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Without going into a dreamy discussion on the _literature_ of this work,
we venture to say it has rather retrograded from, than improved upon the
volume of last year. Great and titled names only furnish the _gilt:_ and
this fact is now so generally understood, that readers are no longer
deceived by them, in the quality of the gingerbread. Mr. Watts is so
convinced of this fact, that he has given the cut direct to many titled
authors; and, for aught we know, he has produced as good a volume this
year as on any former occasion. The proprietor of the _Keepsake_ appears
to think otherwise; and his editor has accordingly produced a book of
very meagre interest, though of mightier pretensions than his rivals.
Months ago we were told by announcement, paragraph and advertisement, of
a tragedy, _The House of Aspen_, by Sir Walter Scott, which now turns
out to be as dull an affair as any known in these days of dramatic
poverty and theatrical ups and downs. Sir Walter, in an advertisement of
great modesty, dated April 1, says, that "being of too small a size of
consequence for a separate publication, the piece is sent as a
contribution to the _Keepsake_, where its demerits may be hidden amid
the beauties of more valuable articles." The piece has been adapted to a
minor stage with some effect, but nothing higher than a melodrama. We
have neither room nor inclination to extract a scene, but one of the
metrical pieces has tempted us:--
Sweet shone the sun on the fair Lake of Toro,
Weak were the whispers that waved the dark wood,
As a fair maiden bewilder'd in sorrow,
Sigh'd to the breezes and wept to the flood.
"Saints from the mansion of bliss lowly bending,
Virgin, that hear'st the poor suppliant's cry,
Grant my petition, in anguish ascending.
My Frederick restore, or let Eleanor die."
Distant and faint were the sounds of the battle,
With the breezes they rise, with the breezes they fail,
Till the shout, and the groan, and the conflict's dread rattle,
And the chase's wild clamour came loading the gale.
Breathless she gaz'd through the woodland so dreary,
Slowly approaching, a warrior was seen;
Life's ebbing tide mark'd his footstep so weary,
Cleft was his helmet, and woe was his mien.
"Save thee, fair maid, for our armies are flying;
Save thee, fair maid, for thy guardian is low;
Cold on yon heath thy bold Frederick is lying,
Fast through the woodland approaches the foe."
Two of the best stories are The Bride, by Theodore Hook, and the
Shooting Star, an Irish tale, by Lord Nugent; and a Dialogue for the
year 2310, by the author of Granby, has considerable smartness. The
scene is in London, where one of the speakers has just arrived "from out
of Scotland; breakfasted this morning at Edinburgh, and have not been in
town above a couple of hours. The roads are dreadfully heavy now:
conceive my having been seven hours and a half coming from Edinburgh to
London. Killing between four and five thousand head of game in one day
is shooting ill; and one of the party has a gun which would give
twenty-seven discharges in a minute, and mine would give only
twenty-five. I really must change my maker. Have you seen the last new
invention, the hydro-potassian lock?" Hunting machines, that would fly
like balloons over a ten-foot wall--A candidate for the Circumnavigation
Club, who has been four times round the world in his own, yacht--A point
of bad taste to make a morning call by daylight--Dining at twelve
P.M.--A spring-door with a self-acting knocker, which gives a treble
knock, and is opened by a steam porter in livery--A chair mounting from
the hall, through the ceiling, into the drawing room--Talking to a lady
two miles off through a telescope, till one's fingers ache--A
callisthenic academy for the children of pauper operatives--An automaton
note-writer--A lady professing ignorance of Almack's, "a club where
Swift and Johnson used to meet, but I don't profess to be an
antiquarian"--"Love and Algebra," one of the common scientific novels
thumbed by coal-heavers and orange-women, very well for the common
people--Every thing is taught them now by means of scientific novels:
such as "Geological Atoms, or the Adventures of a Dustman"--Doubted
very much whether English wheat is fit for any thing but the brute
creation--Dark times of the 19th century--Six-hourly and half-daily
newspapers--"_apropos_, as the hackney-coachmen say"--Turkey, one
of the southern provinces of Russia--His Majesty Jonathan III. of
Washington--The Emperor of India--The Burmese Republic--English the
language of three-fourths of Asia, nine-tenths of North America, half
Africa, and all the insular states in the South Seas--and England, that
little kingdom, with a population of not more than forty millions, has
had the honour of colonizing half the globe; but "these countries are
our colonies no longer." Such are a few of the wonders of 2130! In the
Dialogue is an admirable joke with a scientific street-sweeper and a
learned beggar, who pleads _necessitas non habet legem_, and "embraces
the profession of an operative mendicant." But here is a _morceau_:
_Lady D._--Ah! Lord A.! Mr. C.! most unexpected persons both! I heard
only yesterday that one of you was in Greenland, and the other in
Africa. What false reports they circulate!
