English Lands, Letters and Kings, vol. 3: Queen Anne and the Georges

by Donald Grant Mitchell

Two specimens of that Irish humor, which she is so apt at reporting, and which shine by their pretty flicker of unconsciousness, I must cite: the first is that of the politician—a charming type of our municipal Milesians—who resented highly his non-appointment to some fat place, after unwearied support of the government, "against his conscience, in a most honorable manner." The second is that of the hopeful old Irish dame, who trusted she might die upon a fête day, when the gates of Heaven were opened wide, and a poor "body might slip in unbeknownst."

For our good friend, Miss Edgeworth, we believe that those gates were wide open, on every day of the year.

Some Early Romanticism.

Early Romanticism.

While that clever and attractive Miss Jane Austen was engaged upon her stories in her quiet study in Steventon, Hampshire, there was opened upon England, by certain other ladies, a new sluice of literature—from which some phosphorescent sparkles are still distinguishable in our time—in brilliant red and yellow covers. I allude to the Children of the Abbey, by Miss Roche[[11]] (an Irish-French lady, who lived in Waterford, Ireland), to Thaddeus of Warsaw and the Scottish Chiefs by Miss Jane Porter, and the Mysteries of Udolpho by Mrs. Radcliffe, of London.[[12]]

Very few middle-aged readers have passed their lives without hearing of these books; the chances are strong that most of such readers have dipped into them; and if people dipped at all, before the age of fourteen, they were pretty apt to undergo complete submergence.

From ten to twelve was—as nearly as I now recollect—about the susceptible age for the Children of the Abbey; and if the book came into the hands of one of a bevy of boys or girls, in such tender years, it was pretty apt to run through them all, eruptively—like measles.

It was a book that even young people had an inclination to put under cover, if detected or liable to be detected in the reading of it; and elderly people so caught were understood to be only "glancing at it;" the sentiment is so very profuse and gushing. None of us like to make a show of our allegiance to Master Cupid. Miss Roche wrote other books—but none beside the Children of the Abbey have come down to us in the yellow and red of sixpenny form; for which we ought to be thankful.

Thaddeus of Warsaw had more excuse in the expression of tender sympathies for Poland and all Polish people, at a crisis in the history of that unfortunate kingdom. The success of the book was immense. Kosciusko sent his portrait and a medal to the author; she was made member of foreign societies, received gold crosses of honor; and oddly enough, even from America there came, under the guiding providence of Mr. John Harper,[[13]] then I believe Mayor of the City of New York, an elegant carved armchair, trimmed with crimson plush, to testify "the admiring gratitude of the American people" to the author of Thaddeus of Warsaw. The book, by its amazing popularity, and by the entertaining way in which it marshals its romantic effulgencies in favor of a great cause, may very naturally suggest that other, later and larger enlistment of all the forces of good story-telling, which—fifty years thereafter—in the hands of an American lady (Mrs. Stowe) contributed to a larger cause, and with more abiding results.

The Scottish Chiefs has less of gusto than the Polish novel—and as I took occasion to say when we were at that date of Scottish history—is full of bad anachronisms, and of historical untruths. Yet there is a good bracing air of the Highlands in parts of it, and an ebullient martial din of broadswords and of gathering clans which go far to redeem its maudlin sentiment. Mrs. Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho had more of the conventionally artistic qualities than either of those last named, though never so infectiously popular. There are gloomy Italian chieftains in it, splendid dark fellows with swords and pistols and plumes to match; and there are purple sunsets and massive castles with secret passages and stairs; and marks of bloody fingers, and papers that are to be signed—or not signed; and one ineffable young lady—Emily, I think, is her name—who by her spiritual presence and lovely features serves to light up all the gloom and the mystery and makes the castle, and the dark woods, and the reeking vaults, and the secret paths all blossom like a rose. I cannot advise the reading of the book.