venient to give any consistent character. Of Pierre, his AngloGaulish servant, the humour (as Ben Jonson would say) is, that he is either a Frenchman or Englishman, as occasion serves; 'proud of being a British subject whenever profit or honour was attached to that title, while in every other, wherein the French bore the palm, he took care to claim a share of the distinction, by assuming them for his countrymen.' Though he has two countries, however, he has only one joke in his mouth. When rebuked for his gaiety by his master, who is vexed at successively mistaking his way, in endeavouring to reach Wokey Hole, in Somersetshire, he replies, Pardi, Monsieur, we always laugh at these things in France.' When wishing to disclaim any kindred with some barbarous lead-miners, he exclaims, Morbleu! we have no such savages in France.' Admiring the singular beauty and construction of the cavern, called Wokey Hole, he observes, 'Pardi! they have no such wonders in France;'-and so on to the end of the booby's history.-There is something a shade or two better in the characters of Sil Faucit, who keeps a publichouse, and of Friar Frank, of Glastonbury Abbey. We may also make an exception in favour of Sir John Dudley, but not one of them is of sufficient merit or importance to give a tone to the production.

The principal characters, we said, have been too much for the author. First, we have Sir Lionel Fitzmaurice, the king of the Tor, and guardian of Cecil Hungerford; whom he deprives of education, and endeavours to deprive of reason, for the purpose of securing to himself possession of his estates. Upon this character Mr. Smith has expended all his strength; but the imbecility of his all is pitiable. The purpose is to terrify the reader every time the name of Sir Lionel is written; but here is a vaulting ambition, that o'erleaps itself and falls on t'other side.' We are to believe that Sir Lionel is possessed of supernatural power, that he is a ' dabbler in the occult sciences, a pursuer of impious and forbidden studies, one who, for some unholy and horrible consideration, has formed a direct alliance with the powers of darkness.' He has, moreover, exclusive controul over the perjury market,' and by means of legal process acquires the manors and estates of his neighbours, and is, to complete the matter, unfaithful to his lady, and a bigamist. He is an adulterer, a despot, a murderer, and a magician. Here is a character with elements enough to produce effect; and yet the author has so contrived, the situations, as to be in no single instance successful in exciting the least emotion. The daughter of this dreadful personage is haughty, brilliant, and independent; but we are neither awed by her pride, dazzled by her beauty, nor inspired by her spirit. Cecil Hungerford is a

VOL. XXXV. NO. LXX.

20

boy

boy of delicate frame and crazy mind, but this is not all—he is also unnatural and unintelligible. He is the poetical personage of the piece, as far as the author can write poetically; and though totally uneducated, is made to say the best things in the best style that the writer can command. He exclaims, Life is but a spark that divides the darkness of the antenatal and posthumous infinities: but evanescent as it is, oh! that mine might more quickly become extinct.' And he addresses the sun in an eclipse, as the central eye of God, with its lid drawn down! We have before said, that the characters are better discriminated by the matter than the manner of the dialogue,-it is the matter of which we complain here. We have no objection to Mr. Cecil Hungerford's delivering his sentiments in accurate, or even elevated diction, if Mr. Horace Smith could put anything of the sort into his mouth, but it is with the sentiments themselves that we quarrel. They are altogether out of place, unnatural, and impossible.

We have reserved the mention of the only tolerable person in the book to the last, the wife of Sir Lionel Fitzmaurice. Incongruous as she is with the character of her husband, and although evidently introduced for the purpose of using up the author's learning relative to the cookery of the period, she stands out from amidst the dramatis personæ as the only being at all naturally conceived, or executed with any touches of common sense.

What these volumes are chiefly deficient in is dramatic interest. The author writes too much in his own person. Instead of suffering the action to pass in review, as on a stage, and the actors to speak for themselves, he is perpetually narrating and explaining. He has no dramatic power. This is the real secret of the inefficiency of his principal hero. He is said by the author to be a most active person-his machinations are said to extend everywhere-his matrimonial infidelity is said to be atrocious. All this is said, but nothing is done. Sir Lionel, in fact, does nothing. He has no meeting throughout the three volumes with the mistress whom he is said to have installed in one of his manor-houses. As far as the reader is cognizant of the fact, he scarcely stirs out of the Tor-House, and but seldom out of a particular room in it. Many actions are performed throughout the volumes with which Sir Lionel appears to have nothing to do, and in which we should not suspect him to be a party, until, in the last few pages of the last volume, we are told by a Father Barnabas, who is only introduced upon one trifling occasion before, and between whom and Sir Lionel not the least connexion is hinted previously, that he had been the prime agent of the king of the Tor, and had performed at his instance all these underhand tricks that were productive of so much distress. We, however, cannot believe Father Barnabas.

We

We have heard enough of Sir Lionel before, and seen him frequently at the Tor-House; but we never heard of Father Barnabas as having anything to do with him, or with anybody else; and we are quite sure that we never saw the two gentlemen together. Moreover, we know nothing of Father Barnabas: by his own account, he is but a bad sort of fellow; and therefore we do not, we will not, believe him. But whether we believe him or not, his evidence comes too late; the jury have been long inclosed, and are not to be disturbed with new witnesses after their nightcaps

are on.

