Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 359, September 1845

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 aërial 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 Heloïse 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 Cyropædia 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 Cœur-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 Staël, "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 - Essai sur les Fictions.] 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 Vendée, 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 Staël'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 Æschylus 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 Hæmon 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.

A FEW WORDS FOR BETTINA

There seems a very general belief among sensible people that we have had enough of the Germans. What with barons, and princes, and geheimraths, and consistorialraths, and poets, and philosophers, burying their profundity in tobacco smoke, and other "reek" more impervious still, we certainly have had enough in book and essay, for the last few years, of the German Man. And, latterly, the German women have come in for their share. If the men have been puffed and praised till their very names are ridiculous and offensive, it is not so with the gracious and high-born ladies. All the old dowagers that flourish a goose-quill make a simultaneous assault on the unfortunate "frau," or "fraulein;" pedantic old bachelors are horrified at the wildness of some of the female Godwin's observations, and fall to, in the general mélée, tugging and tearing at the miserable damsel till not a shred is left to cover her; and starched old maids, who have been wondering for twenty years if Woman can etherealize society, rejoice to see the punishment of such a presuming minx, and encourage the performers with all their might. The attack may be very spirited, and the culprit properly trounced in most cases – so we are contented to leave the fantastic and philosophic heroines – so bepraised by their countrymen – to the tender mercies of our Amazons at home; but we couch the lance, in Maga's lists, on behalf of one whose name is known very widely, but whose character is little understood, and constitute ourselves champion à l'outrance of Bettina Brentano. Yes, we are in love – over head and ears – with Bettina Brentano. But we must guard ourselves a little in making this confession. It is towards the nice, clever, black-eyed, light-figured little houri of that name, in the pleasant years 1807-8-9, and 10, that we own the soft impeachment, or rather make proud profession of our feelings. With regard to the present bearer of the denomination, who has gone, in despite of our affection, and married a man of the name of Arnini, we confess we are utterly indifferent to her; and shall maintain till our dying day, that the authoress of the Letters to Goethe died in the early part of the year 1811, universally lamented, and giving promise of a mind, when matured and steadied, such as no petticoated genius – not De Staël herself – has equalled. Such letters, so full of wild fancies, poetical descriptions, and burning declarations, were never written by man to woman, or woman to man, before or since. They could not be written by woman to man – they were written by a child to Goethe. And this is the key to the wonders of the correspondence. Don't let people talk nonsense about the improprieties of her behaviour – and shake their foolish heads, and lift their puritanic eyes up to heaven: her conduct, we grant them, would have been very improper in them; but in Bettina Brentano it was beautiful, graceful, and as free from impropriety as the morning and evening walks of Paul and Virginia. Perhaps we may condescend on some of the particulars dwelt on in the accusation – but perhaps we may not – for the people who see errors and grossnesses in the language or behaviour of Bettina, blush "celestial rosy red" at the Apollo and the Venus. Let them get trousers and petticoats for the god and goddess, and leave poor Bettina alone.

There lived in Frankfort, in the summer of 1807, a little girl of fourteen or fifteen years of age, very small in stature, and so light and dancing in her movements that she might have passed for an attendant of Queen Titania; but in her deep black eyes there was a sort of light that the fairies have not yet arrived at – and her voice was musical – and her lips were rosy; and every where she was known as the cleverest little girl that ever was seen, either in fairyland or Frankfort, or any where else. She was of a sweet, affectionate, trusting nature, and entered with a romantic tenderness into an alliance with a wild, half-insane enthusiast, several years older than herself – the sister Günderode, a canoness of a convent on the Rhine. The lay-sister talked and reasoned herself into the persuasion that she would be happier out of the world than in it; so, instead of marrying the surgeon or other respectable inhabitant of the free city, and having a large family to provide for, which would have put more sensible thoughts into her head, she stabbed herself one fine day on the bank of the river – and Bettina had no longer a friend.

