Chapter I: PROMESSI SPOSI, or the Betrothed Lovers; a Milanese Story of the (1)

Seventeenth Century: as translated for the Metropolitan, from the Italian of Alessandro Manzoni, by G. W. Featherstonhaugh. Washington: Stereotyped and published by Duff Green. 1834. 8vo. pp. 249.

The appearance of this work strongly reminds us of the introductory remarks with which the Edinburg Review, thirty years ago, prefaced its annunciation of Waverley. We would gladly appropriate them, were it fair to do so; but "honor among thieves!" Reviewers must not steal from Reviewers; and what is it but theft, when he who borrows, can never have anything worthy of acceptance to give in return?

We may, nevertheless, so far imitate "the grand Napoleon of the realms of criticism," as to congratulate our readers on the appearance of a work, which promises to be the commencement of a new style in novel writing. Since the days of Fielding, unimitated and inimitable--and of Smollett, between whose different productions there was scarce a family likeness, we have had a succession of _dynasties_ reigning over the regions of romance. We have had the Ratcliffe dynasty, the Edgeworth dynasty, and the Scott dynasty; each, like the family of the Cæsars, passing from good to bad, and from bad to worse, until each has run out. Partial movements in the provinces have occasionally set up the standard of rival aspirants: but these have soon passed away. Heroines from the bogs, and heroes from the highlands of Scotland, or the Polish wilds, could not maintain their pretensions, though uniting in themselves all that is admirable both in the civilized and the savage character. Perhaps this was the reason. We like to read of things that may a little remind us of what we have seen in real life. Sir Charles Grandison in the Scottish Kilt, is a startling apparition.

The younger D'Israeli has indeed, occasionally flashed upon us the light of his capricious genius; but one of his caprices has been to disappoint the hope that he had raised. He has shown us what he could do, and that is all. Mr. Bulwer too, in a sort of freak of literary radicalism, has set up for himself. He scorned to add to the number of those who dress themselves in the cast-off habiliments of Scott; and study, as at a glass, to make themselves like him, as if ambitious to display their thefts. _He_ learned the craft of plagiarism in the Spartan school, where _detection_ was the only disgrace. He would not steal, not he, from any but "the poor man, who had nothing save one little ewe lamb, that lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter." He would imitate none but himself, and draw from no other models. His novels are all echoes of each other. There is hardly a page which might not be known for his, nor a favorite character which is not an exhibition of one of the phases of his _exquisite_ self. The variety is between what he imagines himself to be, and what he imagines that he might have been, had he been a cavalier of the seventeenth century, or had circumstances made him a highwayman or a murderer. We are aware that he denies all this, and may be unconscious of it: but his identity can no more be mistaken than that of the one-eyed companion of Hogarth's "idle apprentice." We are aware too, that Mr. Bulwer is a member of a certain literary cabal, who aspire to direct the public taste, and bring all the influence of wealth and fashion and political connexion in aid of their pretensions. He is a sort of literary Jack Cade. "His mouth is the law." We know that the "amphitrion on l'on dire" is always the true amphitrion. But we never expect to travel as caterers for a public journal. We in the south do not do that sort of thing. We are not taught so to "raise the wind." We are not up to perpetual motion, nor to the art of making our living by taking our pleasure. We feel ourselves therefore under no obligation to admire Mr. Rogers's poems, though he be a banker--nor Mr. Bulwer's novels, nor himself, though he be a member of Parliament; nor though his female _doublure_ Lady Blessington, "have the finest bust," and "the prettiest foot," and be "the finest woman in London." _We_ do not put the names of our fine women in the newspapers. The business of female education with us, is not to qualify a woman to be the head of a literary _coterie_, nor to figure in the journal of a travelling coxcomb. We prepare her, as a wife, to make the home of a good and wise and great man, the happiest place to him on earth. We prepare her, as a mother, to form her son to walk in his father's steps, and in turn, to take his place among the good and wise and great. When we have done this, we have accomplished, if not _all_, at least _the best_ that education can do. Her praise is found in the happiness of her husband, and in the virtues and honors of her sons. Her name is too sacred to be profaned by public breath. She is only seen by that dim doubtful light, which, like "the majesty of darkness," so much enhances true dignity. She finds her place by the side of the "Mother of the Gracchi," and of her whom an English poet, who well knew how to appreciate and how to praise female excellence, has simply designated as

"SIDNEY'S SISTER, PEMBROKE'S MOTHER."

We much fear, that after all this, the author of the work before us will have no reason to thank us for our praise. On the contrary, there may be danger of involving him in the displeasure, which we may draw upon ourselves from that same cabal, which has its members on both sides of the Atlantic. "Ca me; Ca thee," is the order of the day. If half the praise be due, which is lavished on the works that daily issue from the press, we may live to see the writings which instructed and delighted our youth, laid on the same shelf with Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. Men can no more read every thing than they can eat every thing; and the _petits plats_, that are handed round hot-and-hot, leave us no room to do honor to the roast beef of old England, nor to the savory Virginia ham. But these are the food by which the thews and sinews of manhood are best nourished. They at once exercise and help digestion. Dyspepsia was not of their day. _It_ came in with _French Gastronomy_. Are we mistaken in thinking, that we see symptoms of a sort of intellectual dyspepsia, arising from the incessant exhibition of the _bon bons_ and _kickshaws_ of the press?

