For her to have attempted it, would have been insanity; but for any one to have not attempted it, and yet to have attempted to write a novel, is we really know not what word to make use of, but imagine that fatuity' approaches nearer to our meaning than any other. We have adduced this instance, therefore, to prove-not (what is sufficiently self-evident) that Mrs. Gore is unequal to the task of writing a novel, but that she must be utterly incapable of understanding one. But this is only one instance, out of three volumes' full. We shall select one more, and we select it upon the same principle as the last-because, being illustrative of an ordinary fault of all pseudo novelists, we shall be able to make a general application of it. We have, in the last case, seen that Mrs. Gore's heroine (if we are to consider her as such) was a failure, owing to our knowing nothing about her. In the present we shall find a similar result, from our being told too much. We know not, indeed, whether to consider him the hero or not; but we presume that Lord Forreston was intended by Mrs. Gore for one of her extraordinary characters. Whatever he was intended for, however, we will tell her what he appears to be -a lazy, empty-headed, insignificant coxcomb, who has attained the age of forty and the listlessness of fifty, without having acquired the sense of thirty or laid aside the conceit of twenty. But he appears nothing worse. Now, in a novel, as in real life, we of course judge of the characters by what we see them do or hear them say. Retrospective evidence, indeed, (though always received with caution, if not with absolute distrust) may be allowed for the purpose of throwing light on what is passing upon the stage; but what novelist, who knows what he is about, would ever think of investing it with an interest independent of that of the main story? and who (except Mrs. Gore, or somebody like her) ever dreamt of huddling up into an episode of a chapter or so, more incidents than would form plots for a dozen of her novels, apparently for the mere purpose of rendering all that she had told us before unintelligible, and everything that she intended to tell us afterwards incredible? Here we have a character, such as we have above described, suddenly denounced to us as the perpetrator of a rape some eighteen years before. Now supposing us to be able (at the word of command) immediately to believe a circumstance so completely at variance with all our previous conceptions of him-when we meet with this too ardent lover afterwards playing the suitor to a young lady whom we suspected about to turn out to be his own daughter, we of course put ourselves in 'a concatenation accordingly,' and began to pack up for a journey across the Tweed; having before our eyes the fear of a catastrophe whose delicate embarrassment would require, and, perhaps, baffle the most powerful casuistry of even the law of Scotland. Mrs. Gore, however, discreetly considering that Edipus himself (even had he had the advantage of being a Scottish lawyer) might have found the enigma of his own family relations somewhat difficult of solution, settles the dilemma at once by informing us that Florence Dudley was too pure, too innocent, for Lord Forreston to attempt her seduction. Yet one short year ago we have seen this considerate gentleman endeavouring to corrupt a bride, (upon whose destruction, indeed, he is represented as, after the lapse of that year, still remorselessly bent); and as if for fear lest our too merciful judgment should be willing to give credit to this solitary trait of redeeming nature in so ruthless a profligate-we are given to understand that at the early age of twenty-when his heart might have been presumed to be not yet quite withered, and his conscience not already altogether seared-he had signalised himself by-not, indeed, the seduction, but the rape, of a victim who appears to have been innocent enough and pure enough, too, for aught that we can see. She is, at least, represented so, at the commencement of the affair, and we must certainly infer as much from the voie de fait in which it terminates. And here, by the mouth of the same witness, the same culprit-casehardened by a twenty years' apprenticeship to licentiousness-is represented as hanging back from the pursuit of a fresh victim, for the very cause which, of all others, would have given zest to the chace in the estimation of any libertine; but how much more so in the case of such a libertine as Lord Forreston. The libertinism, which even in youth must have had its source in a mere brutal instinct, unredeemed by one ray of sentiment, or a one spark of feeling, could scarcely part of the numerous adherents of the invariably unsuccessful. In the preBut we have one or two additional sent case, for instance, we have seen remarks to make upon this affair to which how an occurrence, which in the bare we have alluded. In the first place- dry statement of a newspaper would though it may perhaps beconsidered silly be horrible enough, under Mrs. Gore's -we confess we are squeamish enough management (with her