We are constantly told that invention is worn out; that every thing is
exhausted, that all the intellectual treasures of modern Europe have been
dug up; and that we must look to a new era of the world, and a different
quarter of the globe, for new ideas or fresh views of thought. It must be
confessed, that if we look to some parts of our literature, there seems
too good reason for supposing that this desponding opinion is well
founded. Every thing, in some departments, does seem worked out. Poetry
appears for the time wellnigh extinguished. We have some charming ballads
from Tennyson; some touching lines from Miss Barret; but where are the
successors of Scott and Byron, of Campbell and Southey? Romance, in some
branches, has evidently exhausted itself. For ten years we had novels of
fashionable life, till the manners and sayings of lordlings and right
honourables had become familiar to all the haberdashers' apprentices and
milliners' girls in London. That vein being worked out, literature has run
into the opposite channel. Action and reaction is the law, not less of the
intellectual than the physical world. Inventive genius has sought out, in
the lower walks of life, those subjects of novel study and fresh
description which could no longer be found in the higher. So far has this
propensity gone, so violent has been the oscillation of the pendulum in
this direction, that novelists have descended to the very lowest stages of
society in the search of the new or the exciting. Not only have the
manners, the selfishness, and vulgarity of the middle ranks been painted
with admirable fidelity, and drawn with inimitable skill, but the habits
and slang of the very lowest portrayed with prurient minuteness, and
interest sought to be awakened in the votaries of fashion or the Sybarites
of pleasure by the delineation of the language and ideas of the most
infamous wretches who ever disgraced society by their vices, or endangered
it by their crimes.
"Whatever," says Dr Johnson, "makes the PAST or the FUTURE predominate
over the present, exalts us in the scale of thinking beings." The words
are familiar till they have become trite; but words are often repeated
when the sense is far off. It is in the general oblivion of the thought of
the philosopher, while his words were in every mouth, that the cause of
the want of originality in modern works of imagination is to be found. If
to the "Past" and the "Future," enumerated by Johnson, we add the
"DISTANT," we shall have an effectual antidote, and the only one which is
effectual against the sameness of present ideas, or the limited circle of
present observation. The tendency to _localize_ is the propensity which
degrades literature, as it is the chief bane and destroyer of individual
character. It is the opposite effect of engendering a tendency to expand,
which constitutes the chief value of travelling in the formation of
character. If the thought and conversation of individuals are limited to
the little circle in which they live, or the objects by which they are
immediately surrounded, we all know what they speedily become. It is in
the extension of the interest to a wider circle, in the admission of
objects of general concern and lasting importance into the sphere of
habitual thought, that the only preservative against this fatal tendency
is to be found. It is the power of doing this which forms the chief charm
of the highest society in every country, and renders it in truth every
where the same. A man of the world will find himself equally at home, and
conversation flow at once with equal ease, in the higher saloons of London
or Paris, of Rome or Vienna, of Warsaw or St Petersburg. But he will find
it scarcely possible to keep up conversation for a quarter of an hour in
the _bourgeois_ circle of any of these capitals. It is the same with
literature; and especially that wide and important branch of literature
which, aiming at the exciting of interest, or delineating of manners,
should in an especial manner be guarded against the degradation consequent
on a narrow restriction of its subjects to matters only of local concern.
The prodigious success and widespread popularity which have attended some
of the most able novels of this new school of romance in late years, as
well as the great ability which their composition evinces, must not blind
our eyes to the degrading tendency of such compositions upon the national
literature. Immediate circulation, great profit to the bookseller, a
dazzling reputation to the author, are by no means to be relied on as the
heralds of lasting fame. In cases innumerable, they have proved the
reverse. Still less are they to be considered as proofs that the writer,
be his abilities what they may, has worthily performed his mission, or
elevated himself to the exalted level of which his art is susceptible. The
most pernicious romances and poems that ever appeared have often been
ushered into the world by the most unbounded immediate applause; witness
the _Nouvelle Heloise_ of Rousseau, and _Pucelle_ of Voltaire. It was just
their dangerous and seductive qualities which gave them their success.
Rousseau knew this well. He addressed himself with skill and perfect
knowledge of the age to its passions and vices:--"J'ai vu les moeurs de
mon temps, et j'ai publie ces lettres," were the first words of his
_Nouvelle Heloise_. In the school we have mentioned, there is nothing
immoral or improper; but is there any thing elevating or improving? The
true test of real excellence is not immediate success but durable fame; it
is to be found not in the popularity of circulating shops, or reading
clubs, but in the shelves of the library, or the delight of the fireside.
When a work suddenly attains great immediate celebrity in a particular
circle or country, it is generally, though not always, an indication that
it is not destined to enjoy any lasting reputation. The reason is, that it
is addressed to local feelings, temporary passions, and particular
desires; and it rises to eminence from interesting or gratifying them. But
that is not the way permanently to attract mankind. Nothing can do so but
what is addressed to the universal feeling of our nature, and has
penetrated to the inmost chords, which are common to all ages and
countries. The touching them alone can secure durable fame.
Where now are all the novels portraying fashionable life with which the
shops of publishers teemed, and the shelves of circulating libraries
groaned, not ten years ago? Buried in the vault of all the Capulets. Where
will the novels portraying manners in the lowest walks of life be ten
years hence? He is a bold man who says they will be found in one
well-selected library. We do not dispute the vast ability of some of these
productions. We are well aware of the fidelity with which they have
painted the manners of the middle class, previously little touched on in
novels; we fully admit the pathos and power of occasional passages, the
wit and humour of many others, the graphic delineation of English
character which they all contain. But, admitting all this, the question
is--have these productions come up to the true standard of novel-writing?
Are they fitted to elevate and purify the minds of their readers? Will the
persons who peruse, and are amused, perhaps fascinated, by them, become
more noble, more exalted, more spiritual beings, than they were before? Do
not these novels, able and amusing as they are, bear the same relation to
the lofty romances of which our literature can boast, that the Boors of
Ostade, or the Village Wakes of Teniers, do to the Madonnas of Guido, or
the Holy Families of Raphael? These pictures were and are exceedingly
popular in Flanders and Holland, where their graphic truth could be
appreciated; but are they ever regarded as models of the really beautiful
in painting? We leave it to the most ardent admirers of the Jack Sheppard
school to answer these questions.
The doctrine now so prevalent is essentially erroneous, that the manners
of the middle or lowest class are the fit object of the novelist, because
they are natural. Many things are natural which yet are not fit to be
exposed, and by the customs of all civilized nations are studiously
concealed from the view. Voltaire's well-known answer to a similar remark
when made in regard to Shakspeare, indicates, though in a coarse way, the
true reply to such observations. If every thing that is natural, and we
see around us, is the fit object of imitation, and perpetuating in
literature, it can no longer be called one of the _Fine_ Arts. It is
degraded to a mere copying of nature in her coarsest and most disgusting,
equally as her noblest and most elevating, aspects. We protest against the
doctrine, that the lofty art of romance is to be lowered to the
delineating the manners of cheesemongers and grocers, of crop-head charity
boys, and smart haberdashers' and milliners' apprentices of doubtful
reputation. If we wish to see the manners of such classes, we have only to
get into a railway or steamboat; the sight of them at breakfast or dinner
will probably be enough for any person accustomed to the habits of good
society. Still more solemnly do we enter our protest against the slang of
thieves or prostitutes, the flash words of receivers of stolen goods and
criminal officers, the haunts of murderers and burglars, being the proper
subject for the amusement or edification of the other classes of society.
