably fail of appreciation. We speak now of that species of unity which is alone worth the attention of the critic—the unity or totality _of effect_.

But we could never bring ourselves to attach any idea of merit to mere _length_ in the abstract. A long story does not appear to us necessarily twice as good as one only half so long. The ordinary talk about “continuous and sustained effort” is pure twaddle and nothing more. Perseverance is one thing and genius is another—whatever Buffon or Hogarth may assert to the contrary—and notwithstanding that, in many passages of the dogmatical literature of old Rome, such phrases as “_diligentia maxima_,” “_diligentia mirabilis_,” can be construed only as “great talent” or “wonderful ability.” Now if the author of “Ernest Maltravers,” implicitly following authority like _les moutons de Panurge, will_ persist in writing long romances because long romances have been written before—if, in short, he cannot be satisfied with the brief tale (a species of composition which admits of the highest development of artistical power in alliance with the wildest vigor of imagination)—he must then content himself, perforce, with a more simply and more rigidly narrative form.

And here, could he see these comments upon a work which, (estimating it, as is the wont of all artists of his calibre, by the labor which it has cost him,) he considers his _chef d’œuvre_, he would assure us, with a smile, that it is precisely because the book is _not_ narrative, and _is_ dramatic, that he holds it in so lofty an esteem. Now in regard to its being dramatic, we should reply that, so far as the radical and ineradicable _deficiencies_ of the drama go—it is. This continual and vexatious shifting of scene, with a view of bringing up events to the time being, originated at a period when books were not; and in fact, had the drama not preceded books, it might never have succeeded them—we might, and probably should, never have had a drama at all. By the frequent “bringing up” of his events the dramatist strove to supply, as well as he could, the want of the combining, arranging, and especially of the _commenting_ power, now in possession of the narrative author. No doubt it was a deep but vague sense of this want which brought into birth the Greek chorus—a thing altogether apart from the drama itself—_never_ upon the stage—and representing, or personifying, the expression of the sympathy of the audience in the matters transacted.

In brief, while the drama of colloquy, vivacious and breathing of life, is well adopted into narration, the drama of action and passion will always prove, when employed beyond due limits, a source of embarrassment to the narrator, and it can afford him, at best, nothing which he does not already possess in full force. We have spoken upon this head much at length; for we remember that, in some preface to one of his previous novels, (some preface in which he endeavored to pre-reason and pre-coax us into admiration of what was to follow—a bad practice,) Mr. Bulwer was at great pains to insist upon the peculiar merits of what he even then termed the dramatic conduct of his story. The simple truth was that, then as now, he had merely concentrated into his book all the _necessary evils_ of the stage.

Giving up his attention to the one point upon which we have commented, our novelist has failed to do himself justice in others. The overstrained effort at perfection of plot has seduced him into absurd sacrifices of verisimilitude, as regards the connexion of his _dramatis personæ_ each with each, and each with the main events. However incidental be the appearance of any personage upon the stage, this personage is sure to be linked in, will I nill I, with the matters in hand. Philip, on the stage-coach, for example, converses with but one individual, William Gawtrey; yet this man’s fate (not subsequently but previously) is interwoven into that of Philip himself, through the latter’s relationship to Lilburne. The hero goes to his mother’s grave, and there comes in contact with this Gawtrey’s father. He meets Fanny, and Fanny happens to be also involved in his _destiny_ (a pet word, conveying a pet idea of the author’s) through _her_ relationship to Lilburne. The witness in the case of his mother’s marriage is missing, and this individual turns up at last in the brother of that very Charles De Burgh Smith with whom so perfectly accidental an intimacy has already been established. The wronged heir proceeds at random to look for a lawyer, and stumbles at once upon the precise one who had figured before in the story, and who knows all about previous investigations. Setting out in search of Liancourt, the first person he sees is that gentleman himself. Entering a horse-bazaar in a remote portion of the country, the steed up for sale at the exact moment of his entrance is recognised as the pet of his better days. Now our quarrel with these coincidences is not that they sometimes, but that they everlastingly occur, and that nothing occurs besides. We find no fault with Philip for chancing, at the identically proper moment, upon the identical men, women, and horses necessary for his own ends and the ends of the story—but we do think it excessively hard that he should _never happen upon anything else_.