ludicrous shifts to consider the introduction of such a re- to save the armorial bearings of the volting incident into the work of a wo- child froin blemish amidst events man a circumstance not very creditable which broke the heart of one parent, to her taste, to say the very least of it. and ought to have cost the life of the But let that pass. "We are not allowing other) becomes—such is the power of her sex as a mitigation, so it must not weakness—absolutely ridiculous. But not be brought up as an aggravation Mrs. Gore's failure does not result of her faults. But looking at the cir- merely from her imbecile execution cumstance simply in the light of an of her scheme ; it is inherent in abstract incident in a novel, we must its very nature. And a similar fate say that we think it altogether unwar- must invariably await all who expect rantable, as being utterly out of keep- their subject to achieve for them that ing with the rest of the picture. The interest which it is their business to quarrel of the lovers, indeed, itself is earn for it. As well might Atlas have perhaps rather a silly sort of an affair; clung to the globe upon his shoulders but lct that pass too. Though, on the for support. Nothing is so dangerous for a scribbler to dabble with, as a dish horrors he expected to freeze the blood of hell broth. From the ridiculous to or harrow up the soul, will teach him the sublime--from the raw head and in the hour of trial that he has been bloody bones of the nursery, for in- tampering with a perilous and mysteristance, to the witches' cauldron in ous talisman, which, at the touch of the Macbeth—there is, perhaps, only one wizard himself, indeed, can wake the step ; but that step is on enchanted very dead, but in the unskilful hands ground, where none but the initiated of his presumptuous satellite, has power are privileged to pass. It is, if we may only to paralyze their grasp. so express it, the step from darkness We do not, however, in general, find into light; which presents at once to that it is the great masters of the art our eyes, those terrors which we could who are peculiarly prone to deal in laugh at while addressed merely to our the delineations of exaggerated characears; and teaches us to tremble because ter: and for obvious reasons. Such we believe. Thus, to exemplify our an author (confident in the true, al., meaning by selecting an extreme case: chemy of genius) may select bis matewere such an author as Sir Walter rials at random; well knowing that Scott even to represent one of his cha- beneath his touch, though the adamant racters as working a miracle, we might, will mould like wax, yet even the perhaps, be content to wonder; be- potter's clay must turn to gold. Excause, were he to describe it, or (in travagance, as we have mentioned other words) were we to see it, how above, is the natural resource of innate could we choose but wonder? But, feebleness ; which finding itself unable let the same incident come before us to present us with a vigorous portrait merely upon hearsay; and that hearsay of human nature, in either its beauty also be such as we have previously or its deformity, attempts to supply begun to consider as rather of a cock- the one by a milk-and-water parody and-bull cast ; and, truly, we shall on an angel, and the other by a slipwonder only at the impudence of those slop caricature of a fiend. They who would attempt to play off such a endeavour to brighten their good chabarefaced hoax upon us ; and tossing racters to a degree which would dazzle their volumes aside with a yawn, us into an absolute blindness; and to roundly giving them to understand darken their bad ones into an utter while we are stretching ourselves, that blackness, which, as it would render we would not believe them, even (to every feature indistinguishable, must add an Irish intensitive) · had we no- consequently leave the whole portrait thing else to do. a mere blank in our imagination. The It is not, however, in appeals ad- study of such novelists as Mrs. Gore dressed to our imaginations that the again, discloses a fresh species to our full imprudence of exaggeration is view; whoare not content with collecting manifested. The imagination is a fluc- for the same picture those tints whose . tuating sort of faculty, varying in its gandy and marked character, instead excitability according to the variation of being (as they suppose) in themselves of persons, periods, and circumstances : sufficient to secure success, would in but our feelings are unerring, even themselves be enough to defy even the when our fancy may be hoaxed ; and hand of a master to blend or break he who would attempt to move the them up ; but (to mend the matter) heart, has to deal, not with a blindly they imagine the picture to be painted, obedient slave, prepared to crouch when in fact the colours are but laid beneath the rod of any one who may upon the pallet ;-and thus present us be disposed to play the tyrant; but with a patchwork jumble, compared to with a captious and refractory vassal which the motley of an ordinary fool which, while it