But there dwelt in the same town a majestic woman – strong-minded, tender-hearted – and with talent enough to compensate for the stupidity of all the other old women (male and female) in Frankfort; and her name was Madame Goethe, and she was seventy-five years old, and lived in an old house by herself. Bettina went to her, with her head sunk in grief, and her heart yearning for somebody to make a friend of, and sat down on a stool at the old lady's feet, and said, "I have lost my Günderode, will you be my friend in her stead?" And the old lady was delighted, and kissed her; and Bettina sat at her feet, day after day, from that time forth; and they were the two tenderest friends in Germany. And a pleasant thing it would be to have been a mouse in the wall to hear such conversation as was carried on by the two.

Now, in the year 1749, there was born a boy in Frankfort, – a poet, great in soul – the maker of his country's literature – no other than the illustrious Goethe – a son worthy of such a mother as Bettina's friend; and while all Germany and France – the whole civilized world in short – were almost worshipping his matured, perhaps his decaying genius, the noble mother was loud and eloquent in her description of him as a boy – as a youth – as a poet of twenty years old; and the little girl of fifteen sat and listened, till there arose in her heart – or rather in her brain, for it was a stirring of the intellect more than the affections – a feeling of intense admiration, softened under the mother's teaching into something that she herself fancied was love; for which audacious fancy the sagacious old woman gave her some raps over the knuckles – (we are not sure that they were altogether figurative either, but good substantial raps) – enough to make the fingers tingle in a very disagreeable manner indeed. But in spite of raps, whether figurative or not, she went on feeding her fancy with all these glowing accounts; and for a while we have no doubt that she never gave the almanac a thought – nor the baptismal register – nor the fact, known to all arithmeticians, that a person born in 1749 was fifty-eight years old in 1807. Fifty-eight years old, with long white hair. But Bettina had never seen him. She only knew him in his works as a poet, and as a man – or rather as a boy – in the beautiful recollections of his mother. "You don't ask after Wolfgang," says that sensible old matron in one of her letters; "I've always said to you – wait a while till some one else comes, you'll not trouble your head about him any more." But in the mean time she did trouble her head about him to an intolerable extent; and great was her rejoicing when her brother-in-law offered to take her as companion to his wife, in a journey he was forced to make to Berlin, and afterwards to Weimar. The country was at that time the seat of war; camps and positions of many different armies had to be passed through; and as a protection to the ladies they were dressed in men's clothes. Bettina sat on the box the whole time – passed as a little tiger at the inns where they slept – making herself generally useful, harnessing and unharnessing the horses – sleeping all night outside, though the weather was piercingly cold; and finally, after a week of hard travelling, arrived at the city of the sages – the literary capital of Germany. Her first care here was to change her dress, and find out her relation Wieland – from him she got a note to Goethe, and, armed with that, presented herself at his house. This is her account of the meeting in her letter to his mother: —

"The door opened, and there he stood, solemn and still, and looked steadily at me. I stretched my hands to him, I believe – but soon I was unconscious of every thing. Goethe catched me to his breast. – 'Poor child, have I frightened you?' These were the first words that made their way to my heart. He led me into his room, and placed me on a sofa opposite him. We were both silent – at last he said, 'You have read in the newspapers that we have lately met with a severe loss, in the death of the Duchess Amelie.' 'Ah! I said, 'I never read the newspapers.' 'Indeed! I thought you took an interest in all that goes on at Weimar.' 'No, no, I take no interest in any thing at Weimar but you; and I have not patience enough to toil through a newspaper.' 'You are an affectionate little girl.' A long pause – I, banished all the while to the horrid sofa, and very fidgety of course. You know how impossible it is for me to sit there and do the pretty behaved. Ah, mother, can a person change his nature all at once? I said plump – 'Here, on this sofa, I can't stay,' and sprang up. 'Make yourself comfortable, by all means,' said he. So I flew to him, and put my arms round his neck. He took me on his knee, and pressed me to his heart. All was still. I had not slept for such a time. I had sighed to see him for years. I fell asleep with my head on his breast; and, when I awoke, it was to a new existence; – and that is all at this present writing."

