Chapter X: Part I: Reviews (5)

The terms Classical and Romantic, which have so long divided European critics, and exercised so powerful an influence upon their decisions, are not much known or heeded among us,--as, indeed, _belles-lettres_ cannot, generally, in our busy state of things, be important or influential, as among a less free and more luxurious people, to whom the more important truths are proffered through those indirect but alluring mediums. Here, where every thing may be spoken or written, and the powers that be, abused without ceremony on the very highway, the Muse has nothing to do with dagger or bowl; hardly is the censor's wand permitted to her hand. Yet is her lyre by no means unheeded, and if it is rather by refining our tastes than by modelling our opinions that she influences us, yet is that influence far from unimportant. And the time is coming, perhaps in our day, we may (if war do not untimely check the national progress) even see and temper its beginning, when the broad West shall swarm with an active, happy, and cultivated population; when the South, freed from the incubus which now oppresses her best energies, shall be able to do justice to the resources of her soil and of her mind; when the East, gathering from every breeze the riches of the old world, shall be the unwearied and loving agent to those regions which lie far away from the great deep, our bulwark and our minister. Then will the division of labor be more complete; then will a surplus of talent be spared from the mart, the forum, and the pulpit; then will the fine arts assume their proper dignity, as the expression of what is highest and most ethereal in the mind of a people. Then will our quarries be thoroughly explored, and furnish materials for stately fabrics to adorn the face of all the land, while our ports shall be crowded with foreign artists flocking to take lessons in the school of American architecture. Then will our floral treasures be arranged into harmonious gardens, which, environing tasteful homes, shall dimple all the landscape. Then will our Allstons and our Greenoughs preside over great academies, and be raised far above any need, except of giving outward form to the beautiful ideas which animate them; and ornament from the exhaustless stores of genius the marble halls where the people meet to rejoice, or to mourn, or where dwell those wise and good whom the people delight to honor. Then shall music answer to and exalt the national spirit, and the poet's brows shall be graced with the civic as well as the myrtle crown. Then shall we have an American mind, as well as an American system, and, no longer under the sad necessity of exchanging money for thoughts, traffic on perfectly equal terms with the other hemisphere. Then--ah, not yet!--shall our literature make its own laws, and give its own watchwords; till then we must learn and borrow from that of nations who possess a higher degree of cultivation though a much lower one of happiness.

The term Classical, used in its narrow sense, implies a servile adherence to the Unities, but in its wide and best sense, it means such a simplicity of plan, selection of actors and events, such judicious limitations on time and range of subject, as may concentrate the interest, perfect the illusion, and make the impression most distinct and forcible. Although no advocates for the old French school, with its slavish obedience to rule, which introduces follies greater than those it would guard against, we lay the blame, not on their view of the drama, but on the then bigoted nationality of the French mind, which converted the Mussulman prophet into a De Retz, the Roman princess into a French grisette, and infected the clear and buoyant atmosphere of Greece with the vapors of the Seine. We speak of the old French Drama: with the modern we do not profess to be acquainted, having met with scarcely any specimens in our own bookstores or libraries; but if it has been revolutionized with the rest of their literature, it is probably as unlike as possible to the former models.

We shall speak of productions in the classical spirit first; because Mr. Taylor is a disciple of the other school, though otherwise we should have adopted a contrary course.

The most perfect specimens of this style with which we are acquainted are the Filippo, the Saul, and the Myrrha of Alfieri; the Wallenstein of Schiller; the Tasso and the Iphigenia of Goethe. England furnishes nothing of the sort. She is thoroughly Shakspearian.

There is no higher pleasure than to see a genius of a wild, impassioned, many-sided eagerness, restraining its exuberance by its sense of fitness, taming its extravagance beneath the rule its taste approves, exhibiting the soul within soul, and the force of the will over all that we inherit. The _abandon_ of genius has its beauty--far more beautiful its voluntary submission to wise law. A picture, a description, has beauty, the beauty of life; these pictures, these descriptions, arranged upon a plan, made subservient to a purpose, have a higher beauty--that of the mind of man acting upon life. Art is nature, but nature new-modelled, condensed, and harmonized. We are not merely like mirrors, to reflect our own times to those more distant. The mind has a light of its own, and by it illumines what it re-creates.

This is the ground of our preference for the classical school, and for Alfieri beyond all pupils of that school. We hold that if a vagrant bud of poesy here and there be blighted by conforming to its rules, our loss is more than made up to us by our enjoyment of plan, of symmetry, of the triumph of genius over multiplied obstacles.

It has been often said that the dramas of Alfieri contrast directly with his character. This is, perhaps, not true; we do but see the depths of that volcano which in early days boiled over so fiercely. The wild, infatuated youth often becomes the stern, pitiless old man. Alfieri did but bend his surplus strength upon literature, and became a despot to his own haughty spirit, instead of domineering over those of others.

We have selected his three masterpieces, though he, to himself an inexorable critic, has shown no indulgence to his own works, and the least successful of those which remain to us, Maria Stuarda, is marked by great excellence.

