Norman Leslie, gentle reader, a Tale of the Present Times, is, after all, written by nobody in the world but Theodore S. Fay, and Theodore S. Fay is nobody in the world but "one of the Editors of the New York Mirror." The book commences with a Dedication to Colonel Herman Thorn, in which that worthy personage, whoever he may be, is held up, in about a dozen lines, to the admiration of the public, as "hospitable," "generous," "attentive," "benevolent," "kind-hearted," "liberal," "highly-esteemed," and withal "a patron of the arts." But the less we say of this matter the better.
In the Preface Mr. Fay informs us that the most important features of his story are founded on fact—that he has availed himself of certain poetical licenses—that he has transformed character, and particularly the character of a young lady, (oh fi! Mr. Fay—oh, Mr. Fay, fi!) that he has sketched certain peculiarities with a mischievous hand—and that the art of novel writing is as dignified as the art of Canova, Mozart or Raphael,—from which we are left to infer, that Mr. Fay himself is as dignified as Raphael, Mozart, and Canova—all three. Having satisfied us on this head, he goes on to say something about an humble student, with a feeble hand, throwing groupings upon a canvass, and standing behind a curtain: and then, after perpetrating all these impertinences, thinks it best "frankly to bespeak the indulgence of the solemn and sapient critics." Body of Bacchus! we, at least, are neither solemn nor sapient, and, therefore, do not feel ourselves bound to show him a shadow of mercy. But will any body tell us what is the object of Prefaces in general, and what is the meaning of Mr. Fay's Preface in particular?
As far as we can understand the plot of Norman Leslie, it is this. A certain family reside in Italy—"independent," "enlightened," "affectionate," "happy,"—and all that. Their villa, of course, stands upon the seashore, and their whole establishment is, we are assured, "a scene of Heaven," &c. Mr. Fay says he will not even attempt to describe it—why, therefore, should we? A daughter of this family is nineteen when she is wooed by a young Neapolitan, Rinaldo, of "mean extraction, but of great beauty and talent." The lover, being a man of suspicious character, is rejected by the parents, and a secret marriage ensues. The lady's brother pursues the bridegroom—they fight—and the former is killed. The father and mother die (it is impossible to see for what purpose they ever lived) and Rinaldo flies to Venice. Upon rejoining her husband in that city, the lady (for Mr. Fay has not thought her worth enduing with a specific appellation) discovers him, for the first time, to be a rascal. One fine day he announces his intention of leaving herself and son for an indefinite time. The lady beseeches and finally threatens. "It was the first unfolding," says she, in a letter towards the dénouement of the story, "of that character which neither he nor I knew belonged to my nature. It was the first uncoiling of the basilisk within me, (good Heavens, a snake in a lady's stomach!). He gazed on me incredulously, and cooly smiled. You remember that smile—I fainted!!!" Alas! Mr. Davy Crockett,—Mr. Davy Crockett, alas!—thou art beaten hollow—thou art defunct, and undone! thou hast indeed succeeded in grinning a squirrel from a tree, but it surpassed even thine extraordinary abilities to smile a lady into a fainting fit!
"When I recovered"—continues the lady—"he was gone. It was two years before I could trace him. At length I found he had sailed for America. I followed him in the depth of winter—I and my child. I knew not the name he had assumed, and I was struck mute with astonishment, in your beautiful city, on beholding, surrounded by fair ladies, the form of my husband, still beautiful, and still adored. You know the rest." But as our readers may not be as well informed as the correspondent of the fair forsaken, we will enlighten them with some farther particulars.
Rinaldo, upon leaving his cara sposa, had taken shipping for New York, where, assuming the name of "Count Clairmont of the French army," he succeeds in cutting a dash, or, in more proper parlance, in creating a sensation, among the beaux and belles of the city of Gotham. One fair lady, and rich heiress, Miss Flora Temple, is particularly honored by his attentions, and the lady's mother, Mrs. T., fired with the idea of her daughter becoming a real countess, makes no scruple of encouraging his addresses. Matters are in this position when the wife of the adventurer arrives in New York, and is quite bewildered with astonishment upon beholding, one snowy day, her beloved Rinaldo sleighing it to and fro about the streets of New York. In the midst of her amazement she is in danger of being run over by some horses, when a certain personage, by name Norman Leslie, but who might, with equal propriety, be called Sir Charles Grandison, flies to her assistance, whisks herself and child up in the very nick of time, and suddenly rescues them, as Mr. Fay has it, "from the very jaws of Death"—by which we are to understand from the very hoofs of the horses. The lady of course swoons—then recovers—and then—is excessively grateful. Her gratitude, however, being of no service just at that moment, is bottled up for use hereafter, and will no doubt, according to established usage in such cases, come into play towards the close of the second volume. But we shall see.
