Chapter II (2)

Those who have read "The Improvisatore," the most ambitious of the works of Andersen, and by far the most meritorious of his novels, will now directly recognise the materials of which it has been constructed. His own early career, and his travels into Italy, have been woven together in the story of Antonio. So far from censuring him--as some of his Copenhagen critics appear to have done--for describing himself and the scenes he beheld, we are only surprised when we read "The True Story of his Life," that he has not been able to employ in a still more striking manner, the experience of his singular career. But, as we have already observed, he betrays no habit or power of mental analysis; he has not that introspection which, in the phrase of our poet Daniel, "raises a man above himself;" so that Andersen could contemplate Andersen, and combine the impartial scrutiny of a spectator with the thorough knowledge which self can only have of self. So far from censuring him for the frequent use he makes of the materials which his own life and travels afforded him, we could wish that he had never attempted to employ any other. Throughout his novels, whenever he departs from these, he is either commonplace or extravagant,--or both together, which, in our days, is very possible. If he imitates other writers, it is always their worst manner that he contrives to seize; if he adopts the worn-out resources of preceding novelists, it is always (and in this he may be doing good service) to render them still more palpably absurd and ridiculous than they were before. He has dreams in plenty--his heroes are always dreaming; he has fevered descriptions of the over-excited imagination--a very favourite resource of modern novelists; he has his moral enigmas; and of course he has a witch (Fulvia) who tells fortunes and reads futurity, and reads it correctly, let philosophy or common sense say what it will. His Fulvia affords his readers one gratification; they find her fairly hanged at the end of the book.

We are far enough from attempting to give an outline of the story of this or any other novel--such skeletons are not attractive; but the extracts, and the observations we have to make, will best be understood by entering a few steps into the narrative.

Antonio, the Improvisatore, is born in Rome of poor parents. He is introduced to us as a child, living with his fond mother, his only surviving parent, in a room, or rather a loft, in the roof of a house. She is accidentally run over and killed by a nobleman's carriage. A certain uncle Peppo, a cripple and a beggar, claims guardianship of the orphan. Of this Peppo we have a most unamiable portrait. His withered legs are fastened to a board, and he shuffles himself along with his hands, which were armed with a pair of wooden hand clogs. He used to sit upon the steps of the Piazza de Spagna. "Once I was witness," says the Improvisatore, who tells his own story, "of a scene which awoke in me fear of him, and also exhibited his own disposition. Upon one of the lowest flights of stairs sat an old blind beggar, and rattled with his little leaden box that people might drop a _bajocco_ therein. Many people passed by my uncle without noticing his crafty smile and the waivings of his hat; the blind man gained more by his silence--they gave to him. Three had gone by, and now came the fourth, and threw him a small coin. Peppo could no longer contain himself: I saw how he crept down like a snake, and struck the blind man in his face, so that he lost both money and stick. 'Thou thief!' cried my uncle, 'wilt thou steal money from me--thou who art not even a regular cripple--cannot see--that is all! And so he will take my bread from my mouth.'"

On great occasions Peppo could quit his board and straddle upon an ass. And now he came upon his ass, set Antonio before him, and carried him off to his home or den. The boy was put into a small recess contiguous to the apartment which his uncle occupied with some of his guests. He overheard this conversation: "Can the boy do any thing?" asked one; "Has he any sort of hurt?"

"No; the Madonna has not been so kind to him," said Peppo; "he is slender and well formed, like a nobleman's child."

"That is a great misfortune," said they all; and some suggestions were added, that he could have some little hurt to help him to get his earthly bread until the Madonna gave him the heavenly. Conversation such as this filled him with alarm; he crept through the aperture which served for window to his dormitory; slid down the wall, and made his escape. He ran as fast as he could, and found himself at length in the Coliseum.

Antonio, at this time, is a poor boy about nine or ten years old; we have seen from what sort of guardian the terrified lad was making his escape. Now, observe the exquisite appropriateness, taste, and judgment of what follows. It is precisely here that the author makes parade of the knowledge he has lately gained in the grammar-school of Slagelse--precisely here that he throws his Antonio into a classical dream or vision!

"Behind one of the many wooden altars which stand not far apart
within the ruins, and indicate the resting-points of the Saviour's
progress to the cross,[3] I seated myself upon a fallen capital,
which lay in the grass. The stone was as cold as ice, my head
burned, there was fever in my blood; I could not sleep, and there
occurred to my mind all that people had related to me of this old
building; of the captive Jews who had been made to raise these huge
blocks of stone for the mighty Roman Caesar; of the wild beasts
which, within this space, had fought with each other, nay, even
with men also, while the people sat upon stone benches, which
ascended step-like from the ground to the loftiest colonnade.

"There was a rustling in the bushes above me; I looked up, and
fancied that I saw something moving. Oh, yes! my imagination showed
to me pale dark shapes, which hewed and builded around me; I heard
distinctly every stroke that fell, saw the meagre black-bearded
Jews tear away grass and shrubs to pile stone upon stone, till the
whole monstrous building stood there newly erected; and now all was
one throng of human beings, head above head, and the whole seemed
one infinitely vast living giant body.