can with difficulty be would be sobriety itself. brought under even the legitimate do- If there be one thing more ludicrous minion of the mightiest masters, is pre. than another about Mrs. Gore, it is pared not merely to disown, but to the grave candour with which she resent with proportionate indignation magnanimously admits,—not indeed her the impotent attempts of any intruding own failure, but that her plebeian rivals impostor to counterfeit their authority. have been unsuccessful in their attempts The very weight of the weapon by at this species of novel-manufacture. which the usurper trusts to enforce his Will it be believed, however, on our sway, will serve only to expose his report alone, that she has the imown imbecility; and the tale with whose pudence to enumerate Richardson a a as 6 amongst these disappointed adventur. vation,' said Mr. Edwards to Lord Wilers? We will not run the risk ; so we lersdale, perceiving that Florence had shall extract the passage : been an attentive listener. « « Such novels, and many others, form “Oh, as to an English modern novel, a mere reflexion of the scenes hourly with its my Lord Dukes, and Sir Harrys; passing around their writers ; and are a and caricatures of the beau monde, I hold valuable addition to our lighter literature. its vulgarity and bad taste as secondary Were the author of Anastasius to favor only to that of the columns of your news. us with a modern novel, for instance-its papers after a drawing-room ;--- which truth would necessarily equal its miracuannounce to admiring Europe, that Lady lous graphic force, A novel of fashionAlberville wore train of Pomona able life does not pre-suppose a tissue of green; and that some old withered puerile vulgarity.'" Marchioness, who has been morally defunct these twenty years, arose from the Is this endurable ? Richardson in catacombs in the identical robe of crimson his shop!' truly! Does Mrs. Gore velvet which ought to have been cover then really imagine that, when to a ing her coffin.' reader who had previously been **** We have perhaps had more than patiently toiling through her pages, enough of fashionable novels,' replied she has the imprudence to mention Lord Willersdale: "but as the amber such a name Richardson- and which serves to preserve the ephemeral when at that sound (swearing that flesh modes and caprices of the passing day, and blood can endure it no longer) he they have their value. They will prove springs from his task like the ghost at to a following generation what the the cock crow ;-does she really imagine comedies of Congreve, and Cibber, that at such a moment it is the 'shop' and Farquhar , have proved to ourselves. which occurs to his mind as the prinIt is from the ashes of our long extinguished high-life comedy, that this cipal distinction between Samuel Richswarm of triflers has arisen ; but it was ardson and the Honorable Mrs. Gore? the bent of public taste which originally But would the reader have ever guessed called it into existence.' which of Richardson's characters was “The worst fault of such productions,' to be selected as Mrs. Gore’s especial observed the bland and smiling Mr. Vy- victim? The starched Sir Charlesvyan, is the distortion of their portrai- the enthusiastic Clementina--the tame ture: the writers or painters generally Miss Byron-or the paragon Clarissa move in so base a sphere, that their up- -any-all of them but Lovelace. turned and wondering eyes necessarily Yet it is Lovelace himself-Lovedisfigure the objects of their art. Were lace-a portrait which by the bye, it not for Lady Mary Wortley's contem- while it has been the object of porary letters, we should accept Richard- incessant imitation, has never been son's Lovelace as the beau idéal of the even approached by any author of fine gentleman of his day; whereas we an age or any country- Lovelace is learn that the whole M. family were re- the character which is here attainted ;garded at the time as a vulgar outrage degraded from the dignity of the fine upon fashionable life. And lately, the gentleman of his day,'—and remorseMemoirs of Richelieu, and others of the lessly pelted by the ignominious miscourt of Louis XV. bave assured us that siles of such scribblers as Mrs. Gorethe heroes of Marmontel, airy and graceful of all the scribblers that ever adorned as they are, have not the slightest affinity envelopes for Princes' mixture, or with the originals they were intended to penned inscriptions for a cheese cake! delineate. « « That Richardson from his shop, and “ The eye that seeketh for instruction why look. Marmontel from his mansarde, may have eth it into the palaces of princes viewed the world of fashion in a dispro To behold how they have yielded to the ravages of time? portionate light, I can well conceive. The spider is chamberlain at the door of Khosrou, But ours is the age of aristocratic litera The owl hath sung her watch-song on the towers ture; and such novels as Tremaine, Granby, Pelham_ « « Tremaine !