It might as well be said that the refuse of the common-sewers should be
raked up and mixed with the garbage of the streets to form our daily food.
That such things exist is certain; we have only to walk the streets at
night, and we shall soon have ample evidence of their reality. But are
they the proper object of the novel-writer's pencil? That is the question;
and it is painful to think that in an age boasting its intelligence, and
glorying in the extent of its information, such a question should be
deemed susceptible of answer in any but one way.
These two extremes of novel-writing--the Almack and Jack Sheppard
schools--deviate equally from the standard of real excellence. The one is
too exclusively devoted to the description of high, the other of low life.
The one portrays a style of manners as artificial and peculiar as that of
the paladins and troubadours of chivalry; the other exhibits to our view
the lowest and most degraded stages of society, and by the force of humour
or the tenderness of pathos interests us too often in the haunts of vice
or the pursuits of infamy. It is easy to see that the one school was
produced by the reaction of the human mind against the other; genius,
tired of the eternal flirtations of guardsmen and right honourables,
sought for unsophisticated nature in the humour of low or the sorrows of
humble life. But low and humble life are sophisticated just as much as
elevated and fashionable; and, if we are driven to a selection, we would
prefer the artificial manners of the great to the natural effusions of the
vulgar. We would rather, as the child said to the ogress, be eat up by the
gentleman. But true novel-writing should be devoted to neither the one nor
the other. It should aim at the representation of what Sir Joshua Reynolds
called "general or common nature"--that is, nature by its general
features, which are common to all ages and countries, not its
peculiarities in a particular circle or society. It is by success in
delineating that, and _by it alone_, that lasting fame is to be acquired.
Without doubt every age and race of men have their separate dress end
costume, and the mind has its externals as well as the body, which the
artist of genius will study with sedulous care, and imitate with
scrupulous fidelity. But the soul is not in the dress; and so it will be
found in the delineation of mind as in the representation of the figure.
All these extravagances in the noble art of romance originate in one
cause. They come of not making "the past and the _distant_ predominate
over the present." It is like sketching every day from nature in the same
scenery or country: the artist, if he has the pencil of Claude Lorraine or
Salvator Rosa, will, in the end, find that if the _objects_ of his study
are endless, their _character_ has a certain family resemblance; and that,
if he is not repeating the same study, he is reproducing, under different
forms, the same ideas. But let him extend his observation to a wider
sphere: let him study the sublimity of mountain or the sweetness of
pastoral scenery, let him traverse the Alps and the Apennines, the
Pyrenees or the Caucasus; let him inhale the spirit of antiquity amidst
the ruins of the Capitol, or the genius of Greece on the rocks of the
Acropolis; let him become embued with modern beauty on the shores of
Naples, or the combined charms of Europe and Asia amidst the intricacies
of the Bosphorus--and what a world of true images, objects, and beauties
is at once let into his mind! It is the same with romance. It is by
generalizing ideas, by means of extended observation, that variety is to
be communicated to conception, and freshness to incident; that the
particular is to be taken from character, and the general impressed upon
mind. But the novelist has this immense advantage over the painter--not
only the present but the past lie open to his study. The boundless events
of history present themselves to his choice: he can not only roam at will
over the present surface of the globe, with all its variety of character,
event, and incident, but penetrate backwards into the unsearchable depths
of time. When will fresh subjects for description be wanting with such a
field to the hand of genius? Never to the end of the world: for years as
they revolve, nations as they rise and fall, events as they thicken around
mankind, but add to the riches of the vast storehouse from which it is to
select its subjects, or cull its materials.
Look at Shakspeare--with what felicity has he selected on this
inexhaustible reserve, to vary his incidents, to invigorate his ideas, to
give raciness to his characters! He has not even confined himself to
English story, rich as it is in moving or terrible events, and strikingly
as its moving phantasmagoria come forth from his magic hand. The
tragedies, the comedies, the events, the ideas, of the most distant ages
of the world, of the most opposite states of society, of the most
discordant characters of mankind, seem depicted with equal felicity. He is
neither thoroughly chivalrous like Tasso and Ariosto, nor thoroughly
Grecian like Sophocles and Euripides, nor thoroughly French like Corneille
and Racine. He has neither portrayed exclusively the manners of Arthur and
the Round Table, nor of the courts of the Henrys or the Plantagenets. He
is as varied as the boundless variety of nature. Profoundly embued at one
time with the lofty spirit of Roman patriotism, he is not less deeply
penetrated at another with the tenderness of Italian love. If Julius Cesar
contains the finest picture that ever was drawn of the ideas of the
citizens of the ancient world, Juliet is the most perfect delineation of
the refined passions of the modern. The bursting heart, uncontrollable
grief, but yet generous spirit of the Moor--the dark ambition and
blood-stained career of the Scot, come as fresh from his pencil as the
dreamy contemplation of the Prince of Denmark, or the fascinating creation
of the Forest of Ardennes. It is hard to say whether he is greatest in
painting the racked grief of Lear, the homely sense of Falstaff, or the
aerial vision of Miranda. Here is the historical drama; here is the varied
picture of the human heart; and if the world is not prolific of
Shakspeares, he at least has afforded decisive evidence of the vastness of
the field thus opened to its genius.
The HISTORICAL ROMANCE should take its place beside the plays of
Shakspeare. It does not aim at representation on the stage; it has not the
powers of the actor, the deception of scenery, the magic of theatrical
effect, nor the charms of music, to heighten its impression. But in
exchange it has one incalculable advantage, which in the end is adequate
to overbalance them all: it brings delight to the fireside. Seated in our
arm-chairs, with the wintry winds howling around us, with our feet at a
blazing fire, we are transported by the wand of the novelist to the most
remote ages and distant counties of the earth. The lofty spirit and
generous passions of chivalry; the stern resolves and heroic resolution of
ancient patriotism; the graceful profligacy and studied gallantry of the
court of Louis XIV.; the deep Machiavelism of Italian perfidy; the blunt
simplicity of German virtue; the freeborn fearlessness of English valour;
the lofty soul and poetic imagery of the North American savage; the
dauntless intrepidity of his Castilian conqueror; the heart-stirring
pathos of Eastern story; the savage ferocity of Scythian conquest--may be
alternately presented to our view. We roam at will, not only over space
but time; and if the writer is worthy of his high vocation, he can so warm
the imagination by the interest of event, the delineation of character,
the force of passion, or the charm of the pathetic, that the strongest
impression of reality is conveyed to the reader's mind. Add to this the
material appliances which are at his disposal; and which, though far
inferior to mental power in rousing interest or awakening sympathy, have
yet great effect in giving life to the picture, and transporting the
imagination to the scenes or the ages which are intended to be portrayed.