Well! here is something that will stick by the ribs; a work of which we would try to give a sort of outline, but that it cannot be abridged. The machinery of the story is not intricate, but each part is necessary to the rest. To leave anything out is to tell nothing.

It might be too much to say that this novel is, in every sense of the word, original. The writer is obviously familiar with English literature, and seems to have taken at least one hint from Sir Walter Scott. The use made by that writer of the records and traditions of times gone by, has suggested this hint. It naturally occurred to Manzoni, a native of Italy, that much of the same sort of material was to be found among the archives of the petty Italian states, now blotted from the map of Europe. It is obvious that the collisions of small states, though less interesting to the politician than those of mighty nations, must afford more occasion for a display of individual character, and the exercise of those passions which give romance its highest interest. But what is known of the great and good men who nobly acted their parts in these scenes, when the very theatre of their acts is crushed and buried beneath the rubbish of revolution? To drag them from beneath the ruins, and permit the world to dwell for a moment on the contemplation of their virtues is a pious and praiseworthy task. It is sad to think how the short lapse of two centuries can disappoint the hope that cheered the last moments of the patriot and the hero. "For his country he lived, for his country he died;" his country was all to him; but his country has perished, and his name has perished with it. With the civil wars of England we are all familiar; and our hearts have glowed, and our tears have fallen, in contemplating the virtues and the sufferings of those who acted in those scenes; but, if we may credit the traditions imbodied in this book, a contemporary history of the Italian Republics would display characters yet more worthy of our admiration and our sympathy. The Cardinal Borromeo is an historical character. The writer obviously means to paint him as he was; and the annals of mankind may be searched in vain for a more glorious example of the purity, the enthusiasm, and the inspiration of virtue.

We might suspect that something of a zeal for the honor of the Romish Church had mingled itself in the rich coloring of this picture. But Manzoni was as much alive, as Luther himself, to the abuses of that church. In an episode, which will be found at page fifty-eight, he discloses some, of the precise character of which we were not hitherto aware. We knew that something was wrong, but what that something might be, was never certainly known. The author has unveiled the mystery. He has withdrawn a curtain, behind which we had never been permitted to look. We had guessed, and we had read the guesses of others; but we never knew precisely what was there. The moral coercion, more cruel than bodily torture, by which a poor girl, the victim of the heartless pride of her parents, without command, without even persuasion, (for both it seems are forbidden) is driven to the cloister, that her brother may have more ample means to uphold his hereditary honors; this was a thing inscrutable and inconceivable to us. In reading such works as Mrs. Sherwood's Nun, we feel that we are dealing with conjectures. We turn to the scene exhibited in this work, and we _know_ it to be real life. We would gladly grace our pages with it. It would probably be read with more interest than any thing we can say; but it is before the public, and we have no right to discharge our debts to our readers, by giving them what is theirs already. We will only pray their indulgence so far as to offer a short extract, as a specimen of the writer's power. It is a picture of some of the horrors of the plague, as it raged in Milan in the year 1628. It may serve to show us that the pestilence, which lately stooped upon us, was in comparison, an angel of mercy.

The cars spoken of in the following extract, are those in which the uncoffined bodies of the dead were borne to a common receptacle, "naked for the most part, some badly wrapped up in dirty rags, heaped up and folded together like a knot of serpents." The "monalti" were men who, having had the plague, were considered exempt from future danger, and were employed to bury the dead.

"A lady came from the threshold of one of the houses, whose aspect announced youth advanced, but not yet passed away. Her beauty was obscured, but not obliterated, by distress and mortal languor; that sort of beauty, at once majestic and soft, which is so conspicuous in the Lombard race. She walked with pain, but did not stagger; her eyes shed no tears, but bore marks of having done so abundantly. There was, in her grief, a something inexpressibly quiet and deep, betokening a soul imbued and filled with it. But it was not her own appearance alone, that in the midst of so much wretchedness, marked her especially for commiseration, and awakened in her favor a feeling now deadened and worn out in all hearts. She bore in her arms a girl about nine years old,--dead, but dressed in a white frock of spotless purity, with her hair divided in front, as if her own hands had adorned her for a feast, long promised as the reward of her goodness. She held her, seated on one of her arms, with her breast upon the lady's breast; and she might have been thought to be alive, but that her young white hand hung heavy and lifeless on one side, like wax-work, and her head lay upon her mother's shoulder, with an air of abandonment heavier than that of sleep. Her mother! If the resemblance had not proclaimed the relation, the distress of the survivor announced it too plainly.

"A coarse monalti drew near the lady, and silently offered to relieve her from her burthen, but with an air of unwonted respect and involuntary hesitancy. But she, with an action betokening neither disgust nor scorn, drew back, and said, 'No; do not touch her now; I must lay her on that car myself; take this.' She opened her hand, showed a purse, and dropped it into his. She then continued: 'Promise me not to take a thread from her, and to suffer no other to do so, and to put her in the ground just as she is.'

