The startling, bold, and stirring incidents of his disgusting dramas must and will excite a certain degree of attention when seen for the first time, and it is evidently the interest of managers to bring forward whatever is most likely to produce this effect; but the doing so cannot be quoted as a proof of the systematic degradation of the theatre. It is moreover a fact, which the play-bills themselves are alone sufficient to attest, that after Victor Hugo's plays have had their first run, they are never brought forward again: not one of them has yet become what we call a stock-play.
This fact, which was first stated to me by a person perfectly au fait of the subject, has been subsequently confirmed by many others; and it speaks more plainly than any recorded criticism could do, what the public judgment of these pieces really is.
The romance of "Notre Dame de Paris" is ever cited as Victor Hugo's best work, excepting some early lyrical pieces of which we know nothing. But even this, though there are passages of extraordinary descriptive power in it, is always alluded to with much more of contempt than admiration; and I have heard it ridiculed in circles, whose praise was fame, with a light pleasantry more likely to prove an antidote to its mischief than all the reprobation that sober criticism could pour out upon it.
But may not this champion of vice—this chronicler of sin, shame, and misery—quote Scripture and say, "A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country"? For I have seen a criticism in an English paper (The Examiner) which says, "The Notre Dame of Victor Hugo must take rank with the best romances by the author of Waverley.... It transcends them in vigour, animation, and familiarity with the age."
In reply to the last point here mentioned, in which our countryman has given the superiority to Victor Hugo over Sir Walter Scott, a very strong testimony against its correctness has reached me since I have been in Paris. An able lawyer, and most accomplished gentleman and scholar, who holds a distinguished station in the Cour Royale, took us to see the Palais de Justice. Having shown us the chamber where criminal trials are carried on, he observed, that this was the room described by Victor Hugo in his romance; adding,—"He was, however, mistaken here, as in most places where he affects a knowledge of the times of which he writes. In the reign of Louis the Eleventh, no criminal trials ever took place within the walls of this building; and all the ceremonies as described by him resemble much more a trial of yesterday than of the age at which he dates his tale."
The vulgar old adage, that "there is no accounting for taste," must, I suppose, teach us to submit patiently to the hearing of any judgments and opinions which it is the will and pleasure of man to pronounce; but it does seem strange that any can be found who, after bringing Sir Walter Scott and Victor Hugo into comparison, should give the palm of superiority to the author of "Notre Dame de Paris."
Were the faults of this school of authors only of a literary kind, few persons, I believe, would take the trouble to criticise them, and their nonsense would die a natural death as soon as it was made to encounter the light of day: but such productions as Victor Hugo's are calculated to do great injury to human nature. They would teach us to believe that all our gentlest and best affections can only lead to crime and infamy. There is not, I truly believe, a single pure, innocent, and holy thought to be found throughout his writings: Sin is the muse he invokes—he would
"Take off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And set a blister there;"