Having ascertained the address of Rinaldo, alias the Count Clairmont, the lady, next morning, is successful in obtaining an interview. Then follows a second edition of entreaties and threats, but, fortunately for the nerves Of Mrs. Rinaldo, the Count, upon this occasion, is so forbearing as not to indulge in a smile. She accuses him of a design to marry Miss Temple, and he informs her that it is no concern of hers—that she is not his wife, their marriage having been a feigned one. "She would have cried him through the city for a villain," (Dust ho!—she should have advertised him) but he swears that, in that case, he will never sleep until he has taken the life of both the lady and her child, which assurance puts an end to the debate. "He then frankly confesses"—says Mrs. Rinaldo, in the letter which we have before quoted,—"that his passion for Miss Temple was only a mask—he loved her not. Me he said he loved. It was his intention to fly when he could raise a large sum of money, and he declared that I should be his companion." His designs, however, upon Miss Temple fail—that lady very properly discarding the rascal. Nothing daunted at this mishap our Count proceeds to make love to a certain Miss Rosalie Romain, and with somewhat better success. He prevails upon her to fly, and to carry with her upon her person a number of diamonds which the lover hopes to find sufficient for his necessities. He manages also to engage Mrs. Rinaldo (so we must call her for want of a better name) in his schemes.
It has so happened that for some time prior to these occurrences, Clairmont and Norman Leslie, the hero of the novel, have been sworn foes. On the day fixed for Miss Romain's elopement, that young lady induces Mr. Leslie to drive her, in a gig, a short distance out of town. They are met by no less a personage than Mrs. Rinaldo herself, in another gig, and driving (proh pudor!) through the woods sola. Hereupon Miss Rosalie Romain very deliberately, and to the great astonishment, no doubt, of Mr. Leslie, gets out of that gentleman's gig, and into the gig of Mrs. Rinaldo. Here's plot! as Vapid says in the play. Our friend Norman, finding that nothing better can be done, turns his face towards New York again, where he arrives, in due time, without farther accident or adventure. Late the same evening Clairmont sends the ladies aboard a vessel bound for Naples, and which is to sail in the morning—returning himself, for the present, to his hotel in Broadway. While here he receives a horse-whipping from Mr. Leslie on account of certain insinuations in disparagement of that gentleman's character. Not relishing this treatment he determines upon revenge, and can think of no better method of accomplishing it than the directing of public suspicion against Mr. Leslie as the murderer of Miss Romain—whose disappearance has already created much excitement. He sends a message to Mrs. Rinaldo that the vessel must sail without him, and that he would, by a French ship, meet them on their landing at Naples. He then flings a hat and feathers belonging to Miss Romain upon a stream, and her handkerchief in a wood—afterwards remaining some time in America to avert suspicion from himself. Leslie is arrested for the murder, and the proofs are damning against him. He is, however, to the great indignation of the populace, acquitted, Miss Temple appearing to testify that she actually saw Miss Romain subsequently to her ride with Leslie. Our hero, however, although acquitted, is universally considered guilty, and, through the active malice of Clairmont, is heaped with every species of opprobrium. Miss Temple, who, it appears, is in love with him, falls ill with grief: but is cured, after all other means have failed, by a letter from her lover announcing a reciprocal passion—for the young lady has hitherto supposed him callous to her charms. Leslie himself, however, takes it into his head, at this critical juncture, to travel; and, having packed up his baggage, does actually forget himself so far as to go a-Willising in foreign countries. But we have no reason to suppose that, goose as the young gentleman is, he is silly enough to turn travelling correspondent to any weekly paper. In Rome, having assumed the alias of Montfort, he meets with a variety of interesting adventures. All the ladies die for him: and one in particular, Miss Antonia Torrini, the only child of a Duke with several millions of piastres, and a palace which Mr. Fay thinks very much like the City Hall in New York, absolutely throws herself sans ceremonie into his arms, and meets—tell it not in Gath!—with a flat and positive refusal.
Among other persons whom he encounters is a monk Ambrose, a painter Angelo, another painter Ducci, a Marquis Alezzi, and a Countess D., which latter personage he is convinced of having seen at some prior period of his life. For a page or two we are entertained with a prospect of a conspiracy, and have great hopes that the principal characters in the plot will so far oblige us as to cut one another's throats: but (alas for human expectations!) Mr. Fay having clapped his hands, and cried "Presto!—vanish!" the whole matter ends in smoke, or, as our author beautifully expresses it, is "veiled in impenetrable mystery."