The scenery of all the different parts of the world, under every possible
variety of light, colour, and circumstance; the manners, habits, and
customs of all nations, and all ages and all grades of society; the
dresses, arms, houses, and strongholds of men in all stages of their
progress, from the huntsmen of Nimrod to the Old Guard of Napoleon; the
ideas of men in different classes and ranks of life in all ages--form so
many additions to his pictures, which, if skilfully managed, must give
them infinite variety and interest. There is no end, there never can be
any end, to the combinations of genius with such materials at its
disposal. If men, since this noble art has been created, ever run into
repetition, it will be from want of originality in conception, not variety
in subject.
The prodigious addition which the happy idea of the historical romance has
made to the stores of elevated literature, and through it to the happiness
and improvement of the human race, will not be properly appreciated,
unless the novels most in vogue before the immortal creations of Scott
appeared are considered. If we take up even the most celebrated of them,
and in which the most unequivocal marks of genius are to be discerned, it
seems hardly possible to conceive how their authors could have acquired
the reputation which they so long enjoyed. They are distinguished by a
mawkish sensibility, a perpetual sentimentality, as different from the
bursts of genuine passion as their laboured descriptions of imaginary
scenes are from the graphic sketches which, in later times, have at once
brought reality before the mind's eye. The novels of Charlotte Smith, Miss
Radcliffe, and Miss Burney belong to this school; they are now wellnigh
unreadable. Even works of higher reputation and unquestionable genius in
that age, the _Nouvelle Heloise_ of Rousseau, and _Sir Charles Grandison_
of Richardson, now form a heavy task even for the most ardent lover of
romance. Why is it that works so popular in their day, and abounding with
so many traits of real genius, should so soon have palled upon the world?
Simply because they were not founded upon a broad and general view of
human nature; because they were drawn, not from real life in the
innumerable phases which it presents to the observer, but imaginary life
as it was conceived in the mind of the composer; because they were
confined to one circle and class of society, and having exhausted all the
natural ideas which it could present, its authors were driven, in the
search of variety, to the invention of artificial and often ridiculous
ones.
Sir Walter Scott, as all the world knows, was the inventor of the
historical romance. As if to demonstrate how ill founded was the opinion,
that all things were worked out, and that originality no longer was
accessible for the rest of time, Providence, by the means of that great
mind, bestowed a new art, as it were, upon mankind--at the very time when
literature to all appearance was effete, and invention, for above a
century, had run in the cramped and worn-out channels of imitation. Gibbon
was lamenting that the subjects of history were exhausted, and that modern
story would never present the moving incidents of ancient story, on the
verge of the French Revolution and the European war--of the Reign of
Terror and the Moscow retreat. Such was the reply of Time to the complaint
that political incident was worn out. Not less decisive was the answer
which the genius of the Scottish bard afforded to the opinion, that the
treasures of original thought were exhausted, and that nothing now
remained for the sons of men. In the midst of that delusion he wrote
_Waverley_; and the effect was like the sun bursting through the clouds.
After a space, shorter than is usually required for a work of original
conception to make its way in society, the effect began to appear. Like
the invention of gunpowder or steam, it in the end worked a change in the
moral world. Envy was silenced; criticism was abashed; detraction ceased
to decry--malignity to deride. The hearts of men were taken as it were by
storm. A new vein of boundless extent and surpassing richness was opened
as it were under our feet. Men marvelled that it had been so long of being
found out. And the first discoverer worked it with such rapidity and
success, that for long no one attempted to disturb him in the turning
forth of its wealth.
It is curious, now that this great revolution in romance-writing has taken
place, and is felt and acknowledged by all the world, to reflect on the
causes, apparently accidental, by which it was brought about, and the
trivial circumstances which might have turned aside, perhaps for ever, the
creative mind of Scott from this its appropriate sphere of original
action. The first chapters of _Waverley_, as we learn from Lockhart's
Life, were written in 1808; but the work was laid aside in an unfinished
form, and was almost forgotten by its author. It would probably have
remained there overlooked and incomplete to the day of his death, had not
the extraordinary popularity of Lord Byron's _Childe Harold_ and
subsequent pieces, joined to some symptoms of waning public favour in the
reception of his own later pieces, particularly _Rokeby_ and the _Lord of
the Isles_, awakened in his mind, as he himself has told us, a latent
suspicion that he had better retire from the field of poetry before his
youthful competitor, and betake himself to another career, in which
hitherto no rival had appeared. Under the influence of this feeling of
distrust in his poetical powers, the all but forgotten manuscript of
_Waverley_ was drawn forth from its obscurity, the novel was finished, and
given to the world in July 1814. From that moment the historical romance
was born for mankind. One of the most delightful and instructive species
of composition was created; which unites the learning of the historian
with the fancy of the poet; which discards from human annals their years
of tedium, and brings prominently forward their eras of interest; which
teaches morality by example, and conveys information by giving pleasure;
and which, combining the charms of imagination with the treasures of
research, founds the ideal upon its only solid and durable basis--the
real.
The historical romance enjoys many advantages for the creation of
interest, and even the conveying of information, over history. It can
combine, in a short space, the exciting incidents which are spread over
numerous volumes; and, by throwing entirely into the background the
uninteresting details of human events, concentrate the light of
imagination on such as are really calculated to produce an impression.
Immense is the facility which this gives for the creation of interest, and
the addition of life, to the picture. What oppresses the historian is the
prodigious number of details with which he is encumbered. As his main
object is to convey a trustworthy narrative of real events, none of them
can, with due regard to the credit of the narrative, be omitted. If they
are so, it is ten to one that the author finds reason to repent his
superficial survey before he has concluded his work; and if he is
fortunate enough to escape such stings of self-reproach, he is quite
certain that the blot will be marked by some kind friend, or candid
critic, who will represent the thing omitted, how trifling soever, as the
most important incident in the whole work, and the neglect of which is
wholly fatal to its credit as a book of authority. Every traveller knows
how invariably this is the case with any object which may have been
accidentally omitted to be seen in any province or city; and that the only
way to avoid the eternal self-reproaches consequent on having it
constantly represented by others as the most interesting object to be
seen, is--at all hazards of time, fatigue, or expense--to see every thing.
But the historical novelist is fettered by no such necessity--he is
constrained to encumber his pages with no inconsiderable details.
Selecting for the objects of his piece the most striking characters and
moving incidents of the period he has chosen, he can throw full light upon
them, and paint the details with that minuteness of finishing which is
essential to conjuring up a vivid image in the reader's mind. He can give
the truth of history without its monotony--the interest of romance without
its unreality.
