NEW BOOKS.
THE NEW GIL BLAS
[This is, in its way, a clever book with a very un-clever title. We expected better tact in its author, Mr. Inglis, than the adoption of the title of one of the most successful and least imitable fictions of modern times. The very title-page provokes a comparison between the Gil Blas of Le Sage, and a string of romantic adventures, by Mr. Inglis; we need not add, much to the disadvantage of the latter. It reminds us of an attempt to cover the sun with a wet blanket. At the same time, the merit of Mr. Inglis's Gil Blas must not be lowly rated. It abounds with lively incident, pleasant bits and scenes of travel, and world-knowledge very agreeably communicated, while its episodal narratives are of the most wonder-fraught character. It has all the glitter and gaiety of Spanish life and manners. The author discourses eloquently of "the charming Andaluz," and other intriguantes—absolute Dons of fathers and monsters of husbands—mingling "bloody-minded assassins," and hideous wretches, with the sweet emotions of dark eyes, jetty ringlets, and heaving bosoms. Limbs are lopped off, eyes put out, heads slivered, and blood spilled like water; and there are scenes in dark towers and visions of clanking chains in terrific abundance. One of the latter description we have abridged and adapted to our pages. The hero is convicted of murder, upon such evidence as this:—"We found the poor dead man dead at his feet, and the sword in his hand, covered with blood,—the murdered man lies in the ante-room run through and through." A pretty scene of justice ensues, the fact being that the murdered man was a noted robber who had attacked the hero, and became worsted in the affray. The sentence is solitary imprisonment for life:]
The unfortunate persons whose crimes have subjected them to the dreadful punishment of solitary imprisonment for life, in any of the southern parts of Spain, are most generally sent to Tarifa.[3] Along both sides of the port, there is a mole nearly half a mile in length; at the extremity of which on either side, and at the entrance of the harbour, stands a huge and ancient Moorish tower, about a hundred and sixty feet in height above the sea. In this tower, which contains six chambers, one above another, prisoners for life are confined; and thither I was accordingly conveyed. It is the policy of the Spanish laws, to render the punishment of criminals subservient to public utility; and this is in some degree effected even by solitary confinement. The prisoners confined in these towers are employed in turns, night by night, in trimming the lamps—which are a beacon to the vessels at sea. From each chamber, there is a separate ascent to the summit of the tower; so that the prisoners never see each other, and each in his turn is obliged to remain from night until day-break upon the summit,—part of his punishment for the destruction of human life, being thus made subservient to its preservation.
From these towers there are no visible means of escape: in the chambers, the windows are merely circular holes in walls at least six feet in thickness; and the outside walls being entirely smooth, there are no means of descent from the summit unless by a fearful leap of a hundred and sixty feet into the sea; for on the side towards the town, a wall of twenty feet high shuts out the prospect of land; serving at the same time as a hindrance to any communication, and as an aggravation of punishment, by shutting out from the eye of the prisoner, the cheerful lights of human habitations, or perhaps even, it might be, the dim view of human forms. It only requires to be added to this description, that a ponderous iron chain stretches from one tower to the other, across the mouth of the port, depending from fastenings situated about two feet below the summit of each, but forming a curve by its own weight; and in the centre, reaching to within twenty or thirty feet of the surface of the water, from which point, other chains are attached, reaching horizontally to the towers on either side. It is needless to say, that during the day this great chain is lowered into the water when vessels desire to enter; but at night, it is again raised; and there being rumours of war at this period, no ships were admitted during the night,—the chain being a security against an enemy entering, and cutting out vessels under favour of the darkness.
[By aid of a telescope, he recognises on the opposite tower a fair prisoner, "the lovely Isabel," who had been confined there upwards of a year for conspiring to murder her first husband. The hero by aid of the chain, swings to Isabel's tower, where they concert an escape.]
As Isabel pressed closer to me, I felt, that, although far from agreeable to sojourn in such a place, even with Isabel, this would yet be greatly preferable to solitude. But to such a project, many serious difficulties presented themselves: I represented to Isabel, that if I did not reach the opposite tower that night, it would be discovered, when the food put into my cell remained untasted, that I was gone; and as the conclusion would necessarily be, that I had leaped into the sea, no more food would be put into my cell, and consequently, when I did return, I should die of hunger. "But," said Isabel, "why return ever? Providence seems to delight in throwing us together,—and if, as unhappily seems too true, the doom of both of us be to live and die in these towers, why should we not——"
"Live and die together, you would say;" and, in truth, there was reason in this proposal of Isabel. "Why, indeed, should we not?" said I; but in yielding so readily to this suggestion, I looked farther than Isabel did. Isabel had doubtless many charms,—and here, I should at least have nothing to fear from rivals; but that which weighed with me fully as much as the prospect of a honey-moon, was this,—that a man who is supposed to be dead, has greater facilities of escape,—and so, without at that time saying any thing upon this subject to Isabel, I acquiesced in the proposal of changing my quarters, and being her guest for the present.