Mr. Leslie now pays a visit to the painter Ducci, and is astonished at there beholding the portrait of the very youth whose life he saved, together with that of his mother, from the horses in New York. Then follows a series of interesting ejaculations, among which we are able to remember only "horrible suspicion!" "wonderful development!" "alack and alas!" with some two or three others. Mr. Leslie is, however, convinced that the portrait of the boy is, as Mr. F. gracefully has it, "inexplicably connected with his own mysterious destiny." He pays a visit to the Countess D., and demands of her if she was, at any time, acquainted with a gentleman called Clairmont. The lady very properly denies all knowledge of that character, and Mr. Leslie's "mysterious destiny" is in as bad a predicament as ever. He is however fully convinced that Clairmont is the origin of all evil—we do not mean to say that he is precisely the devil—but the origin of all Mr. Leslie's evil. Therefore, and on this account, he goes to a masquerade, and, sure enough, Mr. Clairmont, (who has not been heard of for seven or eight years,) Mr. Clairmont (we suppose through Mr. L's "mysterious destiny") happens to go, at precisely the same time, to precisely the same masquerade. But there are surely no bounds to Mr. Fay's excellent invention. Miss Temple, of course, happens to be at the same place, and Mr. Leslie is in the act of making love to her once more, when the "inexplicable" Countess D. whispers into his ear some ambiguous sentences in which Mr. L. is given to understand that he must beware of all the Harlequins in the room, one of whom is Clairmont. Upon leaving the masquerade, somebody hands him a note requesting him to meet the unknown writer at St. Peter's. While he is busy reading the paper he is uncivilly interrupted by Clairmont, who attempts to assassinate him, but is finally put to flight. He hies, then, to the rendezvous at St. Peter's, where "the unknown" tells him St. Peter's won't answer, and that he must proceed to the Coliseum. He goes—why should he not?—and there not only finds the Countess D. who turns out to be Mrs. Rinaldo, and who now uncorks her bottle of gratitude, but also Flora Temple, Flora Temple's father, Clairmont, Kreutzner, a German friend from New York, and, last but not least, Rosalie Romain herself; all having gone there, no doubt, at three o'clock in the morning, under the influence of that interesting young gentleman Norman Leslie's "most inexplicable and mysterious destiny." Matters now come to a crisis. The hero's innocence is established, and Miss Temple falls into his arms in consequence. Clairmont, however, thinks he can do nothing better than shoot Mr. Leslie, and is about to do so, when he is very justly and very dexterously knocked in the head by Mr. Kreutzner. Thus ends the Tale of the Present Times, and thus ends the most inestimable piece of balderdash with which the common sense of the good people of America was ever so openly or so villainously insulted.
We do not mean to say that there is positively nothing in Mr. Fay's novel to commend—but there is indeed very little. One incident is tolerably managed, in which, at the burning house of Mr. Temple, Clairmont anticipates Leslie in his design of rescuing Flora. A cotillon scene, too, where Morton, a simple fop, is frequently interrupted in his attempts at making love to Miss Temple, by the necessity of forward-twoing and sachezing, (as Mr. Fay thinks proper to call it) is by no means very bad, although savoring too much of the farcical. A duel story told by Kreutzner is really good, but unfortunately not original, there being a Tale in the Diary of a Physician, from which both its matter and manner are evidently borrowed. And here we are obliged to pause; for we can positively think of nothing farther worth even a qualified commendation. The plot, as will appear from the running outline we have given of it, is a monstrous piece of absurdity and incongruity. The characters have no character; and, with the exception of Morton, who is, (perhaps) amusing, are, one and all, vapidity itself. No attempt seems to have been made at individualization. All the good ladies and gentlemen are demi-gods and demi-goddesses, and all the bad are—the d—l. The hero, Norman Leslie, "that young and refined man with a leaning to poetry," is a great coxcomb and a great fool. What else must we think of a bel-esprit who, in picking up a rose just fallen from the curls of his lady fair, can hit upon no more appropriate phrase with which to make her a presentation of the same, than "Miss Temple, you have dropped your rose—allow me!"—who courts his mistress with a "Dear, dear Flora, how I love you!"—who calls a buffet a bufet, an improvisatore an improvisitore—who, before bestowing charity, is always ready with the canting question if the object be deserving—who is everlastingly talking of his foe "sleeping in the same red grave with himself," as if American sextons made a common practice of burying two people together—and, who having not a sous in his pocket at page 86, pulls out a handful at page 87, although he has had no opportunity of obtaining a copper in the interim?