It was the power they enjoyed of abstracting in this manner from
surrounding and uninteresting details, which constituted the principal
charm of ancient history. The _Cyropaedia_ and _Anabasis_ of Xenophon are
nothing but historical romances. Livy's pictured page--Sallust's
inimitable sketches--Tacitus's finished paintings, over their chief
fascination to the simplicity of their subjects. Ancient history, being
confined to the exploits of a single hero or monarch, or the rise of a
particular city, could afford to be graphic, detailed, and consequently
interesting. That was comparatively an easy task when the events of one,
or at most two, states on the shores of the Mediterranean alone required
to be portrayed. But such a limitation of subject is impossible in modern
history, when the transactions of Europe, Asia, Africa and America require
to be detailed to render the thread of events complete. Even biography is
scarcely intelligible without such a narrative of the surrounding nations
and incidents as makes it run into the complexity and consequent dulness
of history. But the author of historical romance is entirely relieved from
this necessity, and consequently he can present the principal events and
characters of his world in far more brilliant colours to his readers than
is possible for the historian. Certainly with some the results of his more
attractive influence will be doubted; but, be that as it may, it is the
Henry V. or Richard III. of Shakspeare that occur to every mind when these
English monarchs are thought of, not the picture of them presented, able
as it is, by Hume or Turner. If we hear of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, we
immediately conjure up the inimitable picture of the crusading hero in
_Ivanhoe_ or the _Talisman_. Elizabeth of England is admirably portrayed
in the pages of Hume, but the Elizabeth of _Kenilworth_ is the one which
is engraven on every mind; and when the romantic tale and heroic death of
Mary of Scotland are thought of, it is less the masterly picture of
Robertson, or the touching narrative of Tytler, that recurs to the
recollection, than the imprisoned princess of the _Abbot_, or the immortal
Last Sacrament of Schiller.
Considered in its highest aspect, no art ever was attempted by man more
elevated and ennobling than the historical romance. It may be doubted
whether it is inferior even to the lofty flights of the epic, or the
heart-rending pathos of the dramatic muse. Certain it is that it is more
popular, and embraces a much wider circle of readers, than either the
_Iliad_ or the _Paradise Lost_. Homer and Tasso never, in an equal time,
had nearly so many readers as Scott. The reason is, that an interesting
story told in prose, can be more generally understood, and is appreciated
by a much wider circle, than when couched in the lofty strains and
comparative obscurity of verse. It is impossible to over-estimate the
influence, for good or for evil, which this fascinating art may exercise
upon future ages. It literally has the moulding of the human mind in its
hands;--"Give me," said Fletcher of Saltoun, "the making of ballads, and I
will give you the making of laws." Historical romances are the ballads of
a civilized and enlightened age. More even than their rude predecessors of
the mountains and the forest, they form those feelings in youth by which
the character of the future man is to be determined. It is not going too
far to say, that the romances of Sir Walter Scott have gone far to
neutralise the dangers of the Reform Bill. Certain it is that they have
materially assisted in extinguishing, at least in the educated classes of
society, that prejudice against the feudal manners, and those devout
aspirations on the blessings of democratic institutions, which were
universal among the learned over Europe in the close of the eighteenth
century. Like all other great and original minds, so far from being swept
away by the errors of his age, he rose up in direct opposition to them.
Singly he set himself to breast the flood which was overflowing the world.
Thence the reaction in favour of the institutions of the olden time in
church and state, which became general in the next generation, and is now
so strongly manifesting itself, as well in the religious contests as the
lighter literature of the present day.
"Some authors," says Madame de Stael, "have lowered the romance in
mingling with it the revolting pictures of vice; and while the first
advantage of fiction is to assemble around man all that can serve as a
lesson or a model, it has been thought that a temporary object might be
gained by representing the obscure scenes of corrupted life, as if they
could ever leave the heart which repels them as pure as that to which they
were unknown. But a romance, such as one can conceive, such as we have
some models of, is one of the noblest productions of the human mind, one
of the most influential on the hearts of individuals, and which is best
fitted in the end to form the morals of nations."[21] It is in this spirit
that romance should be written--it is in this spirit that it has been
written by some of the masters of the art who have already appeared,
during the brief period which has elapsed since its creation. And if, in
hands more impure, it has sometimes been applied to less elevated
purposes; if the turbid waters of human corruption have mingled with the
stream, and the annals of the past have been searched, not to display its
magnanimity, but to portray its seductions; we must console ourselves by
the reflection, that such is the inevitable lot of humanity, that genius
cannot open a noble career which depravity will not enter, nor invent an
engine for the exaltation of the human mind, which vice will not pervert
to its degradation.
As the historical romance has been of such recent introduction in this
country and the world, it is not surprising that its principles should as
yet be not finally understood. It may be doubted whether its great master
and his followers themselves have been fully aware of the causes to which
their own success has been owing. Like travellers who have entered an
unknown but varied and interesting country, they have plunged fearlessly
on, threading forests, dashing through streams, traversing plains,
crossing mountains, and in the breathless haste of the journey, and the
animation of spirit with which it was attended, they have become, in a
great degree, insensible to the causes which produced the charm which
surrounded their footsteps. Yet, like every other art, the historical
romance has its principles; and it is by the right comprehending and
skilful application of these principles, that its highest triumphs are to
be gained. They are the same as those which have long been unfolded by the
great masters of composition in relation to poetry and the drama; they are
to be found applied by Sir Joshua Reynolds to the sister art of painting.
Yet are they not attended to by the great mass of readers, and even by
authors themselves, if we may judge by the frequent failures which are
exhibited, little understood or frequently neglected.
The first requisite of the historical romance is a subject which shall be
_elevated and yet interesting_. It must be elevated, or the work will
derogate from its noblest object, that of rousing the sympathetic
passions, and awakening the generous feelings; it must be interesting, or
these effects will be produced in a very limited degree. Readers of
romance look for excitement; they desire to be interested, and unless they
are so, the author's productions will very soon be neglected. This is
universally known, and felt alike by readers and writers; but yet there is
a strange misapprehension prevalent among many authors, even of
distinguished talent, in regard to the methods by which this interest is
to be awakened. It is frequently said, that the public are insatiable for
novelty; that all home subjects are worn out; and thence it is concluded,
that whatever is new must possess the greatest chance of becoming popular.
In the desire to discover such novelty, every part of the world has been
ransacked. Stories from Persia and the East have been plentifully brought
forward; the prairies and savages of North America have furnished the
subjects of more than one interesting romance; Russia, Poland, Italy,
Spain, as well as France, Germany, Sweden, and the United States, have
been eagerly ransacked to satisfy the craving of a generation seeking
after something new. The total failure of many of these novels, the
dubious success of many others, though written with unquestionable talent,
may convince us, that this principle of looking only for novelty may be
carried too far, and that it is within certain limits only that the
appetite for variety can successfully be indulged. And what these limits
are, may be readily learned by attending to what experience has taught in
the sister arts.