"The monalti placed his hand on his breast, and then with an obsequious zeal, rather like one subdued by a new and strange emotion, than as if prompted by the unexpected gift, he busied himself to make room on the car for the little corpse. The lady placed her there, as on a bed, laid her straight, kissed her cold brow, spread over her a white sheet, and then spoke for the last time. 'Adieu, Cecilia! Rest in peace! This evening we meet again, to part no more. Pray for us, my child, and I will pray for thee, and for the rest. You,' added she to the monalti, 'when you pass again at vespers, will come and take me too, and not me alone.'

"Having said this, she re-entered the house, and presently appeared at the window, holding in her arms a still younger darling, alive, but with the marks of death on its face. She stood, as if contemplating the unworthy obsequies of the first, until the car moved, and while it remained in sight, and then she disappeared. What remained, but to lay her only surviving babe upon the bed, place herself by her side, and die with her; even as the stately blossom, with the bud beside it on its stem, falls before the scythe that levels all the plants in the meadow."

There is a power in this to which we do not scruple to give great praise. We regret to say that the translation has many faults. We lament it the more, because they are obviously faults of haste. The translator, we fear, was hungry; a misfortune with which we know how to sympathize. The style is, for the most part, Italian, in English words, but Italian still. This is a great fault. In some instances it would be unpardonable. In this instance, perhaps, it is more than compensated by a kindred excellence. In a work like this, abounding in the untranslatable phrases of popular dialogue, it gives a quaint raciness which is not unacceptable. It does more. Such translations _of such works_, would soon make the English ear familiar with Italian idioms, which once naturalized, would enrich the language. It is already thus incalculably enriched by the poetry of Burns and the novels of Scott. A familiarity with Shakspeare, (which is not the English of the present day,) preserves a store of wealth which would else be lost. The strength of a language is in the number and variety of its idiomatic phrases. These are forms of speech which use has rendered familiar, and emancipated from the crippling restraint of regular grammar. They enable the speaker to be brief, without being obscure. His meaning, eliptically expressed, is distinctly and precisely understood. Should any other work of Manzoni fall into the hands of Mr. Featherstonhaugh, we hope he may have time to correct those inaccuracies of which he is doubtless sensible; but we trust he will not consider his popular Italian idioms as among his faults. Smollett, in his translation of Don Quixotte, through extreme fastidiousness, threw away an opportunity of doubling the force of the English language.

This work comes to us as the harbinger of glad tidings to the reading world. Here is a book, equal in matter to any two of Cooper's novels, and executed at least as well, which we receive at the moderate price of forty-two cents! It forms one number of the Washington Library, published monthly, at five dollars per annum. At this rate, a literary gourmand, however greedy, may hope to satisfy his appetite for books, without starving his children. The author has our praise, and the translator and publisher have our thanks.

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HORSE-SHOE ROBINSON; A Tale of the Tory Ascendency. By the Author of 'Swallow Barn.' Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard.

We have not yet forgotten, nor is it likely we shall very soon forget, the rich simplicity of diction--the manliness of tone--the admirable traits of Virginian manners, and the striking pictures of still life, to be found in Swallow Barn. The spirit of imitation was, however, visible in that book, and, in a great measure, overclouded its rare excellence. This is by no means the case with Mr. Kennedy's new novel. If ever volumes were entitled to be called original--these are so entitled. We have read them from beginning to end with the greatest attention, and feel very little afraid of hazarding our critical reputation, when we assert that they will place Mr. Kennedy at once in the very first rank of American novelists.

_Horse-Shoe Robinson_ (be not alarmed at the title, gentle reader!) is a tale, or more properly a succession of stirring incidents relating to the time of the Tory Ascendency in South Carolina, during the Revolution. It is well known that throughout the whole war this state evinced more disaffection to the confederated government than any other of the Union, with the exception perhaps of the neighboring state of Georgia, where the residents on the Savannah river, being nearly allied to the Carolinians in their habits and general occupations, were actuated, more or less, by the same political opinions. But we will here let the author speak for himself.

"Such might be said to be the more popular sentiment of the state at the time of its subjugation by Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Cornwallis. To this common feeling there were many brilliant exceptions, and the more brilliant because they stood, as it were, apart from the preponderating mass of public judgment.... There were heroes of this mould in South Carolina, who entered with the best spirit of chivalry into the national quarrel, and brought to it hearts as bold, minds as vigorous, and arms as strong, as ever in any clime worked out a nation's redemption. These men refused submission to their conquerors, and endured exile, chains, and prison, rather than the yoke. Some few, still undiscouraged by the portents of the times, retreated into secret places, gathered their few patriot neighbors together, and contrived to keep in awe the soldier government that now professed to sway the land. They lived on the scant aliment furnished in the woods, slept in the tangled brakes and secret places of the fen, exacted contributions from the adherents of the crown, and, by rapid movements of their woodland cavalry, and brave blows, accomplished more than thrice their numbers would have done in ordinary warfare.... In such encounters or _frays_, as they might rather be called, from the smallness of the numbers concerned, and the hand to hand mode of fighting which they exhibited, Marion, Sumpter, Horry, Pickens, and many others had won a fame, that, in a nation of legendary or poetical associations, would have been reduplicated through a thousand channels of immortal verse. But alas! we have no ballads! and many men who as well deserve to be remembered as Percy or Douglas, as Adam Bell or Clym of the Clough, have sunk down without even a couplet epitaph upon the rude stone, that, in some unfenced and unreverenced grave yard, still marks the lap of earth whereon their heads were laid."

