Delivered in the House of Commons, Thursday, May 18, 1837. Delivered in the House of Commons, Wednesday, April 25, 1838. TALFOURD'S MISCELLANIES. I OF THE UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA ON BRITISH NOVELS AND ROMANCES, INTRODUCTORY TO A SERIES OF CRITICISMS ON THE LIVING NOVELISTS. [NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.] WE regard the authors of the best novels fair and glistening eyes in moments snatched and romances as among the truest benefactors from repose, and beneath counters and shopof their species. Their works have often con- boards minister delights "secret, sweet, and veyed, in the most attractive form, lessons of precious." It is possible that, in particular the most genial wisdom. But we do not prize instances, their effects may be baneful; but, on them so much in reference to their immediate the whole, we are persuaded they are good. aim, or any individual traits of nobleness with The world is not in danger of becoming too which they may inform the thoughts, as for romantic. The golden threads of poesy are not their general tendency to break up that cold too thickly or too closely interwoven with the and debasing selfishness with which the souls ordinary web of existence. Sympathy is the of so large a portion of mankind are encrusted. first great lesson which man should learn. It They give to a vast class, who by no means will be ill for him if he proceeds no farther; if would be carried beyond the most contracted his emotions are but excited to roll back on his range of emotion, an interest in things out of heart, and to be fostered in luxurious quiet. themselves, and a perception of grandeur and But unless he learns to feel for things in which of beauty, of which otherwise they might ever he has no personal interest, he can achieve have lived unconscious. Pity for fictitious suf- nothing generous or noble. This lesson is in ferings is, indeed, very inferior to that sympa- reality the universal moral of all excellent rothy with the universal heart of man which mances. How mistaken are those miserable inspires real self-sacrifice; but it is better even reasoners who object to them as giving "false to be moved by its tenderness, than wholly to be pictures of life-of purity too glossy and etheignorant of the joy of natural tears. How real-of friendship too deep and confiding-of many are there for whom poesy has no charm, love which does not shrink at the approach of and who have derived only from romances ill, but looks on tempests and is never shaken," those glimpses of disinterested heroism and because with these the world too rarely blosideal beauty, which alone "make them less for- soms! Were these things visionary and unlorn," in their busy career! The good house- real, who would break the spell, and bid the dewife, who is employed all her life in the seve-licious enchantment vanish? The soul will rest drudgery, has yet some glimmerings of a state and dignity above her station and age, and some dim vision of meek, angelic suffering, when she thinks of the well-thumbed volume of Clarissa Harlowe, which she found, when a girl, in some old recess, and read, with breathless eagerness, at stolen times and moments of hasty joy. The careworn lawyer or politician, encircled with all kinds of petty anxieties, thinks of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, which he devoured in his joyful school-days, and is once more young, and innocent, and happy. If the sternest puritan were acquainted with Parson Adams, or with Dr. Primrose, he could not hate the clergy. If novels are not the deepest teachers of humanity, they have, at least, the widest range. They lend to genius "lighter wings to fly." They are read where Milton and Shakspeare are only talked of, and where even their names are never heard. They nestle gently beneath the covers of unconscious sofas, are read by not be the worse for thinking too well of its kind, or believing that the highest excellence is within the reach of its exertions. But these things are not unreal; they are shadows, indeed, in themselves; but they are shadows cast from objects stately and eternal. Man can never imagine that which has no foundation in his nature. The virtues he conceives are not the mere pageantry of his thought. We feel their truth-not their historic or individual truth-but their universal truth, as reflexes of human energy and power. It would be enough for us to prove that the imaginative glories which are shed around our being, are far brighter than "the light of common day," which mere vulgar experience in the course of the world diffuses. But, in truth, that radiance is not merely of the fancy, nor are its influences lost when it ceases immediately to shine on our path. It is holy and prophetic. The best joys of childhood-its boundless aspiratious and gorgeous dreams, are the sure indications one of the grandest of tragic heroines, and the divinest of religious enthusiasts. Clarissa alone is above her. Clementina steps statelily in her very madness, amidst "the pride, pomp, and circumstance" of Italian nobility; Clarissa is triumphant, though violated, deserted, and of the nobleness of its final heritage. All the | purity of an angel. She is at the same time softenings of evil to the moral vision by the gentleness of fancy, are proofs that evil itself shall perish. Our yearnings after ideal beauty show that the home of the soul which feels them, is in a lovelier world. And when man describes high virtues, and instances of nobleness, which rarely light on earth; so sub-encompassed by vice and infamy. Never can lime that they expand our imaginations beyond their