In delineation of character, our artist has done little worth notice. His highest merit in this respect is, with a solitary exception, the negative one of not having subjected himself to dispraise. Catharine and Camilla are—pretty well in their way. Philip is very much like all other heroes—perhaps a little more stiff, a little more obstinate, and a little more desperately unlucky than the generality of his class. Sydney is drawn with truth. Plaskwith, Plimmins, and the Mortons, just sufficiently caricatured, are very good outline copies from the shaded originals of Dickens. Of Gawtrey—father and son,—of De Burgh Smith, of Robert Beaufort and of Lilburne, what is it possible to say, except that they belong to that extensive firm of Gawtrey, Smith, Beaufort, Lilburne and company, which has figured in every novel since the days of Charles Grandison, and which is doomed to the same eternal configuration till romance-writing shall be no more?

For Fanny the author distinctly avows a partiality; and he does not err in his preference. We have observed, in some previous review, that _original_ characters, so called, can only be critically praised as such, either when presenting qualities known in real life, but never before depicted (a combination nearly impossible) or when presenting qualities which, although unknown, or even known to be hypothetical, are so skilfully adapted to the circumstances around them, that our sense of fitness is not offended, and we find ourselves seeking a reason why those things _might not have been_ which we are still satisfied _are not_. Fanny appertains to this latter class of originality—which in itself belongs to the loftier regions of _the Ideal_. Her first movements in the story, before her conception (which we have already characterized as an after-thought) had assumed distinct shape in the brain of the author, are altogether ineffective and frivolous. They consist of the unmeaning affectation and rhodomontade with which it is customary to invest the lunatic in common-place fiction. But the subsequent effects of love upon her mental development are finely imagined and richly painted; and, although reason teaches us their impossibility, yet it is sufficient for the purposes of the artist that fancy delights in believing them possible.

Mr. Bulwer has been often and justly charged with defects of _style_; but the charges have been sadly deficient in specification, and for the most part have confounded the idea of mere language with that of style itself, although the former is no more the latter, than an oak is a forest, or than a word is a thought. Without pausing to define what a little reflection will enable any reader to define for himself, we may say that the chief constituent of a good style (a constituent which, in the case of Washington Irving, has been mistaken for the thing constituted) is what artists have agreed to denominate _tone_. The writer who, varying this as occasion may require, well adapts it to the fluctuations of his narrative, accomplishes an important object in style. Mr. Bulwer’s tone is always correct; and so great is the virtue of this quality that he can scarcely be termed, upon the whole, a bad stylist.

His mere English is grossly defective—turgid, involved, and ungrammatical. There is scarcely a page of “Night and Morning” upon which a school-boy could not detect at least half a dozen instances of faulty construction. Sentences such as this are continually occurring—“And at last silenced, if not convinced, his eyes closed, and the tears yet wet upon their lashes, fell asleep.” Here, strictly speaking, it is the eyes which “fell asleep,” and which were “silent if not convinced.” The pronoun, “he,” is wanting for the verb “fell.” The whole would read better thus—“And at last, silent, if not convinced, he closed his eyes, and fell asleep with the tears yet on the lashes.” It will be seen that, besides other modifications, we have changed “upon” into “on,” and omitted “wet” as superfluous when applied to tear; who ever heard of a dry one? The sentence in question, which occurs at page 83, vol. 1, was the first which arrested our attention on opening the book at random; but its errors are sufficiently illustrative of the _character_ of those faults of phraseology in which the work abounds, and which have arisen, not so much through carelessness, as from a peculiar bias in the mind of the writer, leading him, per force, into _involution_, whether here in style, or elsewhere in plot. The beauty of simplicity is not that which can be appreciated by Mr. Bulwer; and whatever may be the true merits of his intelligence, the merit of luminous and precise thought is evidently not one of the number.

At page 194, vol. 1, we have this—“I am not what you seem to suppose—exactly a swindler, certainly not a robber.” Here, to make himself intelligible, the speaker should have repeated the words “I am not,” before “exactly.” As it stands, the sentence does not imply that “I am not exactly a swindler, &c.” but (if anything) that the person addressed, imagined me to be certainly not a robber but exactly a swindler—an implication which it was not intended to convey. Such awkwardness in a practised writer would be inconceivable, did we not refer in memory to that moral bias of which we have just spoken. Our readers will of course examine the English of “Night and Morning” for themselves. From the evidence of one or two sentences we cannot expect them to form a judgment in the premises. Dreading indeed the suspicion of unfairness, we had pencilled item after item for comment—but we have abandoned the task in despair. It would be an endless labor to proceed with examples. In fact it is folly to particularize where the blunders would be the rule, and the grammar the exception.