It has been said, and said truly, that "eloquence to be popular must be in
advance of the audience, _and but a little in advance_." The experience of
all ages has taught, that the drama is never successful unless it appeals
to feelings which find a responsive echo in the general mind, and awakens
associations of general interest in the breast of the audience. It is the
same with the historical romance. It may and should deviate a little from
the circle of interesting association generally felt; but it should be
_but a little_. The heart of the readers of novels, as well as the
spectators of tragedies, is at home. The images, the emotions, the loves,
the hatreds, the hopes, the fears, the names, the places familiar to our
youth, are those which awaken the strongest emotions of sympathy in later
years. Novelty is frequently felt as agreeable; but it is so chiefly when
it recalls again in other climes, or in the events of other ages, the
feelings and passions of our own. We like occasionally to leave home; but
when we do so, there is nothing so delightful as to be recalled to it by
the touching of any of those secret chords which bind man to the place of
his nativity, or the scene of his dearest associations. The novels which
are to be durably popular in any country must be founded, not indeed
necessarily on incidents of its own story, but on the ideas with which it
is familiar, and on incidents cousin-german at least to those of its own
national existence. The institutions of chivalry, the feudal system, have
created, as it were, in this respect one great family of the European
nations, which renders, at least to the educated classes, the manners,
emotions, and passions of the higher ranks an object of universal
interest. We can sympathise as warmly with the paladins of Ariosto, or the
knights of Tasso, as ever could the troubadours of Provence or the nobles
of Italy. But if this lofty circle which forms the manners of chivalry is
once passed, we descend to inferior grades of society. The novelist of
every country will find, that what he portrays will not permanently or
generally interest a wider circle than that of its own inhabitants. We can
take no interest in the boyards of Russia or the boors of Poland; but
little in the agas and kuzilbashes of Eastern story. Novelty, as in the
_Arabian Nights_, may attract in youth for a single publication; but fairy
or Eastern tales will never form the intellectual bread of life. The
universal admiration with which _Don Quixote_ and the Waverley novels are
regarded over the whole world, must not blind us to the extreme difficulty
of making the manners of the middle or lower ranks, if brought forward as
the main machinery of a romance, durably interesting to any but those to
whom they are familiar. Even Scott and Cervantes owe great part of their
success to the skill with which they have combined the noble manners and
exalted ideas, engendered in the European heart by the institutions of
chivalry, and as widely spread as its spirit, with the graphic picture of
the manners in the different countries where the scene of their romances
was laid. And it is not every man who can draw the bow of Ulysses.
_Ivanhoe_, the _Abbot_, and _Old Mortality_, may be considered as the
perfection of historical romances, so far as subject goes. They all relate
to events of national history, well known to all persons possessing any
information in England and Scotland, and deeply connected with the most
interesting associations to those of cultivated minds. The undaunted
courage and jovial manners of the Lion-hearted hero; the cruel oppression
of Norman rule; the bold spirit of Saxon independence; the deep sorrows
and ever-doubtful character of the heroic Queen of Scots; the fearful
collision of Puritan zeal with Cavalier loyalty, from which issued the
Great Rebellion--are engraven on every heart in the British islands. They
formed the most appropriate subjects, therefore, for the foundation or
substratum of novels to be permanently interesting to the Anglo-Saxon
race, with the addition of such imaginary characters or incidents as might
illustrate still further the manners and ideas of the times. Nor are such
subjects of universal and national interest by any means yet exhausted. On
the contrary, many of the most admirable of these have never yet been
touched on. The cruel conquest of Wales by Edward I.; the heroic struggles
of Wallace against the same monarch; the glorious establishment of
Scottish independence by Robert Bruce; the savage ferocity and
heart-rending tragedies of the wars of the Roses; the martyr-like death of
Charles I.; the heart-stirring conquests of Edward III. and the Black
Prince; the heartless gallantry of the age of Charles II.; the noble
efforts of the Highlanders in 1715 and 1745 for their hereditary
sovereign, form a few of the periods of British history, either not at
all, or as yet imperfectly, illustrated by historical romance. Nor is the
stock terminated; on the contrary, it is growing, and hourly on the
increase. The time has already come when the heroism of La Vendee, the
tragedies of the Revolution, form the appropriate subject of French
imaginative genius; and the period is not far distant when Wellington and
the paladins of the late war, transported from this earthly scene by the
changes of mortality, will take lasting and immortal place in the fields
of romance.
The success of many of the novels of recent times, in the conception of
which most genius has been evinced, and in the composition most labour
bestowed, has been endangered, if not destroyed, by inattention to this
principle in the choice of a subject. There is great talent, much
learning, and vigorous conception, in the _Last Days of Pompeii_ by
Bulwer; and the catastrophe with which it concludes is drawn with his very
highest powers; but still it is felt by every class of readers to be
uninteresting. We have no acquaintance or association with Roman manners;
we know little of their habits; scarce any thing of their conversation in
private: they stand forth to us in history in a sort of shadowy grandeur,
totally distinct from the interest of novelist composition. No amount of
learning or talent can make the dialogues of Titus and Lucius, of Gallius
and Vespasia, interesting to a modern reader. On the other hand, the _Last
of the Barons_ is an admirably chosen historical subject, worked out with
even more than the author's usual power and effect; and but for a defect
in composition, to be hereafter noticed, it would be one of the most
popular of all his productions. Great talent and uncommon powers of
description have been displayed in Oriental novels; but they have not
attained any lasting reputation--not from any fault on the part of the
writers, but the want of sympathy in the great majority of readers with
the subject of their compositions. Strange to say, we feel nothing foreign
in James's _Attila_. So deeply were we impregnated with barbarian
blood--so strongly have Scythian customs and ideas descended to our
times--that the wooden palace of the chief of the Huns, surrounded with
its streets of carts, and myriads of flocks and herds, in the centre of
Hungary, is felt as nothing alien. On the other hand, some of Sir Walter's
later productions have failed, notwithstanding great ability in the
execution, from undue strangeness in the subject. _Anne of Geierstein_,
and the Indian story in the _Chronicles of the Canongate_, belong to this
class; and even if _Robert of Paris_ had not been written during the decay
of the author's mental powers, it would probably have failed, from the
impossibility of communicating any of the interest of a novel to a story
of the Lower Empire.
In this respect there is an important distinction between the drama and
the historical romance, which writers in the latter style would do well to
keep in view. Tragedy being limited in general to a very short period,
during which events of the most heart-rending kind are accumulated
together, in order as strongly as possible to awaken the sympathy, or move
the hearts of the spectators, it is comparatively of little importance
where the scene is laid. Where the bones and muscles of the mind are laid
bare by deep affliction, mankind in all ages and countries are the same.