"I saw the vestals in their long white garments; the magnificent
court of the Caesar; the naked bleeding gladiators; then I heard how
there was a roaring and a howling round about, in the lowest
colonnades; from various sides sprang in whole herds of tigers and
hyaenas; they sped close past the spot where I lay; I felt their
burning breath; saw their red fiery glances, and held myself fast
upon the stone upon which I was seated, whilst I prayed the Madonna
to save me. But wilder still grew the tumult around me; yet I could
see in the midst of all the holy cross as it still stands, and
which, whenever I had passed it, I had piously kissed. I exerted
all my strength, and perceived distinctly that I had thrown my arms
around it; but every thing that surrounded me trembled violently
together,--walls, men, beasts. Consciousness had left me,--I
perceived nothing more. When I again opened my eyes, my fever was
over."

Sadder trash than this it were almost impossible to write. It is necessary to make some quotations to justify the terms of censure, as well as of praise, which we have bestowed upon Andersen; but our readers will willingly excuse the infliction of many such quotations; they might be made abundantly enough, we can assure them.

On awaking from this vision, Antonio finds himself in the presence of some worthy monks. They take charge of him, and ultimately give him over to the protection of an old woman, a relative, Dominica, who is living the most solitary life imaginable, in one of the tombs of the Campagna. Here there is a striking picture presented to the imagination--of the old woman and the little boy, shut up in the ruined tomb, in the almost tropical heat, or the heavy rains, that visit the Campagna. He who erewhile had visions of vestals and captive Jews, Caesar and the gladiators, is more naturally represented as amusing himself by floating sticks and reeds upon the little canal dug to carry the water from their dwelling;--"they were his boats which were to sail to Rome."

One day a young nobleman, pursued by an enraged buffalo, takes refuge in this tomb, and thus becomes acquainted with Antonio. He is a member of the Borghese family, and proves to be the very nobleman whose carriage had accidentally occasioned the death of his mother. Antonio becomes the protege of the Borghese, returns to Rome, receives an education, and is raised into the high and cultivated ranks of society. He is put under the learned discipline of Habbas Dahdah--an excellent name, we confess, for a fool--in whose person, we presume, he takes a sly revenge upon his late rector of Slagelse. But he has not been fortunate in the invention of parallel absurdities in his Italian pedagogue to those which he may have remembered of some German prototype. He describes him as animated with a sort of insane aversion to the poet Dante, whom he decries on every occasion in order to exalt Petrarch. A Habbas Dahdah would be much more more likely to feign an excessive admiration for the idol and glory of Italy. However, his pupil stealthily procures a Dante; reads him, of course _dreams_ of him; in short, there is an intolerable farago about the great poet.

But the time now comes when the great business of all novels--love--is brought upon the scene. And here we have an observation to make which we think may be deserving of attention.

Antonio, the Improvisatore, is made, in the novel, to love in the strangest fashion imaginable. He loves and he does not love; he never knows himself, nor the reader either, whether, or with whom, to pronounce him in love. Annunciata, the first object of this uncertain passion, behaves herself, it must be confessed, in a very extraordinary manner. We suppose the exigencies of the novel must excuse her; it was necessary that her lover should be plunged in despair, and therefore she could not be permitted to behave as any other woman would have done in the same circumstances. She has a real affection for Antonio; yet at the critical moment--the last moment he will be able to learn the truth, the last time he will see her unless her response be favourable--she behaves in such a manner as to lead him inevitably to the conclusion that his rival is preferred to him. This Annunciata, the most celebrated singer of her day, loses her voice, loses her beauty,--a fever deprives her of both;--and not till her death does Antonio learn that he, and not another, was the person really beloved. Meanwhile, in his travels, Antonio meets with a blind girl, whom he does or does not love, on whom at least he poetises, and whose forehead, _because she was blind_, he had kissed. He is afterwards introduced, at Venice, to a young lady, (Maria) who bears a striking resemblance to this blind girl. She is, in fact, the same person, restored to sight, though he is not aware of it. Maria loves the Improvisatore; he says, he believes that his affection is _not_ love. He quits Venice--he returns--he is ill. Then follows one of those miserable scenes which novelists will inflict upon us--of dream, or delirium--what you will,--and, in this state, he fancies Maria is dead; he finds then that he really loved; and, in his sleep or trance, he expresses aloud his affection. His declaration is overheard by Maria and her sister, who are watching over his couch. He wakes, and Maria is there, alive before him. In his sleep he has become aware of the true condition of his own heart; nay, he has leapt the Rubicon,--he has declared it. He becomes a married man.

Now, in the confused and contradictory account of Antonio's passion, we see a truth which the author drew from his own nature and experience,--a truth which, if he had fully appreciated, or had manfully adhered to, would have enabled him to draw a striking, consistent, and original portrait. In such natures as Andersen's, there is often found a modesty more than a woman's, combined with a vivid feeling of beauty, and a yearning for affection. Modesty is no exclusive property of the female sex, and there may be so much of it in a youth as to be the impediment, perhaps the unconscious impediment, to all the natural outpouring of his heart. The coyness of the virgin, the suitor, by his prayers and wooing, does all he can to overcome; but here the coyness is in the suitor himself. He has to overcome it by himself, and he cannot. He hardly knows the sort of enemy he has to conquer. Every woman seems to him enclosed in a bell-glass, fine as gossamer, but he cannot break it. He feels himself drawn, but he cannot approach. His heart is yearning; yet he says to himself, no, I do not love. A looker-on calls him inconstant, uncertain, capricious. He is not so; he is bound by viewless fetters, nor does he know where to strike the chain that is coiled around him.