Sir Lytton has one desperate mannerism of which we would be glad to see him well rid—a fashion of beginning short sentences, after very long ones, with the phrase “So there,” or something equivalent, and this too, when there is no sequence in the matter to warrant the use of the word “So.” Thus, at page 136, vol. I,—“So there they sat on the cold stone, these two orphans;” at page 179,—“So there by the calm banks of the placid lake, the youngest born of Catharine passed his tranquil days,”—and just below, on the same page,—“So thus was he severed from both his protectors, Arthur and Philip;” and at page 241, vol. II,—“So there sat the old man,” &c. &c.—and in innumerable other instances throughout the work.

Among the _niäiseries_ of his style we may mention the coxcombical use of little French sentences, without the shadow of an excuse for their employment. At page 22, vol. 2, in the scene at the counterfeiter’s cellar, what can be more nonsensical than Gawtrey’s “_C’est juste; buvez donc, cher ami_,”—“_C’est juste; buvez donc, vieux rénard_,”—and “_Ce n’est pas vrai; buvez donc Monsieur Favart?_” Why should these platitudes be alone given in French, when it is obvious that the entire conversation was carried on in that tongue? And, again, when, at page 49, Fanny exclaims—“_Méchant_, every one dies to Fanny!”—why could not this heroine have as well confined herself to one language? At page 38, the climax of absurdity, in this respect, is fairly capped; and it is difficult to keep one’s countenance, when we read of a Parisian cobbler breathing his last in a garret, and screaming out “_Je m’étouffe_—Air!”

Whenever a startling incident is recorded, our novelist seems to make it a point of conscience that somebody should “fall insensible.” Thus at page 172, vol. 1,—“‘My brother, my brother, they have taken thee from me,’ cried Philip, and he fell insensible,”—and at page 38, vol. 2, “‘I was unkind to him at the last,’ and with these words she fell upon the corpse insensible,” &c. &c. There is a great deal too much of this. An occasional swoon is a thing of no consequence, but “even Stamboul must have an end,” and Mr. Bulwer should make an end of his syncopes.

Again. That gentlemen and ladies, when called upon to give alms, or to defray some trifling incidental expense, are in the invariable habit of giving the whole contents of their purses without examination, and, moreover, of “throwing” the purse into the bargain, is an idea most erroneously entertained. At page 55, vol. 1, we are told that Philip, “as he spoke, _slid_ his purse into the woman’s hand.” At page 110, “a hint for money restored Beaufort to his recollection, and he _flung_ his purse into the nearest hand outstretched to receive it.” At page 87, “Lilburne _tossed_ his purse into the hands of his valet, whose face seems to lose its anxious embarrassment at the touch of the gold.” It is true that the “anxious embarrassment” of any valet out of a novel, would have been rather increased than diminished by having a purse of gold tossed at his head—but what we wish our readers to observe, is that magnificent contempt of filthy lucre with which the characters of Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer “fling,” “slide,” “toss,” and tumble whole purses of money about!

But the predominant and most important failing of the author of “Devereux,” in point of style, is an absolute mania for metaphor—metaphor always running into allegory. Pure allegory is at all times an abomination—a remnant of antique barbarism—appealing only to our faculties of comparison, without even a remote interest for our reason, or for our fancy. Metaphor, its softened image, has indisputable force when sparingly and skilfully employed. Vigorous writers use it rarely indeed. Mr. Bulwer is all metaphor or all allegory—mixed metaphor and unsustained allegory—and nothing if neither. He cannot express a dozen consecutive sentences in an honest and manly manner. He is the king-coxcomb of figures-of-speech. His rage for personification is really ludicrous. The simplest noun becomes animate in his hands. Never, by any accident, does he write even so ordinary a word as time, or temper, or talent, without the capital T. Seldom, indeed, is he content with the dignity and mysticism thus imposed;—for the most part it is Time, Temper and Talent. Nor does the common-place character of anything which he wishes to personify exclude it from the prosopopeia. At page 256, volume 1, we have some profound rigmarole, seriously urged, about piemen crying “all hot! all hot!” “in the ear of Infant and Ragged Hunger,” thus written; and, at page 207, there is something positively transcendental all about LAW—a very little thing in itself, in some cases—but which Mr. Bulwer, in his book, has thought proper to make quite as big as we have printed it above. Who cannot fancy him, in the former instance, saying to himself, as he gnaws the top of his quill, “that is a fine thought!” and exclaiming in the latter, as he puts his finger to the side of his nose, “ah, how _very_ fine an idea that is!”