Bettina, we repeat, was fifteen – Goethe was fifty-eight; and this narrative was sent to his mother. We will only add, that Voltaire affected an interesting blush when he thought on the improprieties of the Book of Ruth. So, hold up your head, our bright-eyed, beautiful Bettina, and cheer the heart of the old man eloquent with your affection; and tell him over and over, in your own wild and captivating manner, that you love him, and worship him, and think of him always, and sing his ballads, and read his books – and nobody in their senses will think a bit the worse of you for it – not even your worthy husband, who was five or six and twenty years old when you married him; and, very likely, was nearly as enthusiastic about Wolfgang as yourself. And as to kissing and jumping on people's knees, and hugging close to the heart, these seem equivalent, among the Germans of all ranks and ages, to a good hearty shake of the hand among our more sedately behaved population; and though we think that, under ordinary circumstances, our national customs in those respects are preferable, we are not prepared to say that we should be sorry for the introduction of a little Germanism in our own case, if we were a great poet at the age of fifty-eight, and were acquainted with a lively, happy, charming little genius like Bettina, of fifteen. And that she was all that we have called her – and more – we will now proceed to show, by giving a few translations from her letters; and, if we can find an opportunity of introducing a story or two by the mother, we will not let it pass. – And here let us make a remark, savouring, perhaps, of national vanity – of which failing we have heard our countrymen not unfrequently accused. Our remark is this, that the Frau Rath, as Goethe's mother is called, has many characteristics about her which we have been in the habit of considering Scotch. If we reduced her reported conversations to our native Doric, they would read exactly like the best parts of Scott and Galt – a great deal of shrewdness, mixed with a wild sort of humour, sarcastic and descriptive; but in her, perhaps, elevated by an occasional burst of poetry into something higher than is met with in the Ayrshire Legatees, or even in Cyril Thornton. In saying this, we allude, of course, to none of the tedious "havers" contained in the book dedicated to the King of Prussia, or at least to the anti-biblical parts of them – the old Frau Rath being about the worst commentator it has ever been our fortune to meet.

But let us go back to Bettina. "Morris Bethman tells me," says the Frau Rath, in a letter to her pet, "that the De Staël is going to call on me. She has been in Weimar. I wish you were here, for I must get up my French as well as I can." And the jealousy of the fiery Bettina bursts out at the very thought of any one being at Weimar and visiting Goethe but herself.

"I have not heard from your son since the 13th of August, and here is the end of September. De Staël has made his time pass quickly, and driven me out of his head. A celebrated woman is a curiosity. Nobody else can compete with her. She is like brandy, which the poor grain it is made from can never be compared to. For brandy smacks on the tongue and gets into the heard, and so does a celebrated woman. But the simple wheat is better far to me; – the sower sows it in the loosened soil, and the bounteous sun and fruitful showers draw it from the earth again, and it makes green the whole field, and bears golden ears, and at last gives rise to a happy harvest-home. I would rather be a simple wheat-grain than a celebrated woman; and rather, far rather, that he should break me for his daily bread than that I should get into his head like a dram. And now I will tell you that I supped last night with De Staël in Maintz. No woman would sit next her at table, so I sat down beside her myself. It was uncomfortable enough; for the gentlemen stood round the table, and crowded behind our chairs, to speak to her and see her close. They bent over me. I said – 'Vos adorateurs me suffoquent.' She laughed. She told me that Goethe had spoken to her of me. I would fain have sat and listened, for I should like to hear what it was he said. And yet I was wrong; for I would rather he did not speak of me to any one – and I don't believe he did – she perhaps only said so. At last so many came to speak to her, and pressed upon me so much, that I couldn't bear it any longer. I said to her – 'Vos lauriers me pèsent trop sur les épaules;' and I stood up, and pushed my way through the crowd. Sismondi, her companion, came to me and kissed my hand, and told me I was very clever, and said it to the rest, and they repeated it twenty times over, as if I had been a prince whose sayings are always thought so wise though ever so commonplace.