_Lord A._--The reports were true not long ago, and I believe we returned
about the same time. You, Lady D., have been also travelling, I believe.
_Lady D._--Yes, we were out of England in the winter. Our physician
commanded a warmer climate for Lord D. so we took a villa on the Niger,
and afterwards spent a short time at Sackatoo.
_Mr. C._--I suppose you found it full of English?
_Lady D._--Oh, quite full--and such a set! We knew hardly any of them.
In fact, we did not go there for society. We met a few pleasant people,
Australians; the Abershaws, the Hardy Vauxes, and Sir William and Lady
Soames.
_Mr. C._--Did you go by the new Tangier and Timbuctoo road?
_Lady D._--Yes, we did, and we found it excellent. By the bye, Lord A.,
to digress to a different latitude, how did you succeed in your last
excursion to the North Pole?
_Lord A._--To tell you the truth, extremely ill; we had most
improvidently taken with us scarcely enough of the _solvent_ to work our
way through the ice, and our concentrated essence of caloric was found
to be of a very inferior quality. I shall try again next summer.
_Lady D._--I believe we shall go to Spitzbergen ourselves.
_Lord A._--I am happy to think that, in that case, I may perhaps have
the pleasure of meeting you there on my return. I must go to the Pole,
by the way of North Georgia: I am engaged to visit an Eskimaux friend.
Still more ludicrous are the following historical blunders:--One of the
party asks how Napoleon is introduced in an historical novel of 1830?
The reply is--"He and the Emperor Alexander of Russia are introduced
dining with the King at Brighton. Napoleon quarrels with the two
sovereigns, and challenges them to a personal encounter. Each claims the
right of fighting by deputy. The King of England appoints his prime
minister, the Duke of Wellington; the Emperor Alexander appoints Prince
Kutusoff. The Duke of Wellington is to go out first, and is to meet
Napoleon at Battersea Fields. There were open fields at Battersea:
_then_: only think! open fields! I don't know how the duel ends--I am
just in the midst of it--it is so interesting."
The author of _Anastasius_ (Mr. Thos. Hope) has contributed five or six
pages on Self-love, Sympathy, and Selfishness--which are deep enough for
any Lady D. of this or the next century. We expected a powerful and
picturesque tale of the East, and not such sententious matter as
this:--"Every sentient entity, from the lowest of brutes to the highest
of human beings, desires self-gratification:" we may add, a principle as
well understood in Covent-garden as in Portland-place. Mr. Banim has
written The Hall of the Castle, an interesting Irish story; and Lord
Normanby, The Prophet of St. Paul's, of the date of 1514--which
concludes the volume.
Among the Poetry are some pretty verses by Lord Porchester; but it is
well that metrical pieces do not predominate, for some of the writers
are sadly unmusical sonneteers.
The "Letters from Lord Byron to several Friends" are not of interest
enough for the space they occupy.
The _Plates_ are beyond praise. The Frontispiece Portrait of Lady
Georgiana Agar Ellis, by Charles Heath, is one of the most exquisite
ever engraved; and two plates illustrating Sir Walter Scott's _House of
Aspen_ have the effect of beautiful pictures on a blank wall. _Two_
views of Virginia Water are, perhaps, questionable in the same volume;
but they are admirably engraved. Wilkie's "beautiful, though," as Lord
Normanby says, "somewhat slight cabinet picture of the Princess Doria
and the Pilgrims[1]" has been finely executed by Heath; and a View of
Venice, from a drawing by Prout, is a masterpiece of Freebairne. Equal
to either of these is The Faithful Servant, engraved by Goodyear, after
Cooper, and Dorothea, the title-page plate. Of The Bride, engraved by
Charles Heath, from a picture by Leslie, it is impossible to speak in
terms of sufficient praise, as it is, without exception, one of the
loveliest prints ever beheld. We have had our laugh at The Portrait, a
scene from Foote, painted by Smirke, and engraved by Portbury. Its whim
and humour is describable only by the British Aristophanes. We can only
add, that it is Lady Pentweazle sitting to Carmine for her portrait--the
look that he despairs of imitating, as we do Foote's account of her
family:--
[1] Some nice calculators have estimated that the various sums
received by Mr. Wilkie for the supplies he has furnished to the
Illustrations of the Annuals of the coming season amount to
upwards of £1,000.--_Athenaeum_.
"All my family, by the mother's side, are famous for their eyes. I have
a great aunt amongst the beauties at Windsor; she has a sister at
Hampton Court, a perdegeous fine woman! she had but one eye, but that
was a piercer: that one eye got her three husbands."
The painter appears to us to be a portrait of Foote. We ought not to
forget to mention, at least, Francis I. and his Sister, splendidly
engraved by C. Heath, from a picture by Bonington.
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