This absurdity, indeed, is chiefly observable in those philosophical discussions with which he is in the wicked habit of interspersing his fictions, and springs only from a rabid anxiety to look wise—to appear profound—even when wisdom is quite out of place, and profundity the quintessence of folly. A “still small voice” has whispered in his ear that, as to the real matter of fact, _he is shallow_—a whisper which he does not intend to believe, and which, by dint of loud talking in parables, he hopes to prevent from reaching the ears of the public. Now, in truth, the public, great-gander as it is, is content to swallow his romance without much examination, but cannot help turning up its nose at his logic.

“The men of sense,” says Helvetius, “those idols of the unthinking, are very inferior to the men of passions. It is the strong passions which, rescuing us from Sloth, can alone impart to us that continuous and earnest attention necessary to great intellectual efforts”—Understanding the word “efforts” in its legitimate force, and not confounding it altogether with achievements, we may well apply to Mr. Bulwer the philosopher’s remark, thence deducing the secret of his success as a novelist. He is emphatically the man “of passions.” With an intellect rather well balanced than lofty, he has not full claim to the title of a man of genius. Urged by the burning desire of doing much, he has certainly done something. Elaborate even to fault, he will never write a bad book, and has once or twice been upon the point of concocting a good one. It is the custom to call him a fine writer, but in doing so we should judge him less by an artistical standard of excellence, than by comparison with the drivellers who surround him. To Scott he is altogether inferior, except in that mock and tawdry philosophy which the Caledonian had the discretion to avoid, and the courage to contemn. In pathos, humour, and verisimilitude he is unequal to Dickens; surpassing him only in general knowledge, and in the sentiment of Art. Of James he is more than the equal at all points. While he could never fall as low as D’Israeli has occasionally fallen, neither himself, nor any of those whom we have mentioned, have ever risen nearly so high as that very gifted and very extraordinary man.

In regard to “Night and Morning” we cannot agree with that critical opinion which considers it the best novel of its author. It is only not his worst. It is not as good as Eugene Aram, nor as Rienzi—and is not at all comparable with Ernest Maltravers. Upon the whole it is a good book. Its merits beyond doubt overbalance its defects, and if we have not dwelt upon the former with as much unction as upon the latter, it is because the Bulwerian beauties are precisely of that secondary character which never fails of the fullest public appreciation.

* * * * *

_“Sketches of Conspicuous Living Characters of France.” Translated by R. M. Walsh. Lea and Blanchard._

The public are much indebted to Mr. Walsh for this book, which is one of unusual interest and value. It is a translation from the French, of fifteen biographical and critical sketches, written, and originally published in weekly numbers at Paris, by some one who styles himself “_un homme de rien_”—the better to conceal the fact, perhaps, that he is really un _homme de beaucoup_. Whatever, unhappily, may be the case with ourselves, or in England, it is clear that in the capital of France, at least,—that hot-bed of journalism, and Paradise of journalists—nobody has any right to call himself “nobody,” while wielding so vigorous and vivacious a pen as the author of these articles.

We are told in the Preface to the present translation that they met with the greatest success, upon their first appearance, and were considered by the Parisians as perfectly authentic in their statement of facts, and “as impartial in their appreciation of the different personages sketched as could be desired.” “As impartial, &c.” means, we presume, entirely so; for in matters of this kind an absolute impartiality, of course, is all, but still the least “that could be desired.”