Mr. Smith is equally deficient in dramatic language as in dramatic action: his dialogue has no eloquence, no animation; it is stiff and lifeless. He endeavours to catch the colloquial and even style of his master, but without effect. In this he resembles an inferior performer, who attempts to imitate the level manner of speaking in which a popular actor is so excellent, and in the attempt deprives his own delivery of all intonation. He who splits the ears of the groundlings,' does something; he makes some impression, though a disagreeable one: but the other excites no emotion, as he feels none. His tones are not subdued for the suppression, but from the absence, of passion. So it is with Mr. Horace Smith; had he elected to write in more inflated language, perhaps he would have written better. His genius does not appear to require breaking-in; we suspect that it was never very restive: his style wants elevation, not reduction. Each of the chapters of Tor Hill is introduced with a stanza in verse, written by the author, as a motto. a motto. All these verses, without exception, are mere doggrel. Here is a specimen :—

Alas! poor fond and simple dame!
When wedded love has lost its flame,
There's no revival.

Your husband sighs for guilty fires,
Therefore it is that he admires

And loves your rival.'

Perhaps this is exceeded by the following:

'None can that fatal sword withstand;

"Tis wielded by a ruthless hand,

Inured to tragic

Deeds of blood; 'tis said, he's armed
With talismans, his weapon's charmed

By rites of magic.'

But enough of this. Of the author's woeful and eternal mistakes in heraldry and the like matters, we have said nothing; nor of some gross bulls and solecisms in expression; nor of the injudicious admixtures of the old and new in style and subject:

we have only hinted at his mere affectation of antiquarian detail, while the spirit of antiquity is altogether wanting; for where genius is, all smaller faults are redeemed by its absorbing and transcending energy; and where genius is not, it is but laborious idleness to expose the errors of ignorance, inadvertence, or presumption. But we have said sufficient to show that, however inferior the later productions of the author of Waverley may be to his earlier ones, yet out of all sight and measure they excel those of his imitators (for Mr. Smith is only a fair specimen of a whole regiment of these.) We have judged the former by a high standard; we have looked upon them in the light of the prose epic, and compared them with the loftiest dramatic efforts, because we felt that they could abide the comparison. To have attempted this with the latter would have been futile; they are incapable of being measured by anything of an elevated stature, and we have found it impossible to abstract from them any rules of good writing. We have not estimated either by critical dogmas. We have only wished to exhibit the practice of both authors; we leave it to the taste of our readers to make their election.

It is clear enough that this end would have been still more triumphantly answered had it been our business to review the earlier productions of the Novelist of Scotland; and yet here we have to blame ourselves in so far; for there is one work among his later productions, worthy of the earliest reputation of this prolific writer the Crusaders. It is deserving of much more detailed consideration than we shall be enabled to bestow upon it, owing to the length to which this article has already extended. Of the two tales, the Betrothed has much wild grace and delicate romance; but the Talisman is of surpassing grandeur and effect. This latter story is constructed with the skill of a consummate artist. The incipient poet and novelist might learn from this the proper use of traditionary lore and historical knowledge. The historical characters here are not introduced accidentally: something more than their mere names is given; they are active agents, having all the attributes of personality, and the vigour of real existence.

How poetical is the subject! how creative the invention of the poet! his style is elegant, his sentiments are fine, and his moral noble. The diction and the dialogue are as highly polished as in Lessing's dramas; the plot is evolved with as excellent skill. The dramatis personæ are happily discriminated. What chivalry in Sir Kenneth-what noble affection in Lady Edith-what feminine majesty in the Queen Beringaria-what blunt honesty in the Lord de Vaux-what leonine bravery in Richard! The English hero is well contrasted with the imbecile Duke of Austria and the

politic

politic King of France. The two dwarfs are embellishments as graceful as grotesque, and the Hermit of Engaddi is an impersonation no less imaginative than savage and fantastic. Saladin, in his several characters of emir, physician, and soldan, is replete with excellent attributes, such only as a master could have so delicately blended and so effectively distinguished. The Saladin of the novelist might, not without advantage, be compared with Lessing's Saladin in Nathan the Wise. But our chapter of comparisons must come to an end.

To Lessing, the Germans are indebted for their admiration of Shakspeare's genius, and their knowledge of his inimitable writings. He seems perfectly to have understood the principles of dramatic composition, and the true nature of poetry. He perceived almost intuitively, and proceeded to demonstrate, that the so-called irregularities of Shakspeare were not essentially violations of the rules of Aristotle, as asserted by the French critics; not offences against the principles of dramatic writing, but only deviations from the mere accidents of the Greek theatre, which, having no foundation in nature, resulted from the peculiar necessities of their modes of representation. He saw that the conveniences of the modern stage offered advantages not possessed by the ancients, and in benefiting by which the poet was not only justified, but fulfilled the higher purposes of art, and worked more in the spirit of the precepts of Aristotle than they who, without genial ambition, bound themselves slavishly to the dead letter. The dramatic works of Lessing, composed under these convictions, differ from what is generally understood by the German drama; being chaste and sober, well-constructed and highly polished. The ideal of the German drama may be found in the Robbers, the irregularities of which are essentially different from those of any work of Shakspeare. They offend not only against the unities, but the better principles of the poetic art. Schiller lived to consider his earliest work as a dramatic monster, and, in some of his later productions, went to the contrary extreme. In the meantime, however, many thought themselves released, by the doctrines of Lessing, and the example of Shakspeare, from the authority not only of Aristotle but of nature—a presumptuous error, and one for which we have no toleration.

He who has most improved the advantages, very early discovered the disadvantages, of the historical fable. In works the interest of which depends greatly, though not mainly, on the excitement of curiosity, it is an inconvenience that the denoument should be anticipated from the beginning. To avoid this inconvenience, he suspended that species of interest on the fictitious portion of his

narrative.—