THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.
Perhaps no writer has ever enjoyed in his lifetime so extensive a popularity as the Author of Waverley. His reputation may be truly said to be not only British, but European—and even this is too limited a term. He has had the advantage of writing in a language used in different hemispheres by highly civilized communities, and widely diffused over the surface of the globe; and he has written at a period when communication was facilitated by peace; while to the wonder of his own countrymen, he has to an unexampled degree established an ascendency over the tastes of foreign nations. His works have been sought by foreigners with an avidity equalling, nay, almost exceeding, that with which they have been received among us. The conflicting literary tastes of France and Germany, which twenty years ago seemed diametrically opposed, and hopelessly irreconcilable, have at length united in admiration of him. In France he has effected a revolution in taste, and given victory to the "Romantic School." He has had not only readers, but imitators. Among Frenchmen, the author of "Cinq Mars" may be cited as a tolerably successful one. Italy, in which what we call "Novels" were previously unknown, has been roused from its torpor, and has found a worthy imitator of British talent in the author of the "Promessi Sposi." Of the Waverley Novels, six editions have been published in Paris. Many of them have been translated into French, German, Italian, and other languages. To be read both on the banks of the Ganges and the Ohio; and to be found, as is mentioned by Dr. Walsh, where perhaps no other English book had ever come—on the very verge of civilization, on the borders of Turkey—this is indeed a wide reign and a proud distinction; but prouder still to be not only read, but to have subjugated, as it were, and moulded the literary tastes of the civilized world. Voltaire is the writer who, in his lifetime, has approached nearest to this extent of popularity. Sovereigns courted and corresponded with him; his own countrymen were enthusiastic in his praise; and so general was a knowledge of the French language, that a large majority of the well-educated throughout Europe, were familiar with his writings. But much of this popularity was the popularity of partisanship. He served a cause, and for such service, and not alone as the meed of genius, were honours lavished upon him. The people of France, by whom he was almost deified in his latter years, regarded him less as the literary marvel of their land, than as the man once persecuted by despotism, and the ablest assailant of those institutions which they were endeavouring to undermine. But Voltaire, with all his popularity, has left impressed on literature scarcely any distinguishable traces of his power. He exhibited no marked originality of style—he founded no school—and as for his imitators, where are they? To justify the admiration he excited, one must consider not merely how well, but how much and how variously he has written. With the exception of Voltaire, and perhaps of Lord Byron, there is scarcely a writer whose popularity, while he lived, passed beyond the precincts of his own country. This, until latterly, was scarcely possible. Till near the middle of the eighteenth century, what had been long called the "Republic of Letters" existed only in name. It is not truly applicable but to the present period, when the transmission of knowledge is rapid and easy, and no work of unquestionable genius can excite much interest in any country, without the vibration being quickly felt to the uttermost limits of the civilized world. How little this was previously the case is evident from the fact, that numerous and important as were the political relations of England with the continent, and successfully as we had attended to the cultivation of letters, yet it is scarcely more than a hundred years since we were first known on the continent to have what might deserve to be called "a Literature." Shakspeare, Dryden, and Pope, successively enjoyed in their own country the highest popularity as writers. Of these, it may reasonably be doubted whether the name of the first had been ever heard out of it. We can find no evidence which shows that the second had a wider fame. Pope was indeed better known; for literature had been made conspicuous through honours paid to it by the statesmen of Queen Anne; and Pope was the friend of a peer politically eminent, and was thought, in conjunction with him, to have written a poem, of which, if the poetry was disregarded, the opinions were not unacceptable to the "philosophers" of the continent.
One of the points of view in which the Author of Waverley is first presented to us is, as a delineator of human character. When we regard him in this light, we are struck at once by the fertility of his invention, and the force, novelty, and fidelity of his pictures. He brings to our minds, not abstract beings, but breathing, acting, speaking individuals. Then what variety! What originality! What numbers! What a gallery has he set before us! No writer but Shakspeare ever equalled him in this respect. Others may have equalled, perhaps surpassed him, in the elaborate finishing of some single portrait (witness the immortal Knight and Squire of Cervantes, Fielding's Adams, and Goldsmith's Vicar); or may have displayed, with greater skill, the morbid anatomy of human feeling—and our slighter foibles and finer sensibilities have been more exquisitely touched by female hands—but none save Shakspeare has ever contributed so largely, so valuably, to our collection of characters;—of pictures so surprisingly original, yet, once seen, admitted immediately to be conformable to Nature. Nay, even his anomalous beings are felt to be generally reconcilable with our code of probabilities; and, as has been said of the supernatural creations of Shakspeare, we are impressed with the belief, that if such beings did exist, they would be as he has represented them.—Edinburgh Review.