Mr. Walsh farther assures us that Châteaubriand wrote the author a letter “of a highly complimentary tenor” which was published, but of which the translator, “unfortunately, does not happen to have a copy in his possession.” A more unfortunate circumstance is that Mr. W. should have thought it necessary to bolster a book which needs no bolstering, by the authority of any name, however great; and the most unfortunate thing of all, so far as regards the weight of the authority, is that Châteaubriand himself is belauded _ad nauseam_ in those very pages to the inditer of which he sent that letter of the “complimentary tenor.” When any body shall puff _us_, as this Mr. Nobody has bepuffed the author of _The Martyrs_, we will send them a letter “of a complimentary tenor” too. We do not mean to decry the general merit of the book, or the candor of him who composed it. We wish merely to observe that Châteaubriand, under the circumstances, cannot be received as evidence of the one, nor his biography as instance of the other.

These sketches of men now playing important parts in the great drama of French affairs would be interesting, if only from their subjects. We have here biographies, (sufficiently full) of Thiers, Châteaubriand, Laffitte, Guizot, Lamartine, Soult, Berryer, De La Mennais, Hugo, Dupin, Béranger, Odillon Barrot, Arago, George Sand, and the Duke De Broglie. We are most pleased with those of Thiers, Hugo, Sand, Arago, and Béranger.

Among many good stories of Thiers, this is told. A prize had been offered by the Academy of Aix for the best eulogium on Vauvenargues. Thiers, then quite a boy, sent a M. S. It was deemed excellent; but the author being suspected, and no other candidate deserving the palm, the committee, rather than award it to a Jacobin, postponed their decision for a year. At the expiration of this time our youth’s article again made its appearance, but, meanwhile, a production had arrived from Paris which was thought far better. The judges were rejoiced. They were no longer under the cruel necessity of giving the first honor to a Jacobin—but felt bound to present him with the second. The name of the Parisian victor was unsealed. It was that of Thiers—Monsieur Tonson come again. He had been at great pains to mystify the committee; (other committees of the same kind more frequently reverse affairs and mystify the public) the M. S. had been copied in a strange hand, and been sent from Aix to Paris and from Paris to Aix. Thus our little friend obtained both the main prize and the _accessit_.

An anecdote somewhat similar is related of Victor Hugo. In 1817, the Academy offered a premium for the best poem on the advantages of study. Hugo entered the lists. His piece was considered worthiest, but was rejected because a falsehood was supposed to be implied in the concluding lines, which ran thus:—

Moi qui, toujours fuyant les cités et les cours, De trois lustres à peine ai vu finir le cours.

The Academy would not believe that any one under twenty-five years of age had written so fine a poem, and, supposing a mystification designed, thought to punish the author by refusing him the prize. Informed of the facts, Hugo hastened to show the certificate of his birth to the reporter, M. Raynouard; but it was too late—the premium had been awarded.

Of Laffitte many remarkable incidents are narrated evincing the noble liberality of his disposition.

In the notice of Berryer it is said that, a letter being addressed by the Duchess of Berry to the legitimists of Paris, to inform them of her arrival, it was accompanied by a long note in cypher, the key of which she had forgotten to give. “The penetrating mind of Berryer,” says our biographer, “soon discovered it. It was this phrase substituted for the twenty-four letters of the alphabet—_Le gouvernement provisoire_.”

All this is very well as an anecdote; but we cannot understand the extraordinary penetration required in the matter. The phrase “_Le gouvernement provisoire_” is French, and the note in cypher was addressed to Frenchmen. The difficulty of decyphering may well be supposed much greater had the key been in a foreign tongue; yet any one who will take the trouble may address us a note, in the same manner as here proposed, and the key-phrase may be either in French, Italian, Spanish, German, Latin or Greek, (or in any of the dialects of these languages), and we pledge ourselves for the solution of the riddle. The experiment may afford our readers some amusement—let them try it.

But we are rambling from our theme. The genius of Arago is finely painted, and the character of his quackery put in a true light. The straight-forward, plainly-written critical comments upon this philosopher, as well as upon George Sand, and that absurd antithesis-hunter, Victor Hugo, please us far more than that mere cant and rhapsody in which the biographer involves himself when speaking of Châteaubriand and Lamartine. We have observed that all great authors who fall occasionally into the sins of ranting and raving, meet with critics who think the only way to elucidate, is to out-rant and out-rave them. A beautiful confusion of thought of course ensues, which it is truly refreshing to contemplate.

The account of George Sand (Madame Dudevant) is full of piquancy and spirit. The writer, by dint of a little chicanery, obtained access, it seems, to her boudoir, with an opportunity of sketching her in dishabille. He found her in a gentleman’s frock coat, smoking a cigar.