"After that I listened to what she said about Goethe. She said she expected to find him a second Werther, but she was disappointed – neither his manners nor appearance were like it, and she was very sorry that he fell short of him so entirely. Frau Rath, I was in a rage at this, (that was of no use you will say,) and I turned to Schlegel, and said to him in German, 'Madame de Staël has made a double mistake – first in her expectation, and then in her judgment. We Germans expect that Goethe can shake twenty heroes from his sleeve to astonish the French – but in our judgment he himself is a hero of a very different sort.' Schlegel is very wrong not to have informed her better on this. She threw a laurel leaf that she had been playing with on the ground. I stamped on it, and pushed it out of the way with my foot, and went off. That was my interview with the celebrated woman."

But the De Staël is made the heroine of another letter, in which Bettina give Goethe an account of her presentation to his mother. The ceremony took place in the apartments of Morris Bethman.

"Your mother – whether out of irony or pride – had decked herself wonderfully out – but with German fancy, not in French taste; and I must tell you that, when I saw her with three feathers on her head, swaying from side to side – red, white, and blue – the French national colours – which rose from a field of sun-flowers – my heart beat high with pleasure and expectation. She was rouged with the greatest skill; her great black eyes fired a thundering volley; about her neck hung the well-known ornament of the Queen of Prussia; lace of a fine ancestral look and great beauty – a real family treasure – covered her bosom. And there she stood, with white glacée gloves; – in one hand an ornamented fan, with which she set the air in motion; with the other, which was bare, and all be-ringed with sparkling jewels, she every now and then took a pinch from the snuff-box with your miniature on the lid – the one with long locks, powdered, and with the head leant down as if in thought. A number of dignified old dowagers formed a semicircle in the bedroom of Morris Bethman; and the assemblage, on a deep-red carpet – a white field in the middle, on which was worked a leopard – looked very grand and imposing. Along the walls were ranged tall Indian plants, and the room was dimly lighted with glass-lamps. Opposite the semicircle stood the bed, on an estrade raised two steps, also covered with a deep-red carpet, with candelabra at each side.

"At last came the long-expected visitor through a suite of illuminated rooms, accompanied Benjamin Constant. She was dressed like Corinne; – a turban of aurora and orange-coloured silk – a gown of the same, with an orange tunic, very high in the waist, so that her heart had very little room. Her black eyebrows and eyelashes shone, and so did her lips also, with a mystic red. The gloves were turned down, and only covered the hand, in which she carried, as usual, the myrtle twig. As the room where she was waited for was much lower than the others, she had four steps to descend. Unluckily she lifted up her gown from the front instead of from behind, which gave a severe blow to the solemnity of her reception; for it appeared for a moment worse even than merely funny, when this extraordinary figure, dressed in strictly Oriental fashion, broke loose upon the staid and virtuous élite of Frankfort society. Your mother gave me a courageous look when they were introduced. I had taken my stand at a distance to watch the scene. I observed De Staël's surprise at the wonderful adornment of your mother, and at her manner, which was full of dignity. She spread out her gown with her left hand, giving the salute with her right which sported the fan; and, while she bowed her head repeatedly with great condescension, she said in a loud voice, that sounded distinctly through the room – 'Je suis la mère de Goethe.' – 'Ah, je suis charmée!' said the authoress; and then there was a solemn silence. Then followed the presentation of her distinguished companions, who were all anxious also to be introduced to Goethe's mother. She answered all their polite speeches with a new-year's wish in French, which she muttered between her teeth, with a multitude of stately curtsies. In short the audience was now begun, and must have given them a fine idea of our German grandezza. Your mother beckoned me to her side to interpret between them; the conversation was all about you – about your childhood. The portrait on the snuff-box was examined. It was painted in Leipsic before the great illness you had; but even then you were very thin. It was easy to see all your present greatness in those childish features, and particularly the author of Werther. De Staël spoke of your letter, and said she would like to see how you write to your mother, and your mother promised to show her; but, thought I, she shall never get any of your letters from me, for I don't like her. Every time your name was mentioned by those ill-shaped lips, a secret rage came upon me. She told me you called her 'Amie' in your letters. Ah! she must have seen how surprised I was to hear it; yes – and she told me more – but my patience failed. How can you be friendly to such an ugly face? Ah! there may be seen how vain you are! – or is it possible she can have been telling a story?"