The love of Juliet, the jealousy of Othello, are felt with equal force in
all parts of the world. We can sympathize as strongly with the protracted
woes of Andromache, or the generous self-immolation of Antigone, as the
Athenian audience who wept at the eloquence of Euripides or the power of
Sophocles: we feel the death of Wallenstein to be as sublime as the
Germans who are transported by the verses of Schiller; and they weep at
the heroism of Mary Stuart, with as heartfelt emotion as the people of
Scotland to whom her name is a household word. But it is otherwise with
romance. It is occasionally, and at considerable intervals only, that
these terrible or pathetic scenes are represented in its pages, which
sweep away all peculiarities of nation, age, or race, and exhibit only the
naked human heart: nineteen-twentieths of its pages are taken up with
ordinary occurrences, one-half of its interest is derived from the
delineation of manners, or the developing of character in dialogue, which
exhibits none of the vehement passions; and the interest of the reader is
kept up chiefly by the fidelity of the drawing, the spirit of the
conversation, or the accuracy and brilliancy of the descriptions. If these
prove uninteresting from their being too remote from ordinary observation
or association, the work will fail, with whatever talent or power its
principal and tragic scenes may be executed.
In proposing as the grand requisite to the historical romance, that the
subject should be of an _elevating and ennobling kind_, we by no means
intend to assert that the author is always to be on stilts, that he is
never to descend to the description of low or even vulgar life, or that
humour and characteristic description are to be excluded from his
composition. We are well aware of the value of contrast in bringing out
effect; we know that the mind of the reader requires repose, even from the
most exalted emotions; we have felt the weariness of being satiated with
beauty, in the galleries of the Vatican or the valleys of Switzerland.
Brilliants require setting, and bright light can be brought out only by
proportional depth or breadth of shadow. If the novelist tries to keep up
exalted sentiments or pathetic scenes too often, he will fall into the
mistake of the painter who throws an equal light on all parts of his
picture. Probably the rule which Sir Joshua Reynolds says he found by
observation had been invariably observed by Titian--viz., to have
one-fourth only of his picture in very bright light, one-fourth in deep
shadow, and the remaining half in middle tint, may be equally applicable
to the compositions of the novelist. But admitting all this--admitting
further, that novels which deviate from the elevated standard may often
attain a great temporary popularity, the greater, probably, owing to that
very deviation--it is not the less true that the main object of the art is
to awaken generous and elevated feelings; and that in no other way than by
attention to this object, is durable fame to be obtained.
The celebrity arising from skill in the painting of low or vulgar manners,
from power in the description of desperate or abandoned characters, how
great soever it may be for a time, never fails to pass away with the lapse
of time. Voltaire's romances, once so popular, are now nearly as much dead
stock in the bookseller's hands; and the whole tribe of the licentious
novelists of France, prior to the Revolution, are now read only by the
licentious youth of Paris, and a few prurient sensualists in other
countries. It will be the same with Victor Hugo, Janin, and George Sand,
in the next generation and in other countries. All their genius, learning,
and interest, will not be able to save them from the withering effect of
their accumulated horrors, shocking indecencies, and demoralizing
tendency.
Again, in the composition of the historical romance, the story should be
_sufficiently simple_, and a certain degree of unity preserved in the
interest and emotion which are to be awakened. It is not meant to be
asserted by this, that the novelist is to be confined strictly to unities
like the Greek drama, or that the same variety, within certain limits, is
not to be presented in the pages of romance, which we see every day around
us in real life. All that is meant to be advanced is, that this variety
must be confined within certain limits, if the interest of the piece is to
be properly kept up; and that it should be an especial object with the
novelist to avoid that complication and intricacy of incidents which forms
so formidable, though unavoidable, an addition to the difficulties of an
historian. It is the more singular that romance writers should have
fallen into this mistake, that it is the very difficulty which stands
most in the way of the interest of history, and which it is the peculiar
advantage of their art to be able in a great measure to avoid. Yet it is
the error which is most general in writers of the greatest ability in this
department of literature, and which has marred or ruined the effect of
some of their happiest conceptions. It has arisen, doubtless, from romance
writers having observed the extreme multiplicity of incidents and events
in real life, and in the complicated maze of historical narrative; and
thence imagined that it was by portraying a similar combination that
romance was to be assimilated to truthful annals, and the ideal founded on
the solid basis of the real. They forget that it is this very complication
which renders history in general so uninviting, and acceptable (compared
with romance) to so limited a circle of readers; and that the annals of
actual events then only approach to the interest of fiction, when their
surpassing magnitude, or the importance of the characters involved in
them, justifies the historian in suspending for a time the thread of
inconsiderable and uninteresting incidents, and throwing a broad and
bright light, similar to that of imagination, on the few which have been
attended with great and lasting effects.
The great father of historical romance rarely falls into this mistake. The
story, at least in most of his earlier and most popular
pieces--_Waverley_, the _Antiquary_, the _Bride of Lammermoor_, _Old
Mortality_, the _Abbot_, _Ivanhoe_, _Kenilworth_, _Quentin Durward_, and
_Rob Roy_--is extremely simple; the incidents few and well chosen; the
interest of an _homogeneous_ kind, and uniformly sustained; the inferior
characters and incidents kept in their due subordination to the principal
ones. The subordinate characters of these admirable works, their still
life, descriptions, and minor incidents, are grouped as it were around the
main events of the story, and brought forward in such a way as to give
variety while they do not detract from unity. It is impossible to conceive
more perfect models of the historical romance, both in point of subject,
conception, and execution, than _Ivanhoe_ and the _Abbot_. In both, the
subject is national and generally interesting--in both, the historical
characters brought forward are popular, and connected with early
associations--in both, the period chosen is one in which great national
questions were at stake, and the conversations and characters afforded the
means of bringing them prominently before the mind of the reader--in both,
the incidents of the piece are few and simple; and the lesser plots or
characters which they contain, serve only to amuse the mind and give
variety to the composition, without interfering with the unity of its
general effect. How few and simple are the events in the _Bride of
Lammermoor_! The tragedies of Sophocles do not exhibit a more perfect
example of the preservation of the unity of emotion. Yet how interesting
is the whole story--how completely does it carry along every class of
readers--how well does every incident of moment prepare the mind for the
dreadful catastrophe in which it terminates! How few are the incidents in
the _Abbot_--how scanty the materials on which the story is built! A page
riding from a castle in Dumfries-shire to Edinburgh, his introduction to
the Regent Murray, and adventures during a few days in Holyrood, his
attendance on the imprisoned Queen in Lochleven Castle, her escape from
thence, and final overthrow at Langside--form the whole incidents out of
which the web of that delightful romance has been woven. Its charm
consists in a great degree in the simplicity itself, in the small number
of historic incidents it records, the interest of those incidents in
themselves, and the room thereby afforded for working up all the details,
and the minor plot of the piece, the loves of the page and Catharine, in
perfect harmony with the main event, and without disturbing their
development.
It were to be wished that later writers had followed the example thus set
by the father of historical romance in the selection of their subject, and
the construction of their plot. But, so far from doing so, they have in
general run into the opposite extreme, and overlaid their story with such
a mass of historical facts and details as has not only destroyed the unity
of interest, but has in many cases rendered the story itself scarcely
intelligible. Take two of the most popular romances of two justly
celebrated living novelists, Sir E. L. Bulwer and Mr James--_The Last of
the Barons_, and _Philip Augustus_. The period of history, leading
characters, and subject of both, are admirably chosen; and the greatest
talent has been displayed in both, in the conception of the characters,
and the portrait of the ideas and manners of the times which both present.