Speaking of the equivocal costume affected by this lady, Mr. Walsh, in a foot-note, comments upon a nice distinction made once by a soldier on duty at the Chamber of Deputies. Madame D., habited in male attire, was making her way into the gallery, when the man, presenting his musket before her, cried out “_Monsieur_, les _dames_ ne passent pas par ici!”

But we regret that our space will not allow us to cull even a few of the good things with which the book abounds. The whole volume is exceedingly _piquant_, and replete with that racy wit which is so peculiarly French as to make us believe it a consequence of the _tournure_ of the language itself. But if a Frenchman is invariably witty, he is not the less everlastingly bombastic; and these memoirs are decidedly French. What can we do but smile when we hear any one talk about Châteaubriand’s _Essay upon English Poetry_, with his _Translation of Milton_! as a task which he alone was qualified to execute!—or when we read page after page in which Lamartine is discoursed of as “a noble child, with flaxen locks,” “disporting upon the banks of the Seine,” “picking up Grecian lyres dropped by the mild Chenier,” “enriching them with Christian chords,” and “ravishing the world with new melodies!” What can we do but laugh outright at such phrases as the “sympathetic swan-like cries,” and the “singular lyric precocity of the crystal soul”—of such an ass as the author of Bug-Jargal?

So far as mere translation goes, the volume now before us is, in some respects, not very well done. Too little care has been taken in rendering the French idioms by English equivalents; and, because a French writer, through the impulses of his vivacity, cannot avoid telling, in the present tense, a story of the past, it does not follow that such a misusage of language is consonant with the graver genius of the Saxon. Mr. Walsh is always too literal, although sufficiently correct. He should not employ, however, even in translation, such queer words as “to legitimate,” meaning “to legitimatize,” or “to fulmine,” meaning “to fulminate.”

At page 211, the force of the compound “_l’homme-calembourg_” is not conveyed by the words “_the_ punster,” even when we italicize _the_. _The walking-pun_, perhaps, is an analogous phrase which might be more properly employed.

There is some odd mistake at page 274, where the translator speaks of measuring the diameter of the earth by measuring its _rays_. We presume the word in the original is _rayons_; if so we can only translate it by the Latin _radii_. No doubt a radius, literally, is a ray; but science has its own terms, and _will_ employ them. We should like to see either Mr. Walsh or Monsieur Arago (or both together) trying to measure a _ray_ of the earth.

The mechanical execution of the book is good, saving a thousand outrageous typographical blunders, and _that_ lithograph of Thiers. We have no doubt in the world that this gentleman (who ran away during the three days and hid himself in the woods of Montmorency), is a somewhat dirty, insignificant little fellow, and so be it; but we will never be brought to believe that any individual in Christendom ever did or could look half as saucy, or as greasy, as does “Monsieur Mirabeau-mouche” in that picture.

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_“Heads of the People: or Portraits of the English.” Drawn by Kenny Meadows. With Original Essays by Distinguished Writers. Carey & Hart._

The design of this book is among the number of those which are _obviously_ good—and the book itself is, upon the whole, an amusing one. It might have been better, no doubt. With designs by Cruikshanks, and letter-press by _the best_ of the English literati, how glorious a work might have been concocted “upon this hint!” Not that some of the names here found are _not_ among the best—but we should have had the _Dii majorum gentium_ exclusively—one paper from each. These papers, too, should have been written with some uniformity of manner, or of plan, and have confined themselves to racy and truthful delineation of that character which is _peculiarly_ British, while the engravings should have been careful embodiments of the text. As it is, the publication has something of a hap-hazard, and, if the truth must be told, of a catchpenny air, which makes very much against it, notwithstanding the exceeding merit of several of the essays, and of three or four of the designs. The preface seems to have been written by some one who had a proper sense of what the volume _should be_, but affords no indication of what it really _is_.