With this charitable resolution of her doubts, Bettina leaves off her description of the meeting between De Staël and "la mère de Goethe." We think the affected jealousy of the little creature very amusing; and, moreover, we consider that all her words and actions in relation to Goethe, were in keeping with an imaginary character she had determined to assume. I shall be in love with him, and he shall be in love with me; and as he is a poet, I will be very poetical in my passion; as he writes tragedies, I will be dramatic; as he is "a student of the human mind," I will puzzle him with the wisdom of sixty, united to the playfulness of ten or twelve, – the flames of Sappho to the childishness of my real age and disposition. And so indeed she did. The old philosopher of Weimar did not know what to make of her. He keeps writing to her that he cannot decide whether she is most "wunderbar" or "wunderlich" – wonderful or odd. And round about his puzzled head she buzzes; now a fire-fly, nearly singeing his elevated eyebrows – now a hornet, inserting a sharp little sting in his nose – now a butterfly, lighting with beautiful wings on the nosegay in his breast; but at all times bright, brilliant, and enchanting. So, no wonder the astonished and gratified egotist called out for more; "more" – "more letters, dear Bettina," "write to me as often as you can." And to show her that her letters were useful to him, he not unfrequently sent her back long passages of her own epistles, turned into rhyme – and very good rhymes they are, and make a very respectable appearance among his collected poems. And a true philosopher old Goethe was (of the Sir Joseph Banks' school of philosophy as illustrated by Peter Pindar.) Instead of admiring the lovely wings and airy evolutions of the butterfly that rested so happily on his bouquet – he determined to examine it more minutely, and put it into his dried collection. So he laid coarse hands upon it – transfixed it with a brass pin, and listened to its humming as long as it had strength to hum; and finally transferred it to a book as an extraordinary specimen of a new species – for which astonishing discovery, he was bespattered with undeserved praises by the whole press of Germany. At this time, he was writing his Wahlverwandtshafter, or Electric Affinities; and as it introduced a young girl filled with the same wild passion for another woman's husband that Bettina affected to feel for him, letter by letter was sedulously studied, to give a new touch, either of tenderness or originality, to his contemptible Miss Ottilie. But we have already in this Magazine expressed our opinion of that performance, and of the great Goethe in general; so that we shall not return to the subject on the present occasion. Pleasanter it is to follow the fairy-footed Bettina in her scramblings over rock and fell, her wadings through rivers, and sleepings on the dizzy verge of old castle walls that look down a hundred fathoms of sheer descent into the Rhine. And pleasanter still, to hear her give utterance to sentiments – unknown to the pusillanimous, unpatriotic heart of the author of Werther– of sympathy with the noble Tyrolese in their struggles for freedom, and her generous regard for them when they were subdued.

Nothing, perhaps, is more astonishing in these letters – considering the date of them, 1809-10 – than the utter silence maintained on the state of public affairs. The French are mentioned once or twice – but generally in praise – Napoleon as often; but not a word to show that there was any stirring in the German mind on the subject of their country or independence. There they went on, smoking and drinking beer, writing treatises on the Greek article, or poems on Oriental subjects, in the same prosy, dull, dreamy fashion as ever, with the cannon of Jena sounding in their ears, and the blood of Hofer fresh upon the ground. Well done, then, beautiful, merry, deep-souled, tender-hearted Bettina! From her windows at Munich, she saw the smoke of the burning villages in the Tyrol; and her constant wish is for men's clothes and a sword, to go and join the patriots, and have a dash at the stupid, dunderheaded Bavarians. But our clever little friend is not alone in her good feelings. Count Stadion, a dignitary of the church, and Austrian ambassador, is her sworn ally; and few things are more beautiful than the descriptions of the reverend diplomatist and the fiery-eyed little Bettina being united by their sympathy in what was then a fallen and hopeless cause. But there was still another sympathiser, and the discovery of his feelings we will let Bettina herself describe: —