But the grand defect of both, and which chills to a great degree the
interest they otherwise would excite, is the crowding of historic
incident, and complication of the story. Bulwer's novel is so crowded with
rebellions, revolutions, and dethronements, that even the learned reader,
who has some previous acquaintance with that involved period of English
history, has great difficulty in following the story. Ample materials
exist for two or three interesting historical novels in its crowded
incidents. _Philip Augustus_ labours equally plainly under the same
defect. There is a triple plot going forward through nearly the whole
piece; the story of the King and Queen, with the Papal interdict; that of
Prince Arthur Plantagenet and his cruel uncle, John of England; and that
of De Coucy and Isadore of the Mount. No human ability is adequate to
carrying three separate stories abreast in this manner, and awakening the
interest of the reader in each. The human mind is incapable of taking in,
at the same time, deep emotion of more than one kind. What should we say
if Shakspeare had presented us with a tragedy in which were brought
forward scenes or acts about the ambition of Macbeth, the loves of Romeo
and Juliet, and the jealousy of Othello? Assuredly, they would have
mutually strangled each other. This is just what happens in these
otherwise admirable novels; the complication of the events, and the
variety of interests sought to be awakened, prevent any one from taking a
strong hold of the mind. Rely upon it, there is more truth in the
principle of the Greek unities than we moderns are willing to admit. The
prodigious overpowering effect of their tragedies is mainly owing to the
unity of emotion which is kept up. It bears the same relation to the
involved story of modern romance, which the single interest of the
_Jerusalem Delivered_ or _Iliad_ does to the endless and complicated
adventures of Ariosto's knights, or the sacred simplicity of the Holy
Families of Raphael to the crowded canvass of Tintoretto or Bassano.
Perhaps the most perfect novel that exists in the world, with reference to
the invaluable quality of unity of emotion, as well as the admirable
disquisitions on subjects of taste and reflection which it contains, is
Madame de Stael's _Corinne._ Considered as a story, indeed, it has many
and glaring defects; the journey of Lord Nevil and Corinne to Naples from
Rome, is repugnant to all our ideas of female decorum; and the miserable
sufferings and prostration of the heroine in the third volume, during her
visit to Scotland, is carried to such a length as to leave a painful
impression on every reader's mind. But abstracting these glaring errors,
the conception and execution of the work are as perfect as possible. The
peculiar interest meant to be excited, the particular passion sought to be
portrayed, is early brought forward, and the whole story is the progress
and final lamentable result of its indulgences. It is not the sudden
passion of Juliet for Romeo, the peculiar growth of the Italian clime,
which is portrayed, but the refined attachment of northern Europe, which
is taken in more by the ear than the eye, and springs from the sympathy of
minds who have many tastes and feelings in common. Nothing detracts from,
nothing disturbs, this one and single emotion. The numerous disquisitions
on the fine arts, the drama, antiquities, poetry, history, and manners,
which the novel contains--its profound reflections on the human heart, the
enchanting descriptions of nature, and the monuments of Italy which it
presents--not only do not interfere with the main interest, but they all
conspire to promote it. They are the means by which it is seen the mutual
passion was developed in the breasts of the principal characters; they
furnish its natural history, by exhibiting the many points of sympathy
which existed between minds of such an elevated caste, and which neither
had previously found appreciated in an equal degree by any one in the
other sex. It is in the skill with which this is brought out, and the
numerous disquisitions on criticism, taste, and literature with which it
abounds, rendered subservient to the main interest of the whole, that the
principal charm of this beautiful work is to be found.
Another principle which seems to regulate the historical romance, as it
does every other work which relates to man, is, that its principal
interest must be sought in human passion and feeling. It appears to be the
more necessary to insist on this canon, that the inferior appliances of
the art--the description of manners, scenery, dresses, buildings,
processions, pomps, ceremonies, and customs--has opened so wide a field
for digression, that, by many writers as well as readers, they have come
to be supposed to form its principal object. This mistake is in an
especial manner conspicuous in the writings of Ainsworth, whose talents
for description, and the drawing of the horrible, have led him to make his
novels often little more than pictorial phantasmagoria. It is to be seen,
also, in a great degree in James; who although capable, as many of his
works, especially _Mary of Burgundy_, _Attila_, and the _Smugglers_,
demonstrate, of the most powerful delineation of passion, and the finest
traits of the pathetic--is yet so enamoured of description, and so
conscious of his powers in that respect, that he in general overlays his
writings with painting to the eye, instead of using that more powerful
language which speaks to the heart. It is no doubt a curious thing, and
gives life to the piece, to see a faithful and graphic description of a
knight on horseback, with his companion, and their respective squires,
skirting a wood, mounted on powerful steeds, on a clear September morning.
The painting of his helm and hauberk, his dancing plume and glancing mail,
his harnessed steed and powerful lance, interests once or even twice; but
it is dangerous to try the experiment of such descriptions too often. They
rapidly pall by repetition, and at length become tedious or ridiculous. It
is in the delineation of the human heart that the inexhaustible vein of
the novelist is to be found; it is in its emotion, desires, and passions,
ever-varying in externals, ever the same in the interior, that scope is
afforded for the endless conceptions of human genius. Descriptions of
still life--pictures of scenery, manners, buildings, and dresses--are the
body, as it were, of romance; they are not its soul. They are the material
parts of the landscape; its rocks, mountains, and trees; they are not the
divine ray of the sun which illuminates the brilliant parts of the
picture, and gives its peculiar character to the whole. The skilful artist
will never despise them; on the contrary, he will exert himself to the
utmost in their skilful delineation, and make frequent use of them, taking
care to introduce as much variety as possible in their representations.
But he will regard them as an inferior part only of his art; as speaking
to the eye, not the heart; as the body of romance, not its soul; and as
valuable chiefly as giving character or life to the period described, and
repose to the mind in the intervals of the scenes of mental interest or
pathos, on which his principal efforts are to be concentrated.
Descriptions of external things often strike us as extremely brilliant,
and give great pleasure in reading; but with a few exceptions, where a
_moral_ interest has been thrown into the picture of nature, they do not
leave any profound or lasting impression on the mind. It is human grandeur
or magnanimity, the throb of grief, the thrill of the pathetic, which is
imprinted in indelible characters on the memory. Many of the admirable
descriptions of still life in _Waverley_ fade from the recollection, and
strike us as new every time we read them; but no one ever forgot the last
words of Fergus, when passing on the hurdle under the Scotch gate at
Carlisle, "God save King _James_!" None of the splendid descriptions in
the choruses of AEschylus produce the terrible impression on the mind which
Sophocles has done by that inimitable trait, when, in the close of
_Antigone_, he makes Eurydice, upon hearing of the suicide of her son
Haemon on the body of his betrothed, leave the stage _in silence_, to
follow him by a violent death to the shades below.