former compass, yet so human that they make our hearts gush with delight; he discovers feelings in his own breast, and awakens sympathies in ours, which shall assuredly one day have real and stable objects to rest on! The early times of England-unlike those of Spain-were not rich in chivalrous romances. The imagination seems to have been chilled by the manners of the Norman conquerors. The domestic contests for the disputed throne, with their intrigues, battles, and executions, have none of that rich, poetical interest, which attended the struggles for the Holy Sepulchre. Nor, in the golden age of English genius, were there any very remarkable works of pure fiction. Since that period to the present day, however, there has been a rich succession of novels and romances, each increasing the stores of innocent delight, and shedding on human life some new tint of tender colouring. we forget that amazing scene, in which, on the effort of her mean seducer to renew his outrages, she appears in all the radiance of mental purity, among the wretches assembled to witness his triumph, where she startles them by her first appearance, as by a vision from above; and holding the penknife to her breast, with her eyes lifted to heaven, prepares to die, if her craven destroyer advances, striking the vilest with deep awe of goodness, and walking placidly, at last, from the circle of her foes, none of them daring to harm her! How pathetic, above all other pathos in the world, are those snatches of meditation which she commits to the paper, in the first delirium of her wo! How delicately imagined are her preparations for that grave in which alone she can find repose! Cold must be the hearts of those who can conceive them as too elaborate, or who can venture to criticise them. In this novel all appears most real; we feel enveloped, like Don Quixote, by a thousand threads; and like him, would we rather remain so for ever, than break one of their silken fibres. Clarissa Harlowe is one of the books which leave us different beings from those which they find us. "Sadder and wiser" do we arise from its perusal. The novels of Richardson are at once among the grandest and the most singular creations of human genius. They combine an accurate acquaintance with the freest libertinism, and the sternest professions of virtue-a sporting with vicious casuistry, and the deepest horror of free-thinking-the most stately ideas of paternal authority, and the most elaborate Yet when we read Fielding's novels after display of its abuses. Prim and stiff, almost those of Richardson, we feel as if a stupenwithout parallel, the author perpetually treads dous pressure were removed from our souls. on the very borders of indecorum, but with a We seem suddenly to have left a palace of solemn and assured step, as if certain that he enchantment, where we have past through could never fall. "The precise, strait-laced long galleries filled with the most gorgeous Richardson," says Mr. Lamb in one of the pro- images, and illumined by a light not quite found and beautiful notes to his specimens, human nor yet quite divine, into the fresh air, "has strengthened vice from the mouth of and the common ways of this "bright and Lovelace, with entangling sophistries, and ab- breathing world." We travel on the high struse pleas against her adversary virtue, road of humanity, yet meet in it pleasanter which Sedley, Villiers, and Rochester wanted companions, and catch more delicious snatches depth of libertinism sufficient to have invent- of refreshment, than ever we can hope else ed." He had, in fact, the power of making any where to enjoy. The mock heroic of Fieldset of notions, however fantastical, appear as ing, when he condescends to that ambiguous "truths of holy writ," to his readers. This he style, is scarcely less pleasing than its stately did by the authority with which he disposed of prototype. It is a sort of spirited defiance to all things, and by the infinite minuteness of his fiction, on the behalf of reality, by one who details. His gradations are so gentle, that we knew full well all the strongholds of that do not at any one point hesitate to follow him, nature which he was defending. There is not and should descend with him to any depth in Fielding much of that which can properly before we perceived that our path had been be called ideal-if we except the character of unequal. By the means of this strange magic, Parson Adams; but his works represent life we become anxious for the marriage of Pa- as more delightful than it seems to common mela with her base master; because the author experience, by disclosing those of its dear imhas so imperceptibly wrought on us the belief munities, which we little think of, even when of an awful distance between the rights of an we enjoy them. How delicious are all his reesquire and his servant, that our imaginations freshments at all his inns! How vivid are regard it in the place of all moral distinctions. the transient joys of his heroes, in their After all, the general impression made on us checkered course-how full and overflowing by his works is virtuous. Clementina is to are their final raptures! His Tom Jones is the soul a new and majestic image, inspired by quite unrivalled in plot, and is to be rivalled virtue and by love, which raises and refines its only in his own works for felicitous delineconceptions. She has all the depth and in-ation of character. The little which we have tensity of the Italian character, with all the told us of Allworthy, especially that which re lates to his feelings respecting his deceased | fair; the blameless vanities of his daughters, wife, makes us feel for