* * * * *

"One feature that belonged to this unhappy state of things in Carolina was the division of families. Kindred were arrayed against each other in deadly feuds, and not unfrequently brother took up arms against brother, and sons against their sires. A prevailing spirit of treachery and distrust marked the times. Strangers did not know how far they might trust to the rites of hospitality, and many a man laid his head upon his pillow, uncertain whether his fellow lodger might not invade him in the secret watches of the night, and murder him in his slumbers. All went armed, and many slept with pistols or daggers under their pillows. There are tales told of men being summoned to their doors or windows at midnight by the blaze of their farm yards, to which the incendiary torch had been applied, and shot down, in the light of the conflagration, by a concealed hand. Families were obliged to betake themselves to the shelter of the thickets and swamps, when their own homesteads were dangerous places. The enemy wore no colors, and was not to be distinguished from friends either by outward guise or speech. Nothing could be more revolting than to see the symbols of peace thus misleading the confident into the toils of war--nor is it possible to imagine a state of society characterized by a more frightful insecurity."

It will here be seen at a glance that the novelist has been peculiarly fortunate in the choice of an epoch, a scene and a subject. We sincerely think that he has done them all the fullest justice, and has worked out, with these and with other materials, a book of no ordinary character. We do not wish to attempt any analysis of the story itself--or that connecting chain which unites into one proper whole the varied events of the novel. We feel that in so doing, we should, in some measure, mar the interest by anticipation; a grievous sin too often indulged in by reviewers, and against which, should we ever be so lucky as to write a book, we would protest with all our hearts. But we may be allowed a word or two. The principal character in the novel, upon whom the chief interest of the story turns, and who, in accordance with the right usage of novel writing, should be considered the hero, and should have given a title to the book, is Brevet Major Arthur Butler of the continental army, to whose acquaintance we are first introduced about two o'clock in the afternoon of a day towards the end of July, 1780. But Mr. K. has ventured, at his own peril, to set at defiance the common ideas of propriety in this important matter, and, not having the fear of the critic before his eyes, has thought it better to call his work by the name of a very singular personage, whom all readers will agree in pronouncing worthy of the honor thus conferred upon him. The writer has also made another innovation. He has begun at the beginning. We all know this to be an unusual method of procedure. It has been too, for some time past, the custom, to delay as long as possible the main interest of a novel--no doubt with the very laudable intention of making it the more intense when it does at length arrive. Now for our own parts we can see little difference in being amused with the beginning or with the end of a book, but have a decided preference for those rare volumes which are so lucky as to amuse us throughout. And such a book is the one before us. We enter _at once_ into the spirit and meaning of the author--we are introduced _at once_ to the prominent characters--and we go with them _at once_, heart and hand, in the various and spirit-stirring adventures which befall them.

Horse-Shoe Robinson, who derives his nick-name of Horse-Shoe (his proper _prænomen_ being Galbraith)--from the two-fold circumstance of being a blacksmith, and of living in a little nook of land hemmed in by a semi-circular bend of water, is fullly entitled to the character of "an original." He is the life and soul of the drama--the bone and sinew of the book--its very breath--its every thing which gives it strength, substance, and vitality. Never was there a rarer fellow--a more laughable blacksmith--a more gallant Sancho. He is a very prince at an ambuscade, and a very devil at a fight. He is a better edition of Robin Hood--quite as sagacious--not half so much of a coxcomb--and infinitely more moral. In short, he is the man of all others we should like to have riding by our side in any very hazardous expedition.

We think Mr. K. has been particularly successful in the delineation of his female characters; and this is saying a great deal at a time when, from some unaccountable cause, almost every attempt of the kind has turned out a failure. Mildred Lindsay, in her confiding love, in her filial reverence, in her heroic espousal of the revolutionary cause, not because she approved it, but because it was her lover's, is an admirable and--need we say more?--a truly _feminine_ portrait. Then the ardent, the eager, the simple-minded, the generous and the devoted Mary Musgrove! Most sincerely did we envy John Ramsay, the treasure of so pure and so exalted an affection!