—that moralizing dri. Begging pardon for this involuntary veller!'interrupted Lady Isabella. rhapsody, all we mean to say is, that if “* A driveller of aqua fortis !" replied Hafez had lived in our own day, we could Lord Willersdale. have supplied him with a more striking “And Pelham !- with its sparkling illustration of the vanity of all things conceits, that blind one, as though the under the sun, than even the moulderpages were dried with diamond dust!" ing turrets of the proud Parvhis. Alas! ««You did not conclude your obser- poor Lovelace ! with his inimitable of Afraisab!" for a scribbler to dabble with, as a dish of hell broth. From the ridiculous to the sublime-from the raw head and bloody bones of the nursery, for instance, to the witches' cauldron in Macbeth-there is, perhaps, only one step; but that step is on enchanted ground, where none but the initiated are privileged to pass. It is, if we may so express it, the step from darkness into light; which presents at once to our eyes, those terrors which we could laugh at while addressed merely to our ears; and teaches us to tremble because we believe. Thus, to exemplify our meaning by selecting an extreme case: were such an author as Sir Walter Scott even to represent one of his characters as working a miracle, we might, perhaps, be content to wonder; because, were he to describe it, or (in other words) were we to see it, how could we choose but wonder? But, let the same incident come before us merely upon hearsay; and that hearsay also be such as we have previously begun to consider as rather of a cockand-bull cast; and, truly, we shall wonder only at the impudence of those who would attempt to play off such a barefaced hoax upon us; and tossing their volumes aside with a yawn, roundly giving them to understand while we are stretching ourselves, that we would not believe them, even (to add an Irish intensitive) had we nothing else to do.' It is not, however, in appeals addressed to our imaginations that the full imprudence of exaggeration is manifested. The imagination is a fluctuating sort of faculty, varying in its excitability according to the variation of persons, periods, and circumstances: but our feelings are unerring, even when our fancy may be hoaxed; and he who would attempt to move the heart, has to deal, not with a blindly obedient slave, prepared to crouch beneath the rod of any one who may be disposed to play the tyrant; but with a captious and refractory vassal which, while it can with difficulty be brought under even the legitimate dominion of the mightiest masters, is prepared not merely to disown, but to resent with proportionate indignation the impotent attempts of any intruding impostor to counterfeit their authority. The very weight of the weapon by which the usurper trusts to enforce his sway, will serve only to expose his own imbecility; and the tale with whose horrors he expected to freeze the blood or harrow up the soul, will teach him in the hour of trial that he has been tampering with a perilous and mysterious talisman, which, at the touch of the wizard himself, indeed, can wake the very dead, but in the unskilful hands of his presumptuous satellite, has power only to paralyze their grasp. We do not, however, in general, find that it is the great masters of the art who are peculiarly prone to deal in the delineations of exaggerated character: and for obvious reasons. Such an author (confident in the true alchemy of genius) may select his materials at random; well knowing that beneath his touch, though the adamant will mould like wax, yet even the potter's clay must turn to gold. Extravagance, as we have mentioned above, is the natural resource of innate feebleness; which finding itself unable to present us with a vigorous portrait of human nature, in either its beauty or its deformity, attempts to supply the one by a milk-and-water parody on an angel, and the other by a slipslop caricature of a fiend. They endeavour to brighten their good characters to a degree which would dazzle us into an absolute blindness; and to darken their bad ones into an utter blackness, which, as it would render every feature indistinguishable, must consequently leave the whole portrait a mere blank in our imagination. The study of such novelists as Mrs. Gore again, discloses a fresh species to our view; who are not content with collecting for the same picture those tints whose. gaudy and marked character, instead of being (as they suppose) in themselves sufficient to secure success, would in themselves be enough to defy even the hand of a master to blend or break them up; but (to mend the matter) they imagine the picture to be painted, when in fact the colours are but laid upon the pallet;-and thus present us with a patchwork jumble, compared to which the motley of an ordinary fool would be sobriety itself. If there be one thing more ludicrous than another about Mrs. Gore, it is the grave candour with which she magnanimously admits, not indeed her own failure, but that her plebeian rivals have been unsuccessful in their attempts at this species of novel-manufacture. Will it be believed, however, on our report alone, that she has the impudence to enumerate Richardson |