Such was the truth, we apprehend, such the character, that Andersen had indistinctly in view. He drew from himself, but he had not previously analysed that self. It is, therefore, not so much a false as a confused and imperfect representation that he has given, which the reader, if he thinks it worth his while, must explain and complete for himself. Perhaps, too, a fear of the ridicule which an exhibition of modesty in man might draw down from certain slender witlings, from the young gentlemen, or even the young ladies, of Copenhagen, may have, in part, deterred him from a faithful portraiture. To people of reflection, who have learned to estimate at its true value the laugh of coxcombs, and the wisdom of the so-called man of the world--the shallowest bird of passage that we know of--such a portrait would have been attractive for the genuine truth it contains. It would require, indeed, a master's hand to deal both well and honestly with it.

The descriptions of Italy which "The Improvisatore" contains are sufficiently striking and faithful to recall the scenes to those who have visited them; which is all, we believe, the best descriptions can effect. What is absolutely new to a reader cannot be described to him. If all the poets and romancers of England were to unite together in a committee of taste, they could not frame a description which would give the effect of mountainous scenery to one who had never seen a mountain. The utmost the describer call do, in all such cases, is to liken the scene to something already familiar to the reader's imagination. Though generally faithful, we cannot say that our author never sacrifices accuracy of detail to the demands of the novelist, never sacrifices the actual to the ideal. For instance, his account of the _Miserere_ in the Sistine Chapel, is rather what one is willing to anticipate it might be, than what a traveller really finds it. To be sure, he has a right to place his hero of the novel where he pleases in the chapel, relieve him from the crowd, and give him all the advantages of position: still his perfect enjoyment of all that both the arts of painting and music can afford, and that overpowering _sentiment_ which he finds in the great picture of the Last Judgment by Michel Angelo, (a picture which addresses itself far more to the artist than the poet,) strikes us as a description more from imagination than experience.

A little satire upon the travelling English seems, by the way, to be as agreeable at Copenhagen as at Paris. Our Danish friends are quite welcome to it; we only wish for their sakes that, in the present instance, it had been a little more lively and pungent. Our Hans Andersen is too weak in the wrist, has not arm strong enough "to crack the satyric thong." Mere exaggeration maybe mere nonsense, and very dull nonsense. The scene is at the hotel at Terracina, so well known by all travellers.

"The cracking of whips re-echoed from the wall of rocks; a carriage
with four horses rolled up to the hotel. Armed servants sat on the
seat at the back of the carriage; a pale thin gentleman, wrapped in
a large bright-coloured dressing-gown, stretched himself within it.
The postilion dismounted and cracked his long whip several times,
whilst fresh horses were put to. The stranger wished to proceed,
but as he desired to have an escort over the mountains where Fra
Diavolo and Cesari had bold descendants, he was obliged to wait a
quarter of an hour, and now scolded, half in English and half in
Italian, at the people's laziness, and at the torments and
sufferings which travellers had to endure; and at length knotted up
his pocket-handkerchief into a night-cap, which he drew on his
head, and then, throwing himself into a corner of the carriage,
closed his eyes, and seemed to resign himself to his fate.

"I perceived that it was all Englishman, who already, in ten days,
had travelled through the north and the middle of Italy, and in
that time had made himself acquainted with this country; had seen
Rome in one day, and was now going to Naples to ascend Vesuvius,
and then by the steam-vessel to Marseilles, to gain a knowledge
also of the south of France, which he hoped to do in a still
shorter time. At length eight well-armed horsemen arrived, the
postilion cracked his whip, and the carriage and the out-riders
vanished through the gate between the tall yellow rocks."--(Vol.
ii. p. 6.)

"_Only a Fiddler_" proceeds, in part, on the same plan as "The Improvisatore." Here, too, the author has drawn from his own early experience; here, too, we have a poor lad of genius, who will "go through an immense deal of adversity and then become famous;" here too we have the little ugly duck, who, however, was born in a swan's egg. The commencement of the novel is pretty, where it treats of the childhood of the hero; but Christian (such is his name) does not win upon our sympathy, and still less upon our respect. We are led to suspect that Christian Andersen himself, is naturally deficient in certain elements of character, or he would have better upheld the dignity of his namesake, whom he has certainly no desire to lower in our esteem. With an egregious passion for distinction, a great vanity, in short, we are afraid that he himself (judging from some passages in his Autobiography) hardly possesses a proper degree of pride, or the due feeling of self-respect. The Christian in the novel is the butt and laughing-stock of a proud, wilful young beauty of the name of Naomi; yet does he forsake the love of a sweet girl Lucie, to be the beaten spaniel of this Naomi. He has so little spirit as to take her money and her contempt at the same time.

This self-willed and beautiful Naomi is a well-imagined character, but imperfectly developed. Indeed the whole novel may be described as a jumble of ill-connected scenes, and of half-drawn characters. We have some sad imitations of the worst models of our current literature. Here is a Norwegian godfather, the blurred likeness of some Parisian murderer. Here are dreams and visions, and plenty of delirium. He has caught the trick, perhaps, from some of our English novelists, of infusing into the persons of his drama all sorts of distorted imaginations, by way of describing the situation he has placed them in. We will quote a passage of this nature: it is just possible that some of our countrymen, when they see their own style reflected back to them from a foreign page, may be able to appreciate its exquisite truth to nature. Christian, still a boy, is at play with his companions; he hides from them in the belfry of a church. It was the custom to ring the bells at sunset. He had ensconced himself between the wall and the great bell, and "when this rose, and showed to him the whole opening of its mouth," he found he was within a hair's breadth of contact with it. Retreat was impossible, and the least movement exposed his head to be shattered. The conception is terrible enough, but by no means a novel one, as all readers conversant with the pages of this Magazine will readily allow, by reference to the story of "The Man in the Bell," in our tenth volume,[4] one of the late Dr Maginn's most powerful and graphic sketches. But the natural horror of the situation by no means satisfies this novelist; he therefore engrafts the following imaginations thereupon, as being such as were most likely to occur to the lad, frightened out of his senses, stunned by the roar of the bell, winking hard, and pressing himself closer and closer to the wall to escape the threatened blow.