With the exception of now and then a careless, or inadvertent expression, such for instance, as the word _venturesome_ instead of _adventurous_, no fault whatever can be found with Mr. Kennedy's style. It varies gracefully and readily with the nature of his subject, never sinking, even in the low comedy of some parts of the book, into the insipid or the vulgar; and often, very often rising into the energetic and sublime. Its general character, as indeed the general character of all that we have seen from the same pen, is a certain unpretending simplicity, nervous, forcible, and altogether devoid of affectation. This is a style of writing above all others to be desired, and above all others difficult of attainment. Nor is it to be supposed that by simplicity we imply a rejection of ornament, or of a proper use of those advantages afforded by metaphorical illustration. A style professing to disclaim such advantages would be anything but simple--if indeed we might not be tempted to think it very silly. We have called the style of Mr. K. a style simple and forcible, and we have no hesitation in calling it, at the same time, richly figurative and poetical. We have opened the pages at random for an illustration of our meaning, and have no difficulty in finding one precisely suited to our purpose. Let us turn to vol. i. page 112.--"The path of invasion is ever a difficult road when it leads against a united people. You mistake both the disposition and the means of these republicans. They have bold partizans in the field, and eloquent leaders in their senates. The nature of the strife sorts well with their quick and earnest tempers; and by this man's play of war we breed up soldiers who delight in the game. Rebellion has long since marched beyond the middle ground, and has no thought of retreat. What was at first the mere overflow of popular passion has been hardened into principle--_like a fiery stream of lava which first rolls in a flood, and then turns into stone_."

While we are upon the subject of style, we might as well say a word or two in regard to _punctuation_. It seems to us that the volumes before us are singularly deficient in this respect--and yet we noticed no fault of this nature in Swallow Barn. How can we reconcile these matters? Whom are we to blame in this particular, the author, or the printer? It cannot be said that the point is one of no importance--it is of very great importance. A slovenly punctuation will mar, in a greater or less degree, the brightest paragraph ever penned; and we are certain that those who have paid the most attention to this matter, will not think us hypercritical in what we say. A too frequent use of the _dash_ is the besetting sin of the volumes now before us. It is lugged in upon all occasions, and invariably introduced where it has no business whatever. Even the end of a sentence is not sacred from its intrusion. Now there is no portion of a printer's fount, which can, if properly disposed, give more of strength and energy to a sentence than this same _dash_; and, for this very reason, there is none which can more effectually, if improperly arranged, disturb and distort the meaning of every thing with which it comes in contact. But not to speak of such disturbance or distortion, a fine taste will intuitively avoid, even in trifles, all that is unnecessary or superfluous, and bring nothing into use without an object or an end. We do not wish to dwell upon this thing, or to make it of more consequence than necessary. We will merely adduce an example of the punctuation to which we have alluded. Vide page 138, vol. i. "Will no lapse of time wear away this abhorred image from your memory?--Are you madly bent on bringing down misery on your head?--I do not speak of my own suffering.--Will you forever nurse a hopeless attachment for a man whom, it must be apparent to yourself, you can never meet again?--Whom, if the perils of the field, the avenging bullet of some loyal subject, do not bring him merited punishment,--the halter may reward, or, in his most fortunate destiny, disgrace, poverty, and shame pursue:--Are you forever to love that man?"--

Would not the above paragraph read equally as well thus: "Will no lapse of time wear away this abhorred image from your memory? Are you madly bent on bringing down misery on your head? I do not speak of my own suffering. Will you forever nurse a hopeless attachment for a man whom, it must be apparent to yourself, you can never meet again--whom, if the perils of the field, the avenging bullet of some loyal subject, do not bring him merited punishment, the halter may reward, or, in his more fortunate destiny, disgrace, poverty and shame pursue? Are you forever to love that man?"

The second of Mr. K's volumes is, from a naturally increasing interest taken in the fortunes of the leading characters, by far the most exciting. But we can confidently recommend them both to the lovers of the forcible, the adventurous, the stirring, and the picturesque. They will not be disappointed. A high tone of morality, healthy and masculine, breathes throughout the book, and a rigid--perhaps a too scrupulously rigid poetical justice is dealt out to the great and little villains of the story--the Tyrrells, the Wat Adairs, the Currys, and the Habershams of the drama. In conclusion, we prophecy that Horse-Shoe Robinson will be eagerly read by all classes of people, and cannot fail to place Mr. Kennedy in a high rank among the writers of this or of any other country. We regret that the late period of receiving his book will not allow us to take that extended notice of it which we could desire.

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JOURNAL--By FRANCES ANNE BUTLER. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard. [Presented to the Editor of the Messenger, by Mr. C. Hall.]