him, as for one of the and his resignation under his accumulated best and most revered friends of our child- sorrows, are among the best treasures of mehood. Was ever the "soul of goodness in mory. The pastoral scenes in this exquisite things evil" better disclosed, than in the tale are the sweetest in the world. The scents scruples and the dishonesty of Black George, of the hay-field, and of the blossoming hedgethat tenderest of gamekeepers, and truest of rows, seem to come freshly to our senses. thieves? Did ever health, good-humour, frank- The whole romance is a tenderly-coloured heartedness, and animal spirits hold out so picture, in little, of human nature's most freshly against vice and fortune as in the genial qualities. hero! Was ever so plausible a hypocrite as Blifil, who buys a Bible of Tom Jones so delightfully, and who, by his admirable imitation of virtue, leaves it almost in doubt, whether, by a counterfeit so dexterous, he did not merit some share of her rewards? Who shall gainsay the cherry lips of Sophia Western? The story of Lady Bellaston we confess to be a blemish. But if there be any vice left in the work, the fresh atmosphere diffused over all its scenes, will render it innoxious. Joseph Andrews has far less merit as a story-but it depicts Parson Adams, whom it does the heart good to think on. He who drew this character, if he had done nothing else, would not have lived in vain. We fancy we can see him with his torn cassock, (in honour of his high profession,) his volumes of sermons, which we really wish had been printed, and his Eschylus, the best of all the editions of that sublime tragedian! Whether he longs after his own sermons against vanity-or is absorbed in the romantic tale of the fair Leonora-or uses his ox-like fists in defence of the fairer Fanny, he equally imbodies in his person, "the homely beauty of the good old cause," of high thoughts, pure imaginations, and manners unspotted by the world. Smollet seems to have had more touch of romance than Fielding, but not so profound and intuitive a knowledge of humanity's hidden treasures. There is nothing in his works comparable to Parson Adams; but then, on the other hand, Fielding has not any thing of the kind equal to Strap. Partridge is dry, and hard, compared with this poor barber-boy, with his generous overflowings of affection. Roderick Random, indeed, with its varied delineation of life, is almost a romance. Its hero is worthy of his name. He is the sport of fortune rolled about through the "many ways of wretchedness," almost without resistance, but ever catching those tastes of joy which are everywhere to be relished by those who are willing to receive them. We seem to roll on with him, and get delectably giddy in his company. The humanity of the Vicar of Wakefield is less deep than that of Roderick Random, but sweeter tinges of fancy are cast over it. The sphere in which Goldsmith's powers moved was never very extensive, but within it he discovered all that was good, and shed on it the tenderest lights of his sympathizing genius. No one ever excelled so much as he in depicting amiable follies and endearing weaknesses. His satire makes us at once smile at and love all that he so tenderly ridicules. The good Vicar's trust in Monogamy, his son's purchase of the spectacles, his own sale of his horse to his solemn admirer at the De Foe is one of the most extraordinary of English authors. His Robinson Crusoe is. deservedly one of the most popular of novels. It is usually the first read, and always among the last forgotten. The interest of its scenes in the uninhabited island is altogether peculiar; since there is nothing to develope the character but deep solitude. Man, there, is alone in the world, and can hold communion only with nature, and nature's God. There is nearly the same situation in Philoctetes, that sweetest of the Greek tragedies; but there we only see the poor exile as he is about to leave his sad abode, to which he has become attached, even with a child-like cleaving. In Robinson Crusoe, life is stripped of all its social joys, yet we feel how worthy of cherishing it is, with nothing but silent nature to cheer it. Thus are nature and the soul, left with no other solace, represented in their native grandeur and intense communion. With how fond an interest do we dwell on all the exertions of our fellow-man, cut off from his kind; watch his growing plantations as they rise, and seem to water them with our tears! The exceeding vividness of all the descriptions are more delightful when combined with the loneliness and distance of the scene "placed far amid the melancholy main" in which we become dwellers. We have grown so familiar with the solitude, that the print of man's foot seen in the sand seems to appal us as an awful thing!-The Family Instructor of this author, in which he inculcates weightily his own notions of puritanical demeanour and parental authority, is very curious. It is a strange mixture of narrative and dialogue, fanaticism and nature; but all done with such earnestness that the sense of its reality never quits us. Nothing, however, can be more harsh and unpleasing than the impression which it leaves. It does injustice both to religion and the world. It represents the innocent pleasures of the latter as deadly sins, and the former as most gloomy, austere, and exclusive. One lady resolves on poisoning her husband, and another determines to go to the play, and the author treats both offences with a severity nearly equal! Far different from this ascetic novel is that best of religious romances, the Fool of Quality. The piety there is at once most deep and most benign. There