Filippo has been so ably depicted in a work now well known, "Carlyle's Life of Schiller," that we need not dwell upon it. All the light of the picture, the softer feelings of the hapless Carlos and Elizabeth, is so cast, as to make more visible the awing darkness of the tyrant's perverted mind, deadened to all virtue by a false religion, cold and hopeless as the dungeons of his own Inquisition, and relentless as death. Forced by the magic wand of genius into the stifling precincts of this mind, horror-struck that we must sympathize with such a state as possible to humanity, we rush from the contemplation of the picture, and would gladly curtain it over in our hall of imagery forever. Yet stigmatize not our poet as a dark master, courting the shade, and hating the glad lights which love and hope cast upon human nature. The drama has a holy meaning, a patriot moral, and we, above all, should reverence him, the aristocrat by birth, by education, and by tastes, whose love of liberty could lead him to such conclusions.

In "Saul," a bright rainbow rises, by the aid of the Sun of Righteousness, above the commotion of the tempest. David, the faithful, the hopeful, combining the aesthetic culture, the winged inspiration of the poet with the noble pride of Israel's chosen warrior, contrasts finely with the unfortunate Saul, his mind darkened and convulsed by jealousy, vain regrets, and fear of the God he has forgotten how to love. The other three actors shade in the picture without attracting our attention from the two principal personages. The Hebrew spirit breathes through the whole. The beauty of the lyric effusions is so generally felt, that encomium is needless; we shall only observe that in them Alfieri's style, usually so severe, becomes flexible, melodious, and glowing; thus we may easily perceive what he might have done, had not the simplicity of his genius disdained the foreign aid of ornament upon its Doric proportions.

Myrrha is, however, the highest exertion of his genius. The remoteness of time and manners, the subject, at once so hackneyed and so revolting, these great obstacles he seizes with giant grasp, and moulds them to his purpose. Our souls are shaken to the foundation; all every-day barriers fall with the great convulsion of passion. We sorrow, we sicken, we die with the miserable girl, so pure under her involuntary crime of feeling, pursued by a malignant deity in her soul's most sacred recesses, torn from all communion with humanity, and the virtue she was framed to adore. The perfection of plan, the matchless skill with which every circumstance is brought out! The agonizing rapidity with which her misery "va camminando al fine"! No! never was higher tragic power exhibited; never were love, terror, pity, fused into a more penetrating draught! Myrrha is a favorite acting-play in Italy--a fact inconceivable to an English or American mind; for (to say nothing of other objections) we should think such excess of emotion unbearable. But in those meridian climes they drink deep draughts of passion too frequently to taste them as we do.

We pass to works of far inferior power, but of greater beauty. We have selected Iphigenia and Tasso as the most finished results of their author's mature views of art. On his plays in the Romantic style, we shall touch in another place. If any one ask why we do not class Faust with either, we reply, that is a work without a parallel; one of those few originals which have their laws within themselves, and should always be discussed singly.

The unity of plan in Iphigenia is perfect. There is one pervading idea. The purity of Iphigenia's mind must be kept unsullied, that she may be a fit intercessor to the gods in behalf of her polluted family. Goethe, in his travels through Italy, saw a picture of a youthful Christian saint--Agatha, we think; struck by the radiant purity of her expression, he resolved his heathen priestess should not have one thought which could revolt the saint of the true religion. This idea is wonderfully preserved throughout a drama so classic in its coloring and manners. The happiest development of character, an interest in the denouement which is only so far tempered by our trust in the lovely heroine, as to permit us to enjoy all the minuter beauties on our way, (this the breathless interest of Alfieri's dramas hardly allows, on a fourth or fifth reading,) exquisite descriptive touches, and expressions of sentiment, unequalled softness and harmony of style, distinguish a drama not to be surpassed in its own department. Torquato Tasso[17] is of inferior general, but greater particular beauty. The two worldly, the two higher characters, with that of Alphonso halting between, are shaded with equal delicacy and distinctness. The inward-turning imagination of the ill-fated bard, and the fantastic tricks it plays with life, are painted as only a poet's soul of equal depth, of greater versatility, could have painted them. In analysis of the passions, and eloquent descriptions of their more hidden workings, some parts may vie with Rousseau; while several effusions of feeling are worthy of Tasso's own lyre, with its "breaking heartstring's tone." The conduct of the piece being in perfect accordance with the plan, gives the satisfaction we have mentioned in speaking of Raphael's Madonna.

Schiller's Wallenstein does not strictly belong to this class, yet we are disposed to claim it as observing the unities of time and interest; the latter especially is entire, notwithstanding the many actors and side-scenes which are introduced. Numberless touches of nature arrest our attention, bright lights are flashed across many characters, but our interest, momently increasing, is for Wallenstein--for the perversion, the danger, the ruin of that monarch soul, that falling son of the morning. Even that we feel in Max, with his celestial bloom of heart, in Thekla's sweet trustfulness, is subsidiary. This work, generally known to the reader through Mr. Coleridge's translation, affords an imperfect illustration of our meaning. Miss Baillie's plays on the passions hold a middle place. Unity of purpose there is--no unity of plan or conduct. Bold, fine outline--very bad coloring. Profound, beautifully-expressed reflections on the passions--utter want of skill in showing them out; a thorough feeling, indeed, of the elements of tragedy,--had but the vitalizing energy been added. Her plays are failures; but since she has given us nothing else, we cannot but rejoice in having these. 'Tis great pity that the authoress of De Montfort and Basil should not have attempted a narrative poem.

Coleridge and Byron are signal instances how peculiar is the kind of talent required for the drama; one a philosopher, both men of great genius and uncommon mastery over language, both conversant with each side of human nature, both considering the drama in its true light as one of the highest departments of literature, both utterly wanting in simplicity, pathos, truth of passion and liveliness of action--in that thrilling utterance of heart to heart, whose absence _here_, no other excellence can atone for. Of Maturin and Knowles we do not speak, because theirs, though very good acting plays, are not, like Mr. Taylor's, written for the closet; of Milman, because not sufficiently acquainted with his plays. We would here pay a tribute to our countryman Hillhouse, whose Hadad, read at a very early age, we remember with much delight. Probably our judgment now might be different; but a work which could make so deep an impression on any age, must have genius. We are sorry we have never since met it in any library or parlor, and are not competent to speak of it more particularly.

It will be seen that Mr. Taylor has not attempted the sort of dramatic poetry which we consider the highest, but has labored in that which the great wizard of Avon adopted, because it lay nearest at hand to clothe his spells withal, and consecrated it, with his world-embracing genius, to the (in our judgment) no small detriment of his country's taste. Having thus declared that we cannot grant him our very highest meed of admiration, (though we will not say that he might not win it if he made the essay,) we hasten to meet him on his own ground. "Dramatica Poesis est veluti Historia spectabilis," is his motto, taken from Bacon, who formed his taste on Shakspeare. We would here mention that Goethe's earlier works, Goetz von Berlichingen and Egmont are of this school--brilliant fragments of past days, ballads acted out, historical scenes and personages clustered round a hero; and we have seen that his ripened taste preferred the form of Iphigenia and Tasso.

We cannot too strongly express our approbation of the opinions maintained in his short preface to this work. We rejoice to see a leader coming forward who is likely to un-Hemansize and un-Cornwallize literature. We too have been sick, we too have been intoxicated with _words_ till we could hardly appreciate thoughts; perhaps our present writing shows traces of this Lower-Empire taste; but we have sense enough left to welcome the English Phocion, who would regenerate public feeling. The candor and modest dignity with which these opinions are offered charm us. The remarks upon Shelley, whom we have loved, and do still love passing well, brought truth home to us in a definite shape. With regard to the lowness of Lord Byron's standard of character, every thing indeed has been said which could be but not as Mr. Taylor has said it; and we opine that his refined and gentle remarks will find their way to ears which have always been deaf to the harsh sarcasms unseasoned by wit, which have been current on this topic.

Our author too, notwithstanding his modest caveat, has acted upon his principles, and furnished a forcible illustration of their justice. For dignity of sentiment, for simplicity of manner, for truth to life, never infringing upon respect for the ideal, we look to such a critic, and we are not disappointed.

The scene is laid in Ghent, in the fourteenth century. The Flemish mobocracy are brought before us with a fidelity and animation surpassing those displayed in Egmont. Their barbarism, and the dissimilar, but not inferior barbarism of their would-be lords, the bold, bad men, the shameless crime and brainless tumult of those days, live before us. Amid these clashing elements moves Philip Van Artevelde, with the presence, not of a god, but of a great man, too superior to be shaken, too wise to be shocked by their rude jarrings. He becomes the leader of his people, and despite pestilence, famine, and their own untutored passions, he leads them on to victory and power.

In the second part we follow Van Artevelde from his zenith of glory to his decline. The tarnishing influence of prosperity on his spirit, and its clear radiance again in adversity, are managed as the noble and well-defined conception of the character deserves.

The boy king and his courtly, intriguing counsellors are as happily portrayed as Vauclaire and the fierce commonalty he ruled, or resisted with rope or sword, as the case might demand.

The two loves of Van Artevelde are finely imagined, as types of the two states of his character. Both are lovely; the one how elevated! the other how pity-moving in her loveliness! On the interlude of Elena we must be allowed to linger fondly, though the author's self condemn our taste.

We are no longer partial to the machinery of portents and presentiments. Wallenstein's were the last we liked, but Van Artevelde's make good poetry, and have historical vouchers. They remind us of those of Fergus Mac Ivor.

We shall extract a speech of Van Artevelde's, in which a leading idea of the work is expressed.

Father,--

So! with the chivalry of Christendom
I wage my war,--no nation for my friend,
Yet in each nation having hosts of friends.
The bondsmen of the world, that to their lords
Are bound with chains of iron, unto me
Are knit by their affections. Be it so.
From kings and nobles will I seek no more
Aid, friendship, or alliance. With the poor
I make my treaty; and the heart of man
Sets the broad seal of its allegiance there,
And ratifies the compact. Vassals, serfs,
Ye that are bent with unrequited toil,
Ye that have whitened in the dungeon's darkness,
Through years that know not change of night nor day,
Tatterdemalions, lodgers in the hedge,
Lean beggars with raw backs, and rumbling maws,
Whose poverty was whipped for starving you,--
I hail you my auxiliars and allies,
The only potentates whose help I crave!
Richard of England, thou hast slain Jack Straw,
But thou hast left unquenched the vital spark
That set Jack Straw on fire. The spirit lives;
And as when he of Canterbury fell,
His seat was filled by some no better clerk,
So shall John Ball, that slew him, be replaced.

Fain would we extract Van Artevelde's reply to the French envoy--the oration of the dying Van den Bosch in the market-place of Ypres, the last scene between the hero and the double-dyed dastard and traitor, Sir Heurant of Heurlee, and many, many more, had we but space enough.

We have purposely avoided telling the story, as is usual in an article of this kind, because we wish that every one should buy and read Van Artevelde, instead of resting content with the canvas side of the carpet.

A few words more, and we shall conclude these, we fear, already too prolonged remarks. We would compare Mr. Taylor with the most applauded of living dramatists, the Italian Alessandro Manzoni.

To wide and accurate historical knowledge, to purity of taste, to the greatest elevation of sentiment, Manzoni unites uncommon lyric power, and a beautiful style in the most beautiful language of the modern world. The conception of both his plays is striking, the detached beauties of thought and imagery are many; but where are the life, the glow, the exciting march of action, the thorough display of character which charm us in Van Artevelde? We _live_ at Ghent and Senlis; we _think_ of Italy. Van Artevelde dies,--and our hearts die with him. When Elena says, "The body,--O!" we could echo that "long, funereal note," and weep as if the sun of heroic nobleness were quenched from our own horizon. "Carmagnola, Adelchis die,"--we calmly shut the book, and think how much we have enjoyed it. Manzoni can deeply feel goodness and greatness, but he cannot localize them in the contours of life before our eyes. His are capital sketches, poems of a deep meaning,--but this, yes! this _is_ a drama.

We cannot conclude more fitly, nor inculcate a precept on the reader more forcibly, than in Mr. Taylor's own words, with a slight alteration: "To say that I admire him is to admit that I owe him much; for admiration is never thrown away upon the mind of him who feels it, except when it is misdirected or blindly indulged. There is perhaps nothing which more enlarges or enriches the mind than the disposition to lay it genially open to impressions of pleasure, from the exercise of every species of talent; nothing by which it is more impoverished than the habit of undue depreciation. What is puerile, pusillanimous, or wicked, it can do us no good to admire; but let us admire all that can be admired without debasing the dispositions or stultifying the understanding."

UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION.

Slight as the intercourse held by the Voyager with the South Sea Islands is, his narrative is always more prized by us than those of the missionary and traders, who, though they have better opportunity for full and candid observation, rarely use it so well, because their minds are biased towards their special objects. It is deeply interesting to us to know how much and how little God has accomplished for the various nations of the larger portion of the earth, before they are brought into contact with the civilization of Europe and the Christian religion. To suppose it so little as most people do, is to impugn the justice of Providence. We see not how any one can contentedly think that such vast multitudes of living souls have been left for thousands of years without manifold and great means of instruction and happiness. To appreciate justly how much these have availed them, to know how far they are competent to receive new benefits, is essential to the philanthropist as a means of aiding them, no less than it is important to one philosopher who wishes to see the universe as God made it, not as some men think he OUGHT TO have made it.

The want of correct knowledge, and a fair appreciation of the uncultivated man as he stands, is a cause why even the good and generous fail to aid him, and contact with Europe has proved so generally more of a curse than a blessing. It is easy enough to see why our red man, to whom the white extends the Bible or crucifix with one hand, and the rum-bottle with the other, should look upon Jesus as only one more Manitou, and learn nothing from his precepts or the civilization connected with them. The Hindoo, the South American Indian, who knew their teachers first as powerful robbers, and found themselves called upon to yield to violence not only their property, personal freedom, and peace, but also the convictions and ideas that had been rooted and growing in their race for ages, could not be otherwise than degraded and stupefied by a change effected through such violence and convulsion. But not only those who came with fire and sword, crying, "Believe or die;" "Understand or we will scourge you;" "Understand _and_ we will only plunder and tyrannize over you,"--not only these ignorant despots, self-deceiving robbers, have failed to benefit the people they dared esteem more savage than themselves, but the worthy and generous have failed from want of patience and an expanded intelligence. Would you speak to a man? first learn his language. Would you have the tree grow? learn the nature of the soil and climate in which you plant it. Better days are coming, we do hope, as to these matters--days in which the new shall be harmonized with the old, rather than violently rent asunder from it; when progress shall be accomplished by gentle evolution, as the stem of the plant grows up, rather than by the blasting of rocks, and blindness or death of the miners.

The knowledge which can lead to such results must be collected, as all true knowledge is, from the love of it. In the healthy state of the mind, the state of elastic youth, which would be perpetual in the mind if it were nobly disciplined and animated by immortal hopes, it likes to learn just how the facts are, seeking truth for its own sake, not doubting that the design and cause will be made clear in time. A mind in such a state will find many facts ready for its use in these volumes relative to the South Sea Islanders, and other objects of interest.

STORY-BOOKS FOR THE HOT WEATHER.

Does any shame still haunt the age of bronze--a shame, the lingering blush of an heroic age, at being caught in doing any thing merely for amusement? Is there a public still extant which needs to excuse its delinquencies by the story of a man who liked to lie on the sofa all day and read novels, though he could, at time of need, write the gravest didactics? Live they still, those reverend seigniors, the object of secret smiles to our childish years, who were obliged to apologize for midnight oil spent in conning story-books by the "historic bearing" of the novel, or the "correct and admirable descriptions of certain countries, with climate, scenery, and manners therein contained," wheat, for which they, industrious students, were willing to winnow bushels of frivolous love-adventures? We know not, but incline to think the world is now given over to frivolity so far as to replace by the novel the minstrel's ballad, the drama, and even those games of agility and strength in which it once sought pastime. For, indeed, _mere_ pass-time is sometimes needed; the nursery legend comprised a primitive truth of the understanding and the wisdom of nations in the lines,--

"All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy,
But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

We have reversed the order of arrangement to suit our present purpose. For we, O useful reader! being ourselves so far of the useful class as to be always wanted somewhere, have also to fight a good fight for our amusements, either with the foils of excuse, like the reverend seigniors above mentioned, or with the sharp weapons of argument, or maintenance of a view of our own without argument, which we take to be the sharpest weapon of all.

Thus far do we defer to the claims of the human race, with its myriad of useful errands to be done, that we read most of our novels in the long sunny days, which call all beings to chirp and nestle, or fly abroad as the birds do, and permit the very oxen to ruminate gently in the just-mown fields.

On such days it was well, we think, to read "Sybil, or the Two Worlds." We have always felt great interest in D'Israeli. He is one of the many who share the difficulty of our era, which Carlyle says, quoting, we believe, from his Master, consists in unlearning the false in order to arrive at the true. We think these men, when they have once taken their degree, can be of far greater use to their brethren than those who have always kept their instincts unperverted.

In "Vivian Grey," the young D'Israeli, an educated Englishman, but with the blood of sunnier climes glowing and careering in his veins, gave us the very flower and essence of factitious life. That book sparkled and frothed like champagne; like that, too, it produced no dull and imbecile state by its intoxication, but one witty, genial, spiritual even. A deep, soft melancholy thrilled through its gay mockeries; the eyes of nature glimmered through the painted mask, and a nobler ambition was felt beneath the follies of petty success and petty vengeance. Still, the chief merit of the book, as a book, was the light and decided touch with which its author took up the follies and poesies of the day, and brought them all before us. The excellence of the foreign part, with its popular superstitions, its deep passages in the glades of the summer woods, and above all, the capital sketch of the prime minister with his original whims and secret history of romantic sorrows, were beyond the appreciation of most readers.

Since then, D'Israeli has never written any thing to be compared with this first jet of the fountain of his mind in the sunlight of morning. The "Young Duke" was full of brilliant sketches, and showed a soul struggling, blinded by the gaudy mists of fashion, for realities. The "Wondrous Tale of Alroy" showed great power of conception, though in execution it is a failure. "Henrietta Temple" Mr. Willis, with his usual justness of perception, has praised, as containing a collection of the best love-letters ever written; and which show that excellence, signal and singular among the literary tribe, of which D'Israeli never fails, of daring to write a thing down exactly as it rises in his mind.

Now he has come to be a leader of Young England, and a rooted plant upon her soil. If the performance of his prime do not entirely correspond with the brilliant lights of its dawn, it is yet aspiring, and with a large kernel of healthy nobleness in it. D'Israeli shows now not only the heart, but the soul of a man. He cares for all men; he wishes to care wisely for all.

"Coningsby" was full of talent, yet its chief interest lay in this aspiration after reality, and the rich materials taken from contemporary life. There is nothing in it good after the original manner of D'Israeli, except the sketches of Eton, and above all, the noble schoolboy's letter. The picture of the Jew, so elaborately limned, is chiefly valuable as affording keys to so many interesting facts.

"Sybil" is an attempt to do justice to the claims of the laboring classes, and investigate the duties of those in whose hands the money is at present, towards the rest. It comes to no result: it only exhibits some truths in a more striking light than heretofore. D'Israeli shows the taint of old prejudice in the necessity he felt to marry the daughter of the people to one _not_ of the people. Those worthy to be distinguished must still have good blood, or rather old blood, for what is called good needs now to be renovated from a homelier source. But his leaders must have _old_ blood; the fresh ichor, the direct flow from heaven, is not enough to animate their lives to the deeds now needed.

D'Israeli is another of those who give testimony in behalf of our favorite idea that a leading feature of the new era will be in new and higher developments of the feminine character. He looks at women as a man does who is truly in love. He does not paint them well, that is, not with profound fidelity to nature. But, ideally, he sees them well, for they are to him the inspirers and representatives of what is holy, tender, and simply great.

There are good sketches of the manufacturers at home, not the overseers, but the real makers.

Sue is a congenial activity with D'Israeli, but with clearer notions of what he wants. His "De Rohan" is a poor book, though it contains some things excellent. But it is faulty,--even more so than is usual with him, in heavy exaggerations, and is less redeemed by brilliant effects, good schemes, and lively strains of feeling. The wish to unmask Louis XIV. is defeated by the hatred with which the character inspired him, the liberal of the nineteenth century. The Grand Monarque was really brutally selfish and ignorant, as Sue represents him; but then there _was_ a native greatness, which justified, in some degree, the illusion he diffused, and which falsifies all Sue's representation. It is not by an inventory of facts or traits that what is most vital in character, and which makes its due impression on contemporaries, can be apprehended or depicted. "De Rohan" is worth reading for particulars of an interesting period, put together with accuracy and with a sense of physiological effects, if not of the spiritual realities that they represented.

"Self, by the Author of Cecil," is one of the worst of a paltry class of novels--those which aim at representing the very dregs in a social life, now at its lowest ebb. If it has produced a sensation, that only shows the poverty of life among those who can be interested in it. I have known more life lived in a day among factory girls, or in a village school, than informs these volumes, with all their great pretension and affected vivacity. It is not worth our while to read this class of English novels; they are far worse than the French, morally as well as mentally. This has no merits as to the development of character or exposition of motives; it is a poor, external, lifeless thing.

"Dashes at Life," by N. P. Willis. The life of Mr. Willis is too European for him to have a general or permanent fame in America. We need a life of our own, and a literature of our own. Those writers who are dearest to us, and really most interesting, are those who are at least rooted to the soil. If they are not great enough to be the prophets of the new era, they at least exhibit the features of their native clime, and the complexion given by its native air. But Mr. Willis is a son of Europe, and his writings can interest only the fashionable world of this country, which, by imitating Europe, fails entirely of a genius, grace, and invention of its own. Still, in their way, they are excellent. They are most lively pictures, showing the fine natural organization of the writer, on whom none, the slightest symptom of what he is looking for, is thrown away; sparkling with bold, light wit, succinct, and colored with glow, and for a full light. Some of them were new to us, and we read them through, missing none of the words, and laughed with a full heart, and without one grain of complaisance, which is much, very much, to say in these days. We said these sketches would not have a permanent fame, and yet we may be wrong. The new, full, original, radiant, American life may receive them as an heirloom from this transition state we are in now, and future generations may stare at the mongrel products of Saratoga, and maidens still laugh till they cry at the "Letter of Jane S. to her Spirit-Bridegroom."

All these story-books show, even to the languor of the hottest day, the solemn signs of revolution. Life has become too factitious; it has no longer a leg left to stand upon, and cannot be carried much farther in this way. England--ah! who can resist visions of phalansteries in every park, and the treasures of art turned into public galleries for the use of the artificers who will no longer be unwashed, but raised and educated by the refinements of sufficient leisure, and the instructions of genius. England must glide, or totter, or fall into revolution; there is not room for such selfish elves, and unique young dukes, in a country so crowded with men, and with those who ought to be women, and are turned into work-tools. There are very impressive hints on this last topic in "Sybil, or the Two Worlds," (of the rich and poor.) God has time to remember the design with which he made this world also.

SHELLEY'S POEMS[18]

We are very glad to see this handsome copy of Shelley ready for those who have long been vainly inquiring at all the bookstores for such a one.

In Europe the fame of Shelley has risen superior to the clouds that darkened its earlier days, hiding his true image from his fellow-men, and from his own sad eyes oftentimes the common light of day. As a thinker, men have learned to pardon what they consider errors in opinion for the sake of singular nobleness, purity, and love in his main tendency or spirit. As a poet, the many faults of his works having been acknowledged, there are room and place to admire his far more numerous and exquisite beauties.

The heart of the man, few, who have hearts of their own, refuse to reverence, and many, even of devoutest Christians, would not refuse the book which contains Queen Mab as a Christmas gift. For it has been recognized that the founder of the Christian church would have suffered one to come unto him, who was in faith and love so truly what he sought in a disciple, without regard to the form his doctrine assumed.

The qualities of his poetry have often been analyzed, and the severer critics, impatient of his exuberance, or unable to use their accustomed spectacles in the golden mist that broods over all he has done, deny him high honors; but the soul of aspiring youth, untrammelled by the canons of taste, and untamed by scholarly discipline, swells into rapture at his lyric sweetness, finds ambrosial refreshment from his plenteous fancies, catches fire at his daring thought, and melts into boundless weeping at his tender sadness--the sadness of a soul betrothed to an ideal unattainable in this present sphere.

For ourselves, we dispute not with the _doctrinaires_ or the critics. We cannot speak dispassionately of an influence that has been so dear to us. Nearer than the nearest companions of life actual has Shelley been to us. Many other great ones have shone upon us, and all who ever did so shine are still resplendent in our firmament, for our mental life has not been broken and contradictory, but thus far we "see what we foresaw." But Shelley seemed to us an incarnation of what was sought in the sympathies and desires of instinctive life, a light of dawn, and a foreshowing of the weather of this day.