"Overpowered to his very inmost soul by the most fearful anguish,
the bell appeared to him the jaws of some immense serpent; the
clapper was the poisonous tongue, which it extended towards him.
Confused imaginations pressed upon him; feelings similar to the
anguish which he felt when the godfather had dived with him beneath
the water, took possession of him; but here it roared far stronger
in his ears, and the changing colours before his eyes formed
themselves into gray figures. The old pictures in the castle
floated before him, but with threatening mien and gestures, and
ever-changing forms; now long and angular, again jelly-like, clear
and trembling; they clashed cymbals and beat drums, and then
suddenly passed away into that fiery glow in which every thing had
appeared to him, when, with Naomi, he looked through the red
window-panes. It burned, that he felt plainly. He swam through a
burning sea, and ever did the serpent exhibit to him its fearful
jaws. An irresistible desire seized him to take hold on the clapper
with both hands, when suddenly it became calm around him, but it
still raged within his brain. He felt that all his clothes clung
to him, and that his hands seemed fastened to the wall. Before him
hung the serpent's head, dead and bowed; the bell was silent. He
closed his eyes and felt that he fell asleep. He had
fainted."--(Vol. i. p. 59.)

Are these some of the "beautiful thoughts" which Mrs Howitt finds it the greatest delight of her literary life to translate? One is a little curious to know how far this beauty has been increased or diminished by their admiring translator; but unfortunately we can boast no Scandinavian scholarship. This novel, however, is not without some striking passages, whether of description of natural scenery, or of human life. Of these, the little episode of the fate of Steffen-Margaret recurs most vividly to our recollection. Mrs Howitt, in her translation of "The True Story of my Life," draws our attention, in a note, to this character of Steffen-Margaret, informing us that it is the reproduction of a personage whom Andersen becomes slightly acquainted with in the early part of his career. She thus points out a striking passage in the novel; but the translator of the Autobiography and of "Only a Fiddler," might have found more natural opportunities for illustrating the connexion between the novel and the life of the author. There is no resemblance whatever between the two characters alluded to, except that they both belong to the same unfortunate class of society. Of the young girl mentioned in the life, nothing indeed is said, except that she received once a week a visit from her papa, who came to drink tea with her, dressed always in a shabby blue coat; and the point of the story is, that in after times, when Andersen rose into a far different rank of society, he encountered in some fashionable saloon the papa of the shabby blue coat in a bland old gentleman glittering with orders.

Christian, the hero of the novel, a lad utterly ignorant of life, has come for the first time to Copenhagen. Whilst the ship in which he has arrived is at anchor in the port, it is visited by some _ladies_, one of whom particularly fascinates him. She must be a princess, or something of that kind, if not a species of angel. The next day he finds out her residence, sees her, tells her all his history, all his inspirations, all his hopes; he is sure that he has found a kind and powerful patroness. The lady smiles at him, and dismisses him with some cakes and sweetmeats, and kindly taps upon the head. This is just what Andersen at the same age would have done himself, and just in this manner would he have been dismissed and comforted. There is a scene in the Autobiography very similar. He explains to some kind old dames, whom he encounters at the theatre, his thwarted aspirations after art; they give him cakes;--he tells them again of his impulses, and that he is dying to be famous; they give him more cakes;--he eats and is pacified.

The ship, however, had not been long in the harbour before his princess visited it again. It was evening--Christian was alone in the cabin.

"He was most strangely affected as he heard at this moment a voice
on the cabin steps, which was just like hers. She, perhaps, would
already present herself as a powerful fairy to conduct him to
happiness. He would have rushed towards her, but she came not
alone; a sailor accompanied her, and inquired aloud, on entering,
if there were any one there. But a strange feeling of distress
fettered Christian's tongue, and he remained silent.

"'What have you got to say to me?' asked the sailor.

"'Save me!' was the first word, which Christian heard from her lips
in the cabin; she whom he had regarded as a rich and noble lady. 'I
am sunk in shame!' said she. 'No one esteems me; I no longer esteem
myself. Oh, save me, Soeren! I have honestly divided my money with
you; I yet am possessed of forty dollars. Marry me, and take me
away out of this wo, and out of this misery! Take me to a place
where nobody will know me, where you may not be ashamed of me. I
will work for you like a slave, till the blood comes out at my
finger-ends. Oh, take me away with you! In a year's time it may be
too late.'

"'Should I take you to my old father and mother?' said the sailor.

"'I will kiss the dust from their feet they may beat me, and I will
bear it without a murmur--will patiently bear every blow. I am
already old, that I know. I shall soon be eight-and-twenty; but it
is an act of mercy, which I beseech of you. If you will not do it,
nobody else will; and I think I must drink--drink till my brain
reels--and I forget what I have made myself!'