There are twenty-six “Heads” in all. Some of them are pure caricatures without merit—“The Creditor,” for example, and “The Debtor,” (injudiciously placed as frontispieces), The “Diner-Out,” The “Sentimental Singer,” “The Man of Many Goes” and “The Printer’s Devil.” Others are equally caricatures, but of so vivid and truth-preserving an exaggeration, that we admire without scruple:—we allude to “The Lion of the Party,” “The Waiter,” “The Linen-Draper’s Assistant” and “The Stock-Broker.” Some are full of natural truth—for instance “The Young Lord,” “The Dress-Maker,” “The Young Squire,” “The Basket Woman,” “Captain Rook” and “Mr. Pigeon.” “The Last Go” is the best thing in the volume—combining the extreme of the ludicrous with absolute fidelity. “The Fashionable Authoress,” “The Cockney” and “The Family Governess” are tame and unmeaning. The rest have no particular merit or demerit. About the whole there is a great deal of bad drawing, which we know not whether to attribute to the designer or engraver.

The same variety of value is observable in the text. In general the articles are not very creditable; although one or two are of surpassing excellence. The longest called “Tavern Heads” (illustrated by seven or eight sketches) is a rambling, disjointed narrative in imitation of Dickens, and written probably by the author of a clever production entitled “Pickwick Abroad,” never yet republished, we believe, in this country. The paper called “Captain Rook and Mr. Pigeon,” and superscribed with the name of William Thackeray, is one of the finest specimens of easily-mingled humor and wit we have ever had the pleasure of perusing.

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_“The Flying Dutchman.” By the author of Gentleman Jack. 2 vols. Carey & Hart._

The legend of the Flying Dutchman has long since been worn out, and its attempted resuscitation by this author has, as he should have known, proved an entire failure. Indeed we have rarely read a less creditable novel than this. The characters are strange; the incidents unnatural; and the descriptions of the mighty deep surpassed by nine out of ten of our ordinary sea-writers. The tyranny which formerly existed, and indeed still exists in a measure, in the British navy is, however, sketched with a bold pencil; but with this single redeeming trait, the public, much less the critics, will scarcely be satisfied. The desertion of Ramsay on the Island; his miraculous meeting with the very one he wished to meet, Angela; the whole farcical story, of the deception practised in the appearance of the Flying Dutchman’s frigate; the singular preservation of Capt. Livingston from drowning, when cast overboard unseen at night; and the clap-trap of the trial scene, when the aforesaid captain and the corporal appear so unexpectedly, furnish a series of improbabilities only to be endured by a novel-reader of sufficient voracity to gorge, shark-like, any and everything, no matter what.

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_“Patchwork.” By Capt. Basil Hall. 2 vols. Lea & Blanchard._

Captain Hall is one of the most agreeable of writers. We like him for the same reason that we like a good drawing-room conversationist—there is such a pleasure in listening to his elegant nothings. Not that the captain is unable to be profound. He has, on the contrary, some reputation for science. But in his hands even the most trifling personal adventures become interesting from the very piquancy with which they are told.

The present work is made up of a series of desultory sketches of travels, in every quarter of the globe, and extending through a period of nearly thirty years. You almost forget yourself as you read, and fancy that you are listening to an oral narrative from Capt. Hall in person. In the most charming manner possible you are transported from the glaciers of the Alps to the waters of the Pacific, and then whisked back again to old Europe, and hurried to Vesuvius, Malta, and Etna in pleasing succession. The descriptions of these various places, mingled with scientific observations, and narratives of personal adventures, form altogether one of the pleasantest books for after-dinner perusal, especially on a sunny April day, when, reposed at length upon a sofa, beside an open casement, with the birds carolling without, and the balmy spring breathing across us, we forget, for a while, the dull business of life.

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_“Georgia Illustrated.” W. & W. C. Richards, Penfield, Ga._

This is a praiseworthy work, and reflects high credit on all concerned in it. The views are selected with taste, and give us a high opinion of the scenery of Georgia. They are accompanied by a letter-press description, from the pen of the editor, W. C. Richards. The engravings are executed in excellent style by Messrs. Rawdon, Wright, Hatch and Smillie. Such works cannot be too extensively patronised. They encourage the arts; foster a love for the beautiful; and acquaint the public with some of the loveliest gems of our native scenery. Was it not a disgrace to our country that both “Hinton’s Topography” and the still later “American Scenery,” emanated wholly from England—the capital embarked, the sketchers and engravers employed, and even the place of publication being English?

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Transcriber’s Notes:

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without note. A cover was created for this ebook and is placed in the public domain.

[The end of _Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XVIII, No. 4, April 1841_, George R. Graham, Editor]