is much, indeed, of eloquent mysticism, but all evidently most heartfelt and sincere. The yearnings of the soul after universal good and intimate communion with the divine nature were never more nobly shown. The author is most prodigal of his intellectual wealth-"his bounty is as boundless as the sea, his love as deep." He gives to his chief characters riches endless as the spiritual stores of his own heart. It is, indeed, of gratitude, Mrs. Radcliffe's wild and wononly the last which gives value to the first in drous tales. When we read them, the world his writings. It is easy to endow men with seems shut out, and we breathe only in an enmillions on paper, and to make them willing chanted region, where lover's lutes tremble to scatter them among the wretched; but it is over placid waters, mouldering castles rise the corresponding bounty and exuberance of conscious of deeds of blood, and the sad voices the author's soul, which here makes the mo- of the past echo through deep vaults and lonely ney sterling, and the charity divine. The galleries. There is always majesty in her terhero of this romance always appears to our rors. She produces more effect by whispers imagination like a radiant vision encircled and slender hints than ever was attained by with celestial glories. The stories introduced the most vivid display of horrors. Her conin it are delightful exceptions to the usual rule clusions are tame and impotent almost without by which such incidental tales are properly example. But while her spells actually operegarded as impertinent intrusions. That of rate, her power is truly magical. Who can David Doubtful is of the most romantic in- ever forget the scene in the Romance of the terest, and at the same time steeped in feeling Forest, where the marquis, who has long the most profound. But that of Clement and sought to make the heroine the victim of licenhis wife is perhaps the finest. The scene in tious love, after working on her protector, over which they are discovered, having placidly whom he has a mysterious influence, to steal lain down to die of hunger together, in gentle at night into her chamber, and when his tremsubmission to Heaven, depicts a quiescence bling listener expects only a requisition for the most sublime, yet the most affecting. No- delivering her into his hands, replies to the thing can be more delightful than the sweeten-question of "then-to-night, my Lord!" "Adeing ingredients in their cup of sorrow. The laide dies"-or the allusions to the dark veil in heroic act of the lady to free herself from her the Mysteries of Udolpho-or the stupendous ravisher's grasp, her trial and her triumphant scenes in Spalatro's cottage? Of all romance acquittal, have a grandeur above that of writers Mrs. Radcliffe is the most romantic. tragedy. The genial spirit of the author's The present age has produced a singular faith leads him to exult especially in the re-number of authors of delightful prose fiction, pentance of the wicked. No human writer on whom we intend to give a series of critiseems ever to have hailed the contrite with so cisms. We shall begin with MACKENZIE, cordial a welcome. His scenes appear over- whom we shall endeavour to compare with spread with a rich atmosphere of tenderness, Sterne, and for this reason we have passed which softens and consecrates all things. over the works of the latter in our present cursory view of the novelists of other days. We would not pass over, without a tribute MACKENZIE. [NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.] ALTHOUGH Our veneration for Mackenzie has induced us to commence this series of articles with an attempt to express our sense of his genius, we scarcely know how to criticise its exquisite creations. The feelings which they have awakened within us are too old and too sacred almost for expression. We scarcely dare to scrutinize with a critic's ear, the blending notes of that sad and soft music of humanity which they breathe. We feel as if there were a kind of privacy in our sympathies with them as though they were a part of ourselves, which strangers knew not-and as if in publicly expressing them, we were violating the sanctities of our own souls. We must recollect, however, that our readers know them as well as we do, and then to dwell with them tenderly on their merits will seem like discoursing of the long-cherished memories of friends we had in common, and of sorrows participated in childhood. The purely sentimental style in which the tales of Mackenzie are written, though deeply felt by the people, has seldom met with due appreciation from the critics. It has its own genuine and peculiar beauties, which we love the more the longer we feel them. Its consecrations are altogether drawn from the soul. The gentle tinges which it casts on human life are shed, not from the imagination or the fancy, but from the affections. It represents, indeed, humanity as more tender, its sorrows as more gentle, its joys as more abundant than they appear to common observers. But this is not effected by those influences of the imagination which consecrate whatever they touch, which detect the secret analogies of beauty, and bring kindred graces from all parts of nature to heighten the images which they reveal. It affects us rather by casting off from the soul those impurities and littlenesses which it contracts in the world, than by foreign aids. It appeals to those simple emotions which are not the high prerogatives of genius, but which are common to all who are "made of one blood," and partake in one primal sympathy. The holiest feelings, after all, are those which would be the most common if gross selfish |