The last rule which it seems material for the historical novelist to
observe, is that characteristic or national manners, especially in middle
or low life, should, wherever it is possible, be drawn from real life. The
manners of the highest class over all Europe are the same. If a novelist
paints well-bred person in one capital, his picture may, with a few slight
variations, stand for the same sphere of society in any other. But in
middle, and still more in low life, the diversity in different countries
is very great, and such as never can be reached by mere reading, or study
of the works of others. And yet, amidst all this diversity, so much is
human nature at bottom every where the same, that the most inexperienced
reader can distinguish, even in the delineation of manners to which he is
an entire stranger, those which are drawn from life, from those which are
taken from the sketches or ideas of others. Few in this country have
visited the Sierra Morena, and none certainly have seen it in the days of
Cervantes, yet we have no difficulty in at once perceiving that Sancho
Panza, and the peasants and muleteers in _Don Quixote_, are faithfully
drawn from real life. Few of the innumerable readers of Sir Walter have
had personal means of judging of the fidelity of his pictures of the
manners and ideas of the Scotch peasants in his earlier novels; but yet
there is no one in any country who does not at once see that they have
been drawn from nature, and contain the most faithful picture of it. It is
the fidelity of this picture which gives the Scotch novels their great
charm. It is the same with Fielding: his leading characters in low life
are evidently drawn from nature, and thence his long-continued popularity.
When Sir Walter comes to paint the manners of the middle classes or
peasants in England, from plays, farces, and the descriptions of others,
as in _Kenilworth_, _Woodstock_, _Peveril of the Peak_, and the _Fortunes
of Nigel_, he is infinitely inferior, and, in truth, often insupportably
dull. His dialogue is a jargon mixed up of scraps and expressions from old
plays or quaint tracts, such as no man on earth ever did speak, and which
it is only surprising a man of his sagacity should have supposed they ever
could. The same defect is more signally conspicuous in the dialogue of
several of the historical romances of James.
It is the accurate and faithful picture of national character from real
life, joined to the poetical interest of his Indian warriors, and his
incomparable powers of natural description, which has given Cooper his
great and well-deserved reputation. In many of the essential qualities of
a novelist, he is singularly defective. His story is often confused, and
awkwardly put together. Unity of interest is seldom thought of. He has no
conception of the refined manners and chivalrous feelings of European
society: though he has of late years seen much of it in many countries, he
has never been able to become familiar with its ideas, or imbibe its
spirit. His heroes, among the white men at least, are never any thing
above American skippers, or English subalterns or post-captains: his
heroines have in general the insipidity which is, we hope unjustly,
ascribed, with great personal charms, to the fair sex on the other side of
the Atlantic. But in the forest or on the wave, he is superb. His _Last of
the Mohicans_ and _Prairie_ are noble productions, to be matched with any
in the world for the delineation of lofty and elevated character--the more
interesting that they belong to a race, like the heroic age, now wellnigh
extinct. He paints the adventures, the life, the ideas, the passions, the
combined pride and indolence, valour and craft, heroism and meanness of
the red men, with the hand of a master. Equally admirable is his
delineation of the white man of the frontier of civilization--Hawkeye or
Leather-stocking, with his various other denominations--who is the
precursor, as it were, of European invasion, who plunges into the forest
far ahead of his more tardy followers, and leads the roaming life of the
Indian, but with the advantage of the arms, the arts, and the perseverance
of the Anglo-Saxon. But he is strictly a national writer. It is in the
delineation of Transatlantic character, scenes of the forest, or naval
adventures, that his great powers are shown; when he comes to paint the
manners, or lay the seat of his conceptions in Europe, he at once falls
to mediocrity, and sometimes becomes ridiculous.
Manzoni is an author of the highest excellence, whose celebrity has been
derived from the same faithful delineation from real life of national
manners. He has written but one novel, the _Promessi Sposi_; though
various other works, some religious, some historical, have proceeded from
his pen. But that one novel has given him a European reputation. It is
wholly different in composition and character from any other historical
romance in existence: it has no affinity either with Scott or Cooper,
Bulwer or James. The scene, laid in 1628, at the foot of the mountains
which shut in the Lake of Como, transports us back two centuries in point
of time, and to the south of the Alps in point of scene. As might be
expected, the ideas, characters, and incidents of such a romance differ
widely from those of northern climes and Protestant realms. That is one of
its great charms. We are transported, as it were, into a new world; and
yet a world so closely connected with our own, by the manners and ideas of
chivalry, our once common Catholic faith, and the associations which every
person of education has with Italian scenes and images, that we feel, in
traversing it, the pleasure of novelty without the _ennui_ of a strange
land. No translation could give an idea of the peculiar beauties and
excellences of the original. As might be expected, the feudal baron and
the Catholic church enter largely into the composition of the story. The
lustful passions, savage violence, and unbridled license of the former,
strong in his men-at-arms, castle battlements, and retainers; the
disinterested benevolence, charitable institutions, and paternal
beneficence of the latter, resting on the affections and experienced
benefits of mankind, are admirably depicted. His descriptions of the
plague, famine, and popular revolt at Milan, are masterpieces which never
were excelled. The saintlike character of Cardinal Borromeo, strong in the
sway of religion, justice, and charity, in the midst of the vehemence of
worldly passion and violence with which he is surrounded, is peculiarly
striking. It is fitted, like Guizot's _Lectures on History_, to illustrate
the incalculable advantage which arose, in an age of general rapine and
unsettled government, from the sway, the disinterestedness, and even the
superstitions, of religion.
But the greatest merit of the work is to be found in the admirable
delineation of the manners, ideas, hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, of
humble life with which it abounds. The hero of the piece is a silk-weaver
named Renzo, near Lecco, on the Lake of Como; the heroine Lucia, his
betrothed, the daughter of a poor widow in the same village; and the story
is founded on the stratagems and wiles of an unbridled baron in the
vicinity, whose passions had been excited by Lucia's beauty, first to
prevent her marriage, then to obtain possession of her person. In the
conception of such a piece is to be seen decisive evidence of the vast
change in human affairs, since the days when Tasso and Ariosto poured
forth to an admiring age, in the same country, the loves of high-born
damsels, the combats of knights, the manners, the pride, and the
exclusiveness of chivalry. In its execution, Manzoni is singularly
felicitous. He is minute without being tedious, graphic but not vulgar,
characteristic and yet never offensive. His pictures of human life, though
placed two centuries back, are evidently drawn from nature in these times:
the peasants whom he introduces are those of the plains of Lombardy at
this time; but though he paints them with the fidelity of an artist, it is
yet with the feelings of a gentleman. His details are innumerable--his
finishing is minute; but it is the minute finishing of Albert Durer or
Leonardo da Vinci, not of Teniers or Ostade. In this respect he offers a
striking contrast to the modern romance writers of France--Victor Hugo,
Janin, Madame Dudevant, and Sue--by whom vice and licentiousness are
exhibited with vast power, but more than their native undisguised
colours.--But this wide and interesting subject must be reserved for a
future occasion.