Perhaps no book has, for many years, been looked for, long previous to its publication, with such intense curiosity, as this record of Miss Fanny Kemble's observations and opinions of men and women, manners and customs, in the United States. We say Miss Fanny Kemble's opinions--for while bearing that name, most of those opinions were formed. Under that name she was hailed in this country, as the inheritress of the genius of Mrs. Siddons, whose fame is connected in the minds of Americans with all that is noble, and majestic, and powerful in the dramatic art. Under that name she received the admiration of thousands, was made a sharer of the hospitality of many of the most distinguished citizens of the country--and received a homage to which nothing but the highest genius, and the purest moral worth could have entitled her. It is not therefore as Mrs. Frances Anne Butler, the wife of an American citizen, that we look upon her in her character of authoress--but as the favorite actress, applauded to the echo, surfeited with flattery, and loaded with pecuniary rewards.[1] It is impossible to consider this book in any other than a personal point of view. Its very form forbids our separating the author from the work--the opinions and sentiments, from the individual who utters them. The idea of both exist in an indivisible amalgamation. Nor we fear, will it be possible for nine-tenths of her readers to weigh a single expression of Fanny Kemble the authoress, unmingled with the idea of Fanny Kemble the actress, the star--the "observed of all observers." Hence this Journal will have an effect probably far beyond the anticipations of its writer. It will not only be looked upon as the test of Mrs. Butler's ability as an author; but it will, whether justly or not, convey to the thousands who have already perused, and the tens of thousands who will hereafter peruse it, a picture of her character and dispositions. The picture may, and doubtless will be an exaggerated one--few _pictures_ are otherwise; but still it will be received as true, because the outlines have been traced by the original herself. We are sorry to say that the "counterfeit resemblance" of the fair authoress, presented by her book, displays many harsh and ill-favored lineaments, and the traces of passions which we could wish did not disfigure its many noble and magnanimous features. Mrs. Butler cannot claim for herself the immunity which she awards with great justice to poetical writers, of a distinction between their _real_ and their _written_ sentiments.[2] If this book contains as we suppose, the faithful transcripts of her daily observations and opinions, revised long after they were penned, and thus exhibiting her true, unexaggerated impressions, by them must she be judged--and in passing judgment upon her work, a candid critic will find much, very much, to admire and approve, and much also to censure and condemn.

[Footnote 1: We are far from wishing to convey the idea that a popular actor of real merit is in any way placed under obligation, (especially such an obligation as would render it improper or ungrateful for him to speak with freedom of the communities of which his audiences formed parts,) by the pecuniary benefits received from the public for the exhibition of his talents. Mrs. Butler has, we think, settled that question in her book; and it will be better for both the audiences and the actors, whenever differences arise between them, to consider each other on the footing of equality, which she points out as the equitable and common-sense relation of the two parties. Nothing can be more rational than the following:

"It may not be amiss here to say one word with regard to the _gratitude_ which audiences in some parts of the world claim from actors, and about which I have lately heard a most alarming out-cry. Do actors generally exercise their profession to please themselves and gratify their own especial delight in self-exhibition? Is that profession in its highest walks one of small physical exertion and fatigue, (I say nothing of mental exertion) and in its lower paths is it one of much gain, glory, or ease? Do audiences, on the other hand, use to come in crowds to play-houses to see indifferent performers? and when there do they out of pure charity and good-will, bestow their applause as well as their money upon tiresome performers?--I will answer these points as far as regards myself, and therein express the gratitude which I feel towards the frequenters of theatres. I individually disliked my profession, and had neither pride nor pleasure in the exercise of it. I exercised it as a matter of necessity, to earn my bread,--and verily it was in the sweat of my brow. The parts which fell to my lot were of a most laborious nature, and occasioned sometimes violent mental excitement, always immense physical exertion, and sometimes both. In those humbler walks of my profession, from whose wearisomeness I was exempted by my sudden favor with the public, I have seen, though not known, the most painful drudgery,--the most constant fatigue,--the most sad contrast between real cares and feigned merriments,--the most anxious penurious and laborious existence imaginable. For the part of my question which regarded the audiences, I have only to say, that I never knew, saw, heard or read of any set of people who went to a play-house to see what they did not like; this being the case it never occurred to me that our houses were full but as a necessary consequence of our own attraction, or that we were applauded, but as the result of our own exertions. I was glad the houses were full, because I was earning my livelihood, and wanted the money; and I was glad the people applauded us, because it is pleasant to please, and human vanity will find some sweetness in praise, even when reason weighs its worth most justly." Vol. ii. pp. 109-110.]

[Footnote 2: "Moore talks about Byron's writing with the same pen full of ink, 'Adieu, adieu, my native land,' and 'Hurra, Hodgson, we are going.' It proves nothing, except what I firmly believe, that we must not look for the real feelings of writers to their works--or rather that what they give us, and what we take for heart feeling, is head weaving--a species of emotion engendered somewhere betwixt the bosom and the brain, and bearing the same proportion of resemblance to reality that a picture does--that is--like feeling, but not feeling--like sadness, but not sadness--like what it appears, but not indeed that very thing: and the greater a man's power of thus producing _sham realities_, the greater his qualification for being a poet." _Journal_, vol. i., pp. 21-22.]

We have read Mrs. Butler's work with untiring interest--indeed the vivacity of its style, the frequent occurrence of beautiful descriptions, of just and forcible observations, and many sound views of the condition of society in this country--the numerous characteristic anecdotes, and some most discriminating criticisms of actors and acting, must stamp her work as one of no ordinary merit. And these attractions in a great measure neutralize, although they cannot redeem, her innumerable faults of language, her sturdy prejudices, her hasty opinions, and her ungenerous sarcasms--These abound in the Journal, and yet it is more than probable that her censorious spirit has to a great extent been suppressed, as almost every page is studded with asterisks, indicating, we may presume, that her sins of hasty censure have been greatly diminished to the public eye, by the saving grace of omission.