When still in childish years, the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" fell in our way. In a green meadow, skirted by a rich wood, watered by a lovely rivulet, made picturesque by a mill a little farther down, sat a party of young persons gayer than, and almost as inventive, as those that told the tales recorded by Boccaccio. They were passing a few days in a scene of deep seclusion, there uncared for by tutor or duenna, and with no bar of routine to check the pranks of their gay, childish fancies. Every day they assumed parts which through the waking hours must be acted out. One day it was the characters in one of Richardson's novels; and most solemnly we "my deared" each other with richest brocade of affability, and interchanged in long, stiff phrase our sentimental secrets and prim opinions. But to-day we sought relief in personating birds or insects; and now it was the Libellula who, tired of wild flitting and darting, rested on the grassy bank and read aloud the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," torn by chance from the leaf of a foreign magazine.

It was one of those chances which we ever remember as the interposition of some good angel in our fate. Solemn tears marked the change of mood in our little party and with the words

"Have I not kept my vow?"

began a chain of thoughts whose golden links still bind the years together.

Two or three years passed. The frosty Christmas season came; the trees cracked with their splendid burden of ice, the old wooden country house was banked up with high drifts of the beautiful snow, and the Libellula became the owner of Shelley's Poems. It was her Christmas gift, and for three days and three nights she ceased not to extract its sweets; and how familiar still in memory every object seen from the chair in which she sat enchanted during those three days, memorable to her as those of July to the French nation! The fire, the position of the lamp, the variegated shadows of that alcoved room, the bright stars up to which she looked with such a feeling of congeniality from the contemplation of this starry soul,--O, could but a De Quincey describe those days in which the bridge between the real and ideal rose unbroken! He would not do it, though, as _Suspiria de Profundis_, but as sighs of joy upon the mountain height.

The poems we read then are what every one still reads, the "Julian and Maddalo," with its profound revelations of the inward life; "Alastor," the soul sweeping like a breeze through nature; and some of the minor poems. "Queen Mab," the "Prometheus," and other more formal works we have not been able to read much. It was not when he tried to express opinions which the wrongs of the world had put into his head, but when he abandoned himself to the feelings which nature had implanted in his own breast, that Shelley seemed to us so full of inspiration, and it is so still.

In reply to all that can be urged against him by people of whom we do not wish to speak ill,--for surely "they know not what they do,"--we are wont simply to refer to the fact that he was the only man who redeemed the human race from suspicion to the embittered soul of Byron. "Why," said Byron, "he is a man who would willingly die for others. _I am sure of it._"

Yes! balance that against all the ill you can think of him that he was a man able to live wretched for the sake of speaking sincerely what he supposed to be truth, willing to die for the good of his fellows!

Mr. Foster has spoken well of him as a man: "Of Shelley's personal character it is enough to say that it was wholly pervaded by the same unbounded and unquestioning love for his fellow-men--the same holy and fervid hope in their ultimate virtue and happiness--the same scorn of baseness and hatred of oppression--which beam forth in all his writings with a pure and constant light. The theory which he wrote was the practice which his whole life exemplified. Noble, kind, generous, passionate, tender, with a courage greater than the courage of the chief of warriors, for it could _endure_--these were the qualities in which his life was embalmed."

FESTUS.[19]

We are right glad to see this beloved stranger domesticated among us. Yet there are queer little circumstances that herald the introduction. The poet is a barrister at law!--well! it is always worthy of note when a man is not hindered by study of human law from knowledge of divine; which last is all that concerns the poet. Then the preface to the American edition closes with this discreet remark: "It is perfectly SAFE to pronounce it (the poem) one of the most powerful and splendid productions of the age." Dear New England! how purely that was worthy thee, region where the tyranny of public opinion is carried to a perfection of minute scrutiny beyond what it ever was before in any age or place, though the ostracism be administered with the mildness and refinement fit for this age. Dear New England! yes! it is _safe_ to say that the poem is good; whatever Mrs. Grundy may think, she will not have it burned by the hangman if it is not. But it may not be _discreet_, because she can, if she sees fit, exile its presence from bookstores, libraries, centre tables, and all mention of its existence from lips polite, and of thine also, who hast dared to praise it, on peril of turning all surrounding eyes to lead by its utterance. This kind of gentle excommunication thou mayst not be prepared to endure, O preface-writer! And we should greatly fear that thou wert deceived in thy fond security, for "Festus" is a bold book--in respect of freedom of words, a boldest book--also it reveals the solitudes of hearts with unexampled sincerity, and remorselessly lays bare human nature in its naked truth--but for the theology of the book. That may save it, and none the less for all it shows of the depravity of human nature. It is through many pages and leaves what is technically praised as "a serious book." A friend went into a bookstore to select presents for persons with whom she was about to part, and among other things requested the shopman to "show her some serious books in handsome binding." He looked into several, and then, struck by passages here and there, offered her the "Letters of Lady M. W. Montague." She assuring him that it would not be safe to make use of this work, he offered her a miniature edition of Shakspeare, as "a book containing many excellent things, though you had to wade through a great deal of rubbish to get at them."

We fear the reader will have to wade through a great deal of "rubbish" in "Festus" before he gets at the theology. However, there it is, in sufficient quantities to give dignity to any book. In seriousness, it may compete with Pollok's "Course of Time." In "splendor and power," we feel ourselves safe in saying that, as sure as the sun shines, it cannot be outdone in the English tongue, thus far, short of Milton. So there is something for all classes of readers, and we hope it will get to their eyes, albeit Boston books are not likely to be detected by all eyes to which they belong.