"'Is that the very important thing that you have got to tell me?'
remarked the sailor, with a cold indifference.

"Her tears, her sighs, her words of despair, sank deep into
Christian's heart. A visionary image had vanished, and with its
vanishing he saw the dark side of a naked reality.

"He found himself again alone.

"A few days after this, the ice had to be hewed away from the
channel. Christian and the sailor struck their axes deeply into the
firm ice, so that it broke into great pieces. Something white hung
fast to the ice in the opening; the sailor enlarged the opening,
and then a female corpse presented itself, dressed in white as for
a ball. She had amber leads round her neck, gold earrings, and she
held her hands closely folded against her breast as if for prayer.
It was Steffen-Margaret."

"O.T." commences in a more lively style than either of the preceding novels, but soon becomes in fact the dullest and most wearisome of the three. During a portion of this novel he seems to have taken for his model of narrative the "Wilhelm Meister" of Goethe; but the calm domestic manner which is tolerable in the clear-sighted man, who we know can rise nobly from it when he pleases, accords ill enough with the bewildered, most displeasing, and half intelligible story which Andersen has here to relate.

We have occupied ourselves quite sufficiently with these novels, and shall pass over "O.T." without further comment. Neither shall we bestow any of our space upon "The Poet's Bazaar," which seems to be nothing else than the Journal which the author may be supposed to have kept during his second visit to Italy, when he also extended his travels into Greece and Constantinople.

We take refuge in the nursery--we will listen to these tales for children--we throw away the rigid pen of criticism--we will have a story.

What precisely are the laws, what the critical rules, on which tales for children should be written, we will by no means undertake to define. Are they to contain nothing, in language or significance, beyond the apprehension of the inmates of the nursery? It is a question which we will not pretend to answer. Aristotle lays down nothing on the subject in his "Poetici;" nor Mr Dunlop in his "History of Fiction." If this be the law, if every thing must be level to the understanding of the frock-and-trousers population, then these, and many other Tales for Children, transgress against the first rule of their construction. How often does the story turn, like the novels for elder people, upon a marriage! Some king's son in disguise marries the beautiful princess. What idea has a child of marriage?--unless the sugared plum-cake distributed on such occasions comes in aid of his imagination. Marriage, to the infantine intelligence, must mean fine dresses, and infinite sweetmeats--a sort of juvenile party that is never to break up. Well, and the notion serves to carry on the tale withal. The imagination throws this temporary bridge over the gap, till time and experience supply other architecture. Amongst this collection, is a story in which vast importance is attached to a kiss. What can a curly-headed urchin, who is kissing, or being kissed, all day long, know of the value that may be given to what some versifier calls,

"The humid seal of soft affections!"

To our apprehension, it has always appeared that the best books for children were those not written expressly for them, but which, interesting to all readers, happened to fasten peculiarly upon the youthful imagination,--such as "Robinson Crusoe," the "Arabian Nights," "Pilgrim's Progress," &c. It is quite true that in all these there is much the child does not understand, but where there is something vividly apprehended, there is an additional pleasure procured, and an admirable stimulant, in the endeavour to penetrate the rest. There is all the charm of a riddle combined with all the fascination of a story. Besides, do we not throughout our boyhood and our youth, read with intense interest, and to our great improvement, books which we but partly understand? How much was lost to us of our Milton and our Shakspeare at an age when nevertheless we read them with intense interest and excitement, and therefore, we may be sure, with great profit. Throughout the whole season of our intellectual progress, we are necessarily reading works of which a great part is obscure to us; we get half at one time, and half at another.

Not, by any means, that we intend to say a word against writing books for children; if they are good books we shall read them too. A clever man talking to his child, in the presence of his adult friends,--has it never been remarked, how infinitely amusing he may be, and what an advantage he has from this two-fold audience? He lets loose all his fancy, under pretence that he is talking to a child, and he couples this wildness with all his wit, and point, and shrewdness, because he knows his friend is listening. The child is not a whit the less pleased, because there is something above its comprehension, nor the friend at all the less entertained, because he laughs at what was not intended for his capacity. A writer of children's tales--(If they are any thing better than what every nursery-maid can invent for herself)--is precisely in this position: he will, he _must_ have in view the adult listener. While speaking to the child, he will endeavour to interest the parent who is overhearing him; and thus there may result a very amusing and agreeable composition.

We have met with some children's tales which, we thought, were so plainly levelled at the parent, that they seemed little more than lectures to grown-up people in the disguise of stories to their children. Some of the very clever stories of Miss Edgeworth appear to be more evidently designed for the adult listener, than to the little people to whom they are immediately addressed. And they may perhaps render good service in this way. Perhaps some mature matron, far above counsel, may take a hint which she thinks was not _intended_--may accept that piece of good advice which she fancies her own shrewdness has discovered, and which the subtle, Miss Edgeworth had laid, like a trap, in her path.

We are happy, we repeat, that we do not feel it incumbent upon us to settle the rules, the critical canon, of this nursery literature. We have no objection, however, to peep into it now and then, and we shall venture to give our readers another of Andersen's little stories, and so take our leave of him. We omit a sentence, here and there, where we can without injury to the tale; yet we have no fear that our gravest readers will think the extract too long. Our quotation is from the volume called "Tales from Denmark." There is another collection called, "The Shoes of Fortune;" these are higher in pretension, and inferior in merit.

THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES.

"One day a couple of swindlers, who called themselves first-rate
weavers, made their appearance in the imperial town of----. They
pretended that they were able to weave the richest stuffs, in which
not only the colours and the pattern were extremely beautiful, but
that the clothes made of such stuffs possessed the wonderful
property of remaining invisible to him who was unfit for the office
he held, or was extremely silly.

"'What capital clothes they must be!' thought the Emperor. 'If I
had but such a suit, I could directly find out what people in my
empire were not equal to their office; and besides, I should be
able to distinguish the clever from the stupid. By Jove, I must
have some of this stuff made directly for me!' And so he ordered
large sums of money to be given to the two swindlers, that they
might set to work immediately.

"The men erected two looms, and did as if they worked very
diligently; but in reality they had got nothing on the loom. They
boldly demanded the finest silk, and gold thread, put it all in
their own pockets, and worked away at the empty loom till quite
late at night.

"'I should like to know how the two weavers are getting on with my
stuff,' said the Emperor one day to himself; 'but he was rather
embarrassed when he remembered that a silly fellow, or one unfitted
for his office, would not be able to see the stuff. 'Tis true, he
thought, as far as regarded himself, there was no risk whatever;
but yet he preferred sending some one else, to bring him
intelligence of the two weavers, and how they were getting on,
before he went himself; for every body in the whole town had heard
of the wonderful property that this stuff was said to possess.

"'I will send my worthy old minister,' said the Emperor at last,
after much consideration; 'he will be able to say how the stuff
looks better than anybody.'

"So the worthy old minister went to the room where the two
swindlers were' working away with all their might and main. 'Lord
help me!' thought the old man, opening his eyes as wide as
possible--'Why, I can't see the least thing whatever on the loom.'
But he took care not to say so.

"The swindlers, pointing to the empty frame, asked him most
politely if the colours were not of great beauty. And the poor old
minister looked and looked, and could see nothing whatever. 'Bless
me!' thought he to himself, 'Am I, then, really a simpleton? Well,
I never thought so. Nobody knows it. I not fit for office! No,
nothing on earth shall make me say that I have not seen the stuff!'

"'Well, sir,' said one of the swindlers, still working busily at
the empty loom, 'you don't say if the stuff pleases you or not.'

"'Oh beautiful! beautiful! the work is admirable!' said the old
minister looking hard through his spectacles. 'This pattern, and
these colours! Well, well, I shall not fail to tell the Emperor
that they are most beautiful!'

"The swindlers then asked for more money, and silk, and gold
thread; but they put as before all that was given them into their
own pocket, and still continued to work with apparent diligence at
the empty loom.

"Some time after, the Emperor sent another officer to see how the
work was getting on. But he fared like the other; he stared at the
loom from every side; but as there was nothing there, of course he
could see nothing. 'Does the stuff not please you as much as it did
the minister?' asked the men, making the same gestures as before,
and talking of splendid colours and patterns, which did not exist.

"'Stupid I certainly am not!' thought the new commissioner; 'then
it must be that I am not fitted for my lucrative office--that were
a good joke! However, no one dare even suspect such a thing.' And
so he began praising the stuff that he could not see, and told the
two swindlers how pleased he was to behold such beautiful colours,
and such charming patterns. 'Indeed, your majesty,' said he to the
Emperor on his return, 'the stuff which the weavers are making, is
extraordinarily fine.'

"It was the talk of the whole town.

"The Emperor could no longer restrain his curiosity to see this
costly stuff; so, accompanied by a chosen train of courtiers, among
whom were the two trusty men who had so admired the work, off he
went to the two cunning cheats. As soon as they heard of the
Emperor's approach they began working with all diligence, although
there was still not a single thread on the loom.

"'Is it not magnificent?' said the two officers of the crown, who
had been there before. 'Will your majesty only look? What a
charming pattern! What beautiful colours!' said they, pointing to
the empty frames, for they thought the others really could see the
stuff.

"'What's the meaning of this?' said the Emperor to himself, 'I see
nothing! Am _I_ a simpleton! I not fit to be Emperor? Oh,' he cried
aloud, 'charming! The stuff is really charming! I approve of it
highly;' and he smiled graciously, and examined the empty looms
minutely. And the whole suite strained their eyes and cried
'Beautiful!' and counselled his Majesty to have new robes made out
of this magnificent stuff for the grand procession that was about
to take place. And so it was ordered.

"The day on which the procession was to take place, the two men
brought the Emperor's new suit to the palace; they held up their
arms as though they had something in their hands, and said, 'Here
are your Majesty's knee-breeches; here is the coat, and here the
mantle. The whole suit is as light as a cobweb; and when one is
dressed, one would almost fancy one had nothing on: but that is
just the beauty of this stuff!'

"'Of course!' said all the courtiers, although not a single one of
them could see any thing of the clothes.

"'Will your imperial Majesty most graciously be pleased to undress?
We will then try on the new things before the glass.'

"The Emperor allowed himself to be undressed, and then the two
cheats did exactly as if each one helped him on with an article of
dress, while his Majesty turned himself round on all sides before
the mirror.

"'The canopy which is to be borne above your Majesty in the
procession, is in readiness without,' announced the chief master of
the ceremonies.

"'I am quite ready,' replied the Emperor, turning round once more
before the looking-glass.

"So the Emperor walked on, under the high canopy, through the
streets of the metropolis, and all the people in the streets and at
the windows cried out, 'Oh, how beautiful the Emperor's new dress
is!' In short there was nobody but wished to cheat himself into the
belief that he saw the Emperor's new clothes.

"'But he has nothing on!' said a little child.'

"And then all the people cried out, 'He has nothing on!'

"But the Emperor and the courtiers--they retained their seeming
faith, and walked on with great dignity to the close of the
procession."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _The Improvisatore; or, Life in Italy_, from the Danish of HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. Translated by MARY HOWITT.

_Only a Fiddler!_ and _O.T. or, Life in Denmark_, by the Author of _The Improvisatore_. Translated by MARY HOWITT.

_A True Story of my Life_, by HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. Translated by MARY HOWITT.

_Tales from Denmark_. Translated by CHARLES BONAR.

_A Picture-Book without Pictures_. Translated by META TAYLOR.

_The Shoes of Fortune, and other Tales_.

_A Poet's Bazaar_. Translated by CHARLES BECKWITH, Esq.

[2] See Allan Cunningham's _Lives of the Painters and Sculptors_, vol. ii. p. 150.

[3] Not very clearly expressed by the translator. One would think that our Saviour, in his progress to the cross, had passed through the area of the Coliseum, and not that each of the pictures on these altars represented one of the resting-points, &c. Mrs Howitt is sometimes hasty and careless in her writing. And why does she employ such expressions as these:--"many white buttons," "beside of it," "beside of us?" We have read _a many_ English books, but never met them in anyone beside of this.

[4] Vol. x, Nov. 1821, p. 373.

THE VISION OF CAGLIOSTRO.

"In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is wont to
hold men, fear seized upon me, and trembling, and all my bones were
affrighted; and when a spirit passed before me, the hair of my
flesh stood up."--_The Book of Job._

The last, and perhaps the most renowned of the Rosicrucians, was, according to a historical insinuation, implicated in that notorious juggle of the Diamond Necklace, which tended so much to increase the popular hatred towards the evil-doomed and beautiful Marie Antoinette. Whether this imputation were correct, or whether the Cardinal Duc de Rohan was the only distinguished person deluded by the artifices of the Countess de la Motte, it is certain that Joseph Balsamo, commonly called Alexandre, Count de Cagliostro, was capable of any knavery, however infamous. Guile was his element; audacity was his breastplate; delusion was his profession; immorality was his creed; debauchery was his consolation; his own genius--the genius of cunning--was the god of his idolatry. Had Cagliostro been sustained by the principles of rectitude, he must have become the idol as well as the wonder of his contemporaries; his accomplishments must have dazzled them into admiration, for he possessed all the attributes of a Crichton. Beautiful in aspect, symmetrical in proportions, graceful in carriage, capacious in intellect, erudite as a Benedictine, agile as an Acrobat, daring as Scaevola, persuasive as Alcibiades, skilled in all manly pastimes, familiar with the philosophies of the scholar and the worldling, an orator, a musician, a courtier, a linguist,--such was the celebrated Cagliostro. In his abilities, he was as capricious as Leonardo, and as subtle as Macchiavelli; but he was without the magnanimity of the one, or the crafty prudence of the other. Lucretius so darkened the glories of nature by the glooms of his blasphemous imagination, that he might have described this earth as a golden globe animated by a demon. Fashioned in a mould as marvellous as that golden orb, and animated in like manner by a devilish and wily spirit, was Balsamo the Rosicrucian.

Between the period of his birth in 1743, and that of his dissolution in 1795, when incarcerated in a dungeon of San Leo, at Rome, Cagliostro, rendered himself in a manner illustrious by practising upon the credulity of his fellow-creatures. Holstein had witnessed his pretended successes in alchemy. Strasburg had received him with admiration, as the evangelist of a mystic religion. Paris had resounded with the marvels revealed by his performances in Egyptian free-masonry. Molten gold was said to stream at pleasure over the rim of his crucibles; divination by astrology was as familiar to him as it had been of yore to Zoroaster or Nostradamus; graves yawned at the beck of his potent finger; their ghostly habitants, appeared at his preternatural bidding. The necromantic achievements of Doctor Dee and William Lilly dwindled into insignificance before those attributed to a man who, although apparently in the bloom of manhood, was believed to have survived a thousand winters.

Accident had supplied Cagliostro with an accomplice of suitable depravity. In the course of his eccentric peregrinations among the continental cities, he had formed the acquaintance of a female, remarkable for her consummate loveliness and her boundless sensuality. Married to this Circe, the adventurer began to thrive beyond his most sanguine anticipations. It must be remembered, however, that in his nefarious proceedings, Balsamo was aided by a faculty of invention almost miraculous in its fruitfulness, and occasionally almost sublime in its audacity. By these means, he ultimately became the most astonishing impostor the world had ever beheld, with the solitary exception of Mohammed.

As a forerunner of a disastrous revolution, the appearance of this fantastic personage in the capital of civilisation was at once dismal and prophetic. Unconsciously, he was the prophet of disaster. Unconsciously, he was the prelude--half-solemn, half-grotesque--of a bloody and diabolical saturnalia. History, both profane and inspired, tells us that when the Euphrates forsook its natural channel, and the hostile legions trampled under its gates at nightfall; when the revellers of Belshazzar, drunk with prolonged orgies and haggard with the shadow of an impending doom, staggered through the marble vestibules and out upon the marble causeways, rending their purple vestures in the moonlight, there was weeping among the lords of Chaldea,--"Wo! wo! wo!" was walled in the streets of Babylon. A similar destiny awaited Paris, but as yet a different spectacle was visible; as yet the carousals of the metropolis were at their zenith; as yet the current flowed in its ancient channel; as yet the woes of the empire were not written on the wall of the palace. Festivities were never conducted with more magnificence than immediately before the downfall of the monarchy and the general desolation of the kingdom. The pomps of the religion, the pageantries of the court, and the munificence of the nobility, were never before characterised by so much grandeur and profusion. The church, the sovereign, and the oligarchy, were crowning themselves for the sacrifice.

* * * * *

Opposite the Rue de Luxembourg, and parallel with the Rue de Caumartin, there stood, in the year 1782, a little villa-cottage or rustic pavilion. It was separated from the Boulevard de la Madeleine by a green paddock, and was concealed in a nest of laurustinus and clematis. Autumn, that generous season, which seems in its bounty to impart a smell of ripeness to the very leaves, had already scattered dyes of gold and vermilion over the verdure of this shrubbery. A night-breeze, impregnated with vegetable perfumes, and wafting before it one of these leaves, stole between the branches--over the fragrant mould--across a grass-plot--through an open window of the cottage. The leaf tinkled. It had fallen upon the pages of a volume from which a man was reading by a lamp. At that moment the clock of the Capuchins tolled out a doleful TWO; it was answered by the numerous bells of Paris. Solemn, querulous, sepulchral, quavering, silvery, close at hand, or modulated into a dim echo by the distance, the voice of the inexorable hours vibrated over the capital, and then ceased.

Alas, for the heart of Cagliostro!

The solitary watcher shuddered as the metallic sounds floated in from the belfries. Although startled by the dropping of the leaf, he closed the volume, leisurely placing it between the pages as a marker--_it_, so brittle! so yellow! so typical of decay and mortality! The book comprised the writings of Sir Cornelius Agrippa. Having tossed the old alchemist from him with an air of overwhelming dejection, the student abandoned himself to the most sorrowful reflections.

He had but recently returned from a masked ball, and a domino of salmon-coloured satin still hung loosely over his shoulders. As the feeble light of the lamp glimmered upon the jet-bugles and steel-spangles of his costume, there was visible the perpetual contrast of his destiny,--a mingling of the most abstruse researches and the most extravagant frivolities. Jewels sparkled upon his hands and bosom; the varicose veins on his temples throbbed with a feverish precision; the fumes of the wine-cup flushed his cheek and disordered his imagination.

"Death," thought the Rosicrucian, "fills me with abhorrence; and yet life is totally devoid of happiness. Happiness! O delusive phantom of humanity, how art thou attainable? Through Fame? Fame is mine, and I am wretched. Over the realms of civilisation my name is noised abroad; in the populous cities the glory of my art resounds; when my barge glided among the palaces of Venice, the blue Adriatic was purpled with blossoms in my honour.--Fame? Fame brings not happiness to Cagliostro. Wealth? Not so. Ducats, pistoles, louis-d'or, have brought no panacea to the sorrows of Balsamo. Beauty? Nay; for, in the profligate experience of capitals, the sage is saddened with the knowledge that comeliness, at best, is but an exquisite hypocrisy. I have striven also, vainly, for contentment in the luxuries of voluptuous living. The talisman of Epicurus has evaded my grasp--the glittering bauble![5] The ravishing ideal JOY, has been to me not as the statue to Pygmalion: I have grovelled down in adoration at its feet, and have found it the same immobile, relentless, unresponsive image. Youth is yet mine, but it is a youth hoary in desolation. Centuries of anguish have flooded through my bosom, even in the heyday of existence. The tangible and the intangible, the visible and the invisible, the material and the immaterial, have been at deadly strife in my conjectures. The present has been to me an evasion, the future an enigma; the earth a delusion, the heavens a doubt. Even the pomp of those inexplicable stars is a new agony of indecision to my recoiling fancy[6]--so impassive in their unchangeableness, so awful in the quiescence of their eternal grandeur. Supreme, too, in my bewilderment, remains the problem of their revolutions--the cause of their impulsion[7] as well as of their creation. Baffled in my scrutiny of the sublime puzzle which is _domed_ over the globe at nightfall, dizzy with the contemplation of such abysses of mystery, my thoughts have reverted to this earth, in which pleasure sparkles but to evaporate. No solace in the investigation of those infinitudes, which are only fathomable by a system revolting to my judgment--the system of a theocratic philosophy; no consolation in the dreamings evoked by the lore of the stupendous skies: my heart throbs still for the detection and the possession of happiness. Nature has endowed me with senses--five delicate and susceptible instruments--for the realisation of bodily delight. Sights of unutterable loveliness, tones of surpassing melody, perfumes of delicious fragrance, marvellous sensibilities of touch and palate, afford me so many channels for enjoyment. Still the insufficiency of the palpable and appreciable is paramount; still the everlasting dolor interposes: the appetite is satiated, the aroma palls upon the nostrils, the nerves are affected by irritability, the harmony merges into dissonance; even the beautiful becomes so far an abomination that man is 'mad for the sight of his eyes that he did see.' Such is the sterile and repulsive penalty of the searcher after happiness. Happiness! O delusive phantom of humanity, how art thou attainable?"