The defects of the work are not confined to the exhibition of prejudices and the expression of unjust opinions: the style and language is often coarse, we might say vulgar; and her more impassioned exclamations are often characterized by a vehemence which is very like _profanity_, an offence that would not be tolerated in a writer of the other sex. We cite a few, from among the many passages which we have noted, as specimens of undignified, unfeminine and unscholarlike phraseology: The word "_dawdled_" seems a great favorite with Mrs. Butler--as, for instance: "Rose at eight, _dawdled_ about," &c. vol. i. p. 18. "Rose at half past eight, _dawdled_ about as usual," p. 21. "Came up and _dawdled_ upon deck," p. 47. "Came home, _daudled_ about my room," p. 97.--And in numberless other instances this word is used, apparently, to signify loitering or dallying, spelled indiscriminately da_w_dled, or da_u_dled. Indeed so much does our fair authoress seem to have been addicted to the habit which the word implies--be it what it may--that in the second volume she speaks of having "dressed for once without _dawdling_," as an uncommon occurrence. She is also fond of the word "gulp," and uses it in strange combinations, as--"My dear father, who was a little elated, made me sing to him, which I greatly _gulped_ at," p. 61. "I _gulped_, sat down, and was measured," (for a pair of shoes,) p. 103--"on the edge of a precipice, several hundred feet down into the valley: it made me _gulp_ to look at it," &c.

At page 97, she tells us, that "when the gentlemen joined us they were all more or less 'how come'd you so indeed?'" and shortly after, "they all went away in good time, and we came to bed:

------------------------------------To bed--to sleep--
To sleep!--perchance to be bitten! aye--there's the scratch:
And in that sleep of our's what bugs may come,
Must give us pause."

She thus describes the motions of persons on ship-board, in rough weather: "Rushing hither and thither in all directions but the one they purpose going, and making as many angles, fetches, and ridiculous deviations from the point they aim at, as if the _devil had tied a string to their legs_, and jerked it every now and then in spite." p. 18.

At page 99: "Supped, lay down on the floor in absolute _meltiness away_, and then came to bed." "When I went on, I was all but tumbling down at the sight of my Jaffier, who looked like the apothecary in Romeo and Juliet, with the addition of some _devilish_ red slashes along his thighs and arms," p. 107. "Away _walloped_ the four horses," &c. p. 131. "How they did _wallop_ and shamble about," &c. p. 149. "Now I'll go to bed; my cough's enough to kill a _horse_," p. 153. "Heaven bless the world, for a _conglomerated amalgamation_ of fools," p. 190. "He talked an amazing quantity of _thickish_ philosophy, and moral and sentimental _potter_." In truth, "_potter_" and "_pottering_," seem to be favorites equally with _daudling_, and she as frequently makes use of them. For instance, "He sat down, and _pottered_ a little," p. 58. They "took snuff, eat cakes, and _pottered_ a deal," p. 182. "After dinner _pottered_ about clothes," &c. p. 220. "Sat stitching and _pottering_ an infinity," p. 230--and many other varieties of the same word. But of the infinite number of literary novelties of this sort, it would be impossible, within the limits we have prescribed to ourselves, to give more than a few specimens. We will take two or three more at random: "My feet got so perished with the cold, that I didn't know what to do," p. 230. "He was most exceedingly odd and _dauldrumish_. I think he was a little '_how come'd you so indeed_.'" p. 195; "yesterday began like May, with flowers and sun-shine, it ended like December, with the _sulks_, and a fit of crying. The former were furnished me by my friends and Heaven, the latter by myself and the _d----l_." p. 198. "At six o'clock, D---- roused me; and _grumpily_ enough I arose." _1b._ "At one o'clock, came home, having danced myself fairly off my legs." p. 227.

Such blemishes as these, apparently uniting the slang of the boarding school and the green room, deform the work of Mrs. Butler, and are much to be lamented, became they may have the effect of blinding the hasty, prejudiced or fastidious reader, to the many beauties which are to be found in its pages. Indeed the work has already encountered the severest criticisms from the newspaper press, imbittered by the many censorious remarks of Mrs. B. upon the manners and institutions of the country; her severe, and in many instances just strictures upon the state of society in the cities in which she sojourned; and the supercilious sneers which she has uttered against the editorial fraternity, "the press gang," as she uncourteously denominates that numerous and powerful body. The censures of her book, are doubtless, in the main, well deserved; but in their excess, the merits which the "Journal" unquestionably possesses in great abundance and of a high order, have in many cases been passed by unheeded by her indignant critics. And here we cannot refrain from the utterance of a remark which has frequently occurred to us, and which is brought forcibly to mind by the reception which Mrs. Butler's criticisms upon America have met with: we think that too much sensitiveness is felt by our countrymen, at the unfavorable opinions expressed by foreigners, in regard to our social, political, and moral condition--and that the press, as the organ of public sentiment, is prone to work itself into a superfluous frenzy of indignation, at what are generally considered "foreign libels" upon us. To be indignant at gross misrepresentations of our country, is an exhibition of patriotism in one of its most laudable forms. But the sentiment may be carried too far, and may blind us to evils and deficiencies in our condition, when pointed out by a foreigner, which it would be well for us rather to consider with a view to their amendment. It may so far blunt our sense of the justice of the maxim "_fas est, ab hoste doceri_," as to induce us to entertain jealousy and aversion for the most judicious suggestions, if offered by others than our own countrymen. Entertaining these views, we have read Mrs. Butler's work, with a disposition to judge of it impartially; and while we have perceived many instances of captious complaints in regard to matters of trifling importance in themselves; and frequently a disposition to build up general censures upon partial, individual causes of disgust, displeasure or disappointment--we feel bound to say, that, taking the work as a whole, we do not think a deliberate disposition to misrepresent, or a desire to depreciate us, can be discovered in it. The strictures upon our modes of living, our social relations, &c. are often unworthy the writer. She complains for instance, that "the things (at the hotel in New York,) were put on the table in a slovenly, outlandish fashion; fish, soup, and meat, at once, and puddings, and tarts, and cheese, at another once; no finger glasses, and a patched table cloth--in short, a want of that style and neatness which is found in every hotel in England. The waiters too, remind us of the half-savage highland lads, that used to torment us under that denomination in Glasgow--only that they were wild Irish instead of Scotch." vol. i. p. 49.