To ourselves the theology of this writer, and the conscious design of the poem, have little interest. They seem to us, like the color of his skin and hair, the result of the circumstances under which he was born. Certain opinions came in his way early, and became part of the body of his thought. But what interests us is not these, but what is deepest, universal--the soul of that body. To us the poem is

"... full of great dark meanings like the sea:"

and it is these, the deep experiences and inspirations of the immortal man, that engage us.

Even the poem shows how large is his nature--its most careless utterance full of grandeur, its tamest of bold nobleness. This, that truly engages us, he spoke of more forcibly when the book first went forth to the world:--

"Read this, world. He who writes is dead to thee,
But still lives in these leaves. He spake inspired;
Night and day, thought came unhelped, undesired,
Like blood to his heart. The course of study he
Went through was of the soul-rack. The degree
He took was high; it was wise wretchedness.
He suffered perfectly, and gained no less
A prize than, in his own torn heart, to see
A few bright seeds; he sowed them, hoped them truth.
The autumn of that seed is in these pages."

Such is, in our belief, the true theologian, the learner of God, who does not presumptuously expect at this period of growth to bind down all that is to be known of divine things in a system, a set of words, but considers that he is only spelling the first lines of a work, whose perusal shall last him through eternity. Such a one is not in a hurry to declare that the riddles of Fate and of Time are solved, for he knows it is not calling them so that will make them so. His soul does not decline the great and persevering labors that are to develop its energies. He has faith to study day by day. Such is the practice of the author of Festus, whenever he is truly great. When he shows to us the end and plan of all things, we feel that he only hides them from us. He speaks only his wishes. But when he tells us of what he does really know, the moods and aspirations of fiery youth to which all things are made present in foresight and foretaste,--when he shows us the temptations of the lonely soul pining for knowledge, but unable to feel the love that alone can bestow it,--then he is truly great, and the strings of life thrill oftentimes to their sublimest, sweetest music.

We admire in this author the unsurpassed force and distinctness with which he casts out single thoughts and images. Each is thrown before us fresh, deep in its impress as if just snatched from the forge. We admire not less his vast flow, his sustained flight. His is a rich and spacious genius; it gives us room; it is a palace home; we need not economize our joys; blessed be the royalty that welcomes us so freely.

In simple transposition of the thought from the mind to the paper, that wonder, even rarer than perfect,--that is, simple expression, through the motions of the body, of the motions of the soul,--we dare to say _no_ writer excels him. Words are no veil between us and him, but a luminous cloud that upbears us both together.

So in touches of nature, in the tones of passion; he is absolute. There is nothing better, where it is good; we have the very thing itself.

We are told by the critics that he has no ear, and, indeed, when we listen for such, we perceive blemishes enough in the movement of his line. But we did not perceive it before, more than, when the AEolian was telling the secrets of that most spirit-like minister of Nature that bloweth where it listeth, and no man can trace it, we should attempt to divide the tones and pauses into regular bars, and be disturbed when we could not make a tune.

England has only two poets now that can be named near him: these two are Tennyson and the author of "Philip Van Artevelde." Tennyson is all that Bailey is not in melody and voluntary finish, having no less than a Greek moderation in declining all undertakings he is not sure of completing. Taylor, noble, an earnest seer, a faithful narrator of what he sees, firm and sure, sometimes deep and exquisite, but in energy and grandeur no more than Tennyson to be named beside the author of Festus. In inspiration, in prophecy, in those flashes of the sacred fire which reveal the secret places where Time is elaborating the marvels of Nature, he stands alone. It is just true what Ebenezer Elliott says, that "Festus contains poetry enough to set up fifty poets,"--ay! even such poets, so far as richness of thought and imagery are concerned, as the two noble bards we have named.

But we need call none less to make him greater, whose liberal soul is alive to every shade of beauty, every token of greatness, and whose main stress is to seek a soul of goodness in things evil. The book is a precious, even a sacred book, and we could say more of it, had we not years ago vented our enthusiasm when it was in first full flow.

FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAY.[20]

WE hear much lamentation among good people at the introduction of so many French novels among us, corrupting, they say, our youth by pictures of decrepit vice and prurient crime, such as would never, otherwise, be dreamed of here, and corrupting it the more that such knowledge is so precocious--for the same reason that a boy may be more deeply injured by initiation into wickedness than a man, for he is not only robbed of his virtue, but prevented from developing the strength that might restore it. But it is useless to bewail what is the inevitable result of the movement of our time. Europe must pour her corruptions, no less than her riches, on our shores, both in the form of books and of living men. She cannot, if she would, check the tide which bears them hitherward; no defences are possible, on our vast extent of shore, that can preclude their ingress. We have exulted in premature and hasty growth; we must brace ourselves to bear the evils that ensue. Our only hope lies in rousing, in our own community, a soul of goodness, a wise aspiration, that shall give us strength to assimilate this unwholesome food to better substance, or cast off its contaminations. A mighty sea of life swells within our nation, and, if there be salt enough, foreign bodies shall not have power to breed infection there.