Next day was Good-Friday. Stadion took me with him to read me mass. I told him, with many blushes, the great longing I had to join the Tyrolese. Stadion told me to depend on him; he would take a knapsack on his back and go into the Tyrol, and do all I wanted to do instead of me. This was the last mass that he could read to me, for his departure in a few days was settled. Ah me! it fell heavy on my heart that I was to lose so dear a friend. After mass, I went into the choir, threw on a surplice, and joined in Winter's Lament. In the mean time, the Crown-prince and his brother came in – the crucifix lay on the ground – both the brothers kissed it, and afterwards embraced. They had had a quarrel till that day about a court tutor, whom the Crown-prince had thought ill of, and dismissed from his brother's service. They were reconciled in the way I have said, in the old church, and it was a delightful thing to see it. Bopp, an old music-master of the Crown-prince, who also gave me some lessons, accompanied me home. He showed me a sonnet composed by the Crown-prince that morning. It speaks well for his 'inner soul,' that he feels this inclination to poetry in interesting circumstances. Nature assuredly asserts her rights in him, and he will surely not let the Tyrolese be hardly dealt with. Yes, I have great trust in him. Old Bopp told me many things that raised my opinion of him to the highest pitch. On the third holiday, he carried me to the English garden to hear the Crown-prince's address to the assembled troops, with whom he was going, to serve his first campaign. I could hear nothing distinctly, but what I did hear, I did not at all like; he spoke of their bravery, their perseverance, and loyalty, and that he, with their assistance, would bring back the Tyrolese to obedience, and that he considered his own honour conjoined to theirs, &c. &c. As I went home, this worried me very much. I saw that the Crown-prince, in the hands of his generals, would do all that his heart rebelled against. I thought, as I returned from the show, that no man in the world ever speaks truth to one in power, but rather that there are always flatterers to approve of all he does; and the worse his conduct, the greater their fear that he may doubt of their approbation. They have never the good of mankind in their eye, but only the favour of their master. So I determined to take a bold step, to satisfy my own feelings – and I hope you will excuse me if you think I did wrong.

"After expressing to the Crown-prince my love, and respect for his genius, I confessed to him my sentiments towards the Tyrolese, who were gaining such a heroic crown – my confidence that he would show mildness and forbearance, where his people were now giving way only to cruelty and revenge – I asked him if the title 'Duke of the Tyrol' had not a nobler sound than the names of the four kings who had united their power to exterminate those heroes? And, however it turned out, I hoped he would acquire from his conduct even the title of 'The Humane.'

"This was the contents of a letter that filled four pages. After writing it in the most furious excitement, I sealed it very calmly, and gave it into the music-master's hands, telling him – 'This is something about the Tyrolese that may be very useful to the Crown-prince.'

"How glad a man is to make himself of importance! Old Bopp nearly tumbled down-stairs it his hurry to give such an interesting letter to the Prince; and I, with my usual light-headedness, forgot all about it. I went to Winter to sing hymns – to Tieck – to Jacobi – nowhere could I find any body to agree with me; every where there seemed nothing but fear; and if they had known what I had done, they would have forbidden me their houses. I looked bitterly on them all, and thought – Be you Bavarian and French – I and the Crown-prince are German and Tyrolese. Or he gets me put in prison – and then I am at once free and independent; and if I ever get out again, I will go over to the Tyrolese, and meet the Crown-prince on the field, and force from him what he now refuses to my entreaty.

"The old music-master came back, pale and trembling.