Since this event, the bouquets have ceased to be laid in the vestry and the desk. Lydia Prateapace has been heard to say she should not wonder if all was true after all, and affects to be glad, for propriety's sake, that they are married. Gadabout runs every where repeating what Prateapace said; and Brazenstare looks audacious indifference, and once stared in the Curate's face and asked him how many Misses Lydia there might be of his acquaintance. My dear Eusebius,
"So goes the world, and such the Play of Life.
This loves to make, and t'other mends a strife;
Old fools write rhymes—the Curate takes a wife."
Yours ever, Aquilius.
PROSPER MÉRIMÉE.
Rarely, in these days of profuse and unscrupulous scribbling, do we find an author giving the essence, not a dilution, of his wit, learning, and imagination, dispensing his mental stores with frugal caution, instead of lavishing them with reckless prodigality. Such a one, when met with, should be made much of, as a model for sinners in a contrary sense, and as a bird of precious plumage. Of that feather is Monsieur Prosper Mérimée. He plays with literature, rather than professes it; it is his recreation, not his trade; at long intervals and for a brief space, he turns from more serious pursuits to coquet with the Muse, not frankly to embrace her. Willing though she be, he will not take her for a lawful spouse and constant companion, but courts her par amours. The offspring of these moments of dalliance are buxom and debonair, of various but comely aspect. In two-and-twenty years he has written less than the average annual produce of many of his literary countrymen. In several paths of literature, he has essayed his steps and made good a footing; in not one has he continuously persevered, but, although cheered by applause, has quickly struck into another track, which, in its turn, has been capriciously deserted. His "Studies of Roman history" give him an honourable claim to the title of historian; his "Notes of Archæological Rambles" are greatly esteemed; he has written plays; and his prose fictions, whether middle-age romance or novel of modern society, rank with the best of their class. He began his career with a mystification. His first work greatly puzzled the critics. It professed to be a translation of certain comedies, written by a Spanish actress, whose fictitious biography was prefixed and signed by Joseph L'Estrange, officer in the Swiss regiment of Watteville. This imaginary personage had made acquaintance with Clara Gazul in garrison at Gibraltar. Nothing was neglected that might perfect the delusion and give success to the cheat; fragments of old Spanish authors were prefixed to each play, showing familiarity with the literature of the country; the style, tone, and allusions were thoroughly Spanish; and, through the French dress, the Castilian idiom seemed here and there to peep forth, confirming the notion of a translation. Clara was an Andalusian, half gipsy, half Moor, skilled in guitars and castanets, saynetes and boleros. L'Estrange makes her narrate her own origin.
"'I was born,' she told us, 'under an orange-tree, by the roadside, not far from Motril, in the kingdom of Granada. My mother was a fortune-teller, and I followed her, or was carried on her back, till the age of five years. Then she took me to the house of a canon of Granada, the licentiate Gil Vargas, who received us with every sign of joy. Salute your uncle, said my mother. I saluted him. She embraced me, and departed. I have never seen her since.' And to stop our questions, Doña Clara took her guitar and sang the gipsy song, Cuando me pariò mi madre, la gitana."
Biography and comedies were so skillfully got up, the deception was so well combined, that the reviewers were put entirely on a wrong scent. Two years later, M. Mérimée was guilty of another harmless literary swindle, entitled La Guzla, a selection of Illyrian poems, said to be collected in Bosnia, Dalmatia, &c., but whose real origin could be traced no further than to his own imagination. Although the name was a manifest anagram of Gazul, the public were gulled. The deceit was first unmasked in Germany, we believe, by Goethe, to whom the secret had been betrayed. Thenceforward the young author was content to publish under his own name works of which he certainly had no reason to be ashamed. One of the earliest of these was, "La Jacquerie"—a sort of long melodrama, or series of scenes, illustrating feudal aggressions and cruelties in France, and the consequent peasant revolts of the fourteenth century. It shows much historical research and care in collection of materials, is rich in references to the barbarous customs and strange manners of the times, and, like the "Chronicle of Charles IX.," another historical work of M. Mérimée's, has, we suspect, been found very useful by more recent fabricators of romances.
Educated for the bar, but not practising his profession, M. Mérimée was one of the rising men of talent whom the July revolution pushed forward. After being chef de cabinet of the Minister of the Interior, Count d'Argout, he held several appointments under government, amongst others, that of Inspector of Historical Monuments, an office he still retains. In 1844 he was elected to a chair in the French Academy, vacant by the death of the accomplished Charles Nodier. He has busied himself much with archæological researches, and the published results of his travels in the west of France, Provence, Corsica, &c., are most learned and valuable. In the intervals of his antiquarian investigations and administrative labours, he has thrown off a number of tales and sketches, most of which first saw the light in leading French periodicals, and have since been collected and republished. They are all remarkable for grace of style and tact in management of subject. One of the longest, "Colomba," a tale of Corsican life, is better known in England than its author's name. It has been translated with accuracy and spirit, and lately has been further brought before the public, on the boards of a minor theatre, distorted into a very indifferent melodrama. The Corsican Vendetta has been taken as the basis of more than one romantic story, but, handled by M. Mérimée, it has acquired new and fascinating interest; and he has enriched his little romance with a profusion of those small traits and artistical touches which exhibit the character and peculiarities of a people better than folios of dry description. "La Double Méprise," another of his longer tales, is a clever novelette of Parisian life. According to English notions its subject is slippery, its main incident, and some of its minor details, improbable and unpleasant, although so neatly managed that one is less startled when reading them than shocked on after-reflection. It certainly requires skilful management to give an air of probability to such a scene as is detailed in chapter five. A French gentleman, a man of fortune and family, mixing in good society, is anxious for an appointment at court, and to obtain it he reckons much on the influence and good word of a certain Duke of H——. There is a benefit night at the Opera, and the young wife of the aspirant to court honours has a box. Between the acts her husband, who has unwillingly accompanied her, rambles about the house, and discovers the Duke in an inconvenient corner, where he can see nothing. His grace is not alone, but in the society of his kept-mistress. To propitiate his patron, the unscrupulous husband introduces him and his companion into the box of his unsuspecting wife! The sequel may be imagined; the stare and titter of acquaintances, the supercilious gratitude of the Duke, the astonishment of the lady at the singular tone of the pretty and elegantly dressed woman with whom she is thus unexpectedly brought in contact, and whose want of usage bespeaks, as she imagines, the newly arrived provincial. All this, which might pass muster in a novel depicting the manners and morals of the Regency, is rather violent in one of our day; but yet, so cleverly are the angles of improbability draped and softened down, the reader perseveres. The plot is very slight; the tale scarcely depends on it, but is what the French call a tableau de mœurs, with less pretensions to the regular progress and catastrophe of a novel, than to be a mirror of everyday scenes and actors on the bustling stage of Paris life. The characters are well drawn, the dialogues witty and dramatic, the book abounds in sly hits and smart satire; but its bitterness of tone injured its popularity, and, unlike its author's other tales, it met little success. The opening chapter is a picture of a lively Parisian ménage, such as many doubtless exist; a striking example of a mariage de convenance, or mis-match.