Frequently too, she complains of the audiences before whom she performed, with occasional reproof of their ungracious conduct in not sufficiently applauding her father or herself: She says, of the first appearance of the former at the Park Theatre:

"When he came on they gave him what every body here calls an immense reception; but they should see our London audience get up, and wave hats and handkerchiefs, and shout welcome as they used to do to us. The tears were in my eyes, and all I could say was, 'they might as well get up, I think.'" Vol. i. p. 93.--And on another occasion: "The people were stupid to a degree to be sure; poor things, it was very hot. Indeed I scarcely understood how they should be amused with the School for Scandal; for though the dramatic situations are so exquisite, yet the wit is far above the generality of even our own audiences, and the tone and manners altogether are so thoroughly English, that I should think it must be for the most part incomprehensible to the good people here,"--p. 110.

At the Philadelphia audiences, she grumbles as follows:

"The audiences here, are without exception, the most disagreeable I ever played to. Not a single hand did they give the balcony scene, or my father's scene with the friar; they are literally immoveable. They applauded vehemently at the end of my draught scene, and a great deal at the end of the play; but they are nevertheless intolerably dull, and it is all but impossible to act to them,"--p. 157.

Of the ladies of this country, she seems to have formed a low estimate in many respects, and to look upon them generally with no little contempt. Of those in New York, she says: "The women dress very much, and very much like French women gone mad; they all of them seem to me to walk horribly ill, as if they wore tight shoes."--And again: "The women here, like those in most warm climates, ripen very early, and decay proportionably soon. They are, generally speaking, pretty, with good complexions, and an air of freshness and brilliancy, but this I am told is very evanescent; and whereas, in England, a woman is in the full bloom of health and beauty, from twenty to five and thirty; here, they scarce reach the first period without being faded, and looking old. They marry very young, and this is another reason why age comes prematurely upon them. There was a fair young thing at dinner to-day, who did not look above seventeen, and she was a wife. As for their figures, like those of the French women, they are too well dressed for one to judge exactly what they are really like: they are, for the most part, short and slight, with remarkably pretty feet and ancles; but there's too much pelerine and petticoat, and 'de quoi' of every sort to guess any thing more,"--p. 88.

This is a delicate subject, and one on which we should be averse to enter the lists with Mrs. Butler, prejudiced as she most probably is. But some of her observations on the mode of nurturing females, strike us as exhibiting good sense: In the following note to the above, we apprehend there is much truth:

"The climate of this country is made the scape-goat upon which all the ill looks, and ill health of the ladies is laid; but while they are brought up as effeminately as they are, take as little exercise, live in rooms heated like ovens during the winter, and marry as early as they do; it will appear evident, that many causes combine with an extremely variable climate, to sallow their complexions, and destroy their constitutions."

We are sorry to be forced to say, that there is also much sound sense and unwelcome truth in her remarks upon the situation of married females in our fashionable circles generally, (although the picture is overwrought and is more peculiarly applicable to northern females,) which we quote from Vol i. p. 160.

"The dignified and graceful influence which married women among us exercise over the tone of manners, uniting the duties of home to the charms of social life; and bearing, at once, like the orange tree the fair fruits of maturity with the blossoms of their spring, is utterly unknown here. Married women are either house-drudges and nursery-maids, or, if they appear in society, comparative cyphers; and the retiring, modest youthful bearing, which among us distinguishes girls of fifteen or sixteen is equally unknown. Society is entirely led by chits, who in England would be sitting behind a pinafore; the consequence is, that it has neither the elegance, refinement, nor the propriety which belong to ours; but is a noisy, racketty, vulgar congregation of flirting boys and girls, alike without style and decorum."

This view of manners is drawn from the society of the cities of New York and Philadelphia;--appended to the above extract, is a note, entering more into the details of her impressions regarding their fashionable circles, which we give entire: