As regards Mr. Fay's style, it is unworthy of a school-boy. The "Editor of the New York Mirror" has either never seen an edition of Murray's Grammar, or he has been a-Willising so long as to have forgotten his vernacular language. Let us examine one or two of his sentences at random. Page 28, vol. i. "He was doomed to wander through the fartherest climes alone and branded." Why not say at once fartherertherest? Page 150, vol. i. "Yon kindling orb should be hers; and that faint spark close to its side should teach her how dim and yet how near my soul was to her own." What is the meaning of all this? Is Mr. Leslie's soul dim to her own, as well as near to her own?—for the sentence implies as much. Suppose we say "should teach her how dim was my soul, and yet how near to her own." Page 101, vol. i. "You are both right and both wrong—you, Miss Romain, to judge so harshly of all men who are not versed in the easy elegance of the drawing room, and your father in too great lenity towards men of sense, &c." This is really something new, but we are sorry to say, something incomprehensible. Suppose we translate it. "You are both right and both wrong—you, Miss Romain, are both right and wrong to judge so harshly of all not versed in the elegance of the drawing-room, &c.; and your father is both right and wrong in too great lenity towards men of sense."—Mr. Fay, have you ever visited Ireland in your peregrinations? But the book is full to the brim of such absurdities, and it is useless to pursue the matter any farther. There is not a single page of Norman Leslie in which even a school-boy would fail to detect at least two or three gross errors in Grammar, and some two or three most egregious sins against common-sense.
We will dismiss the "Editor of the Mirror" with a few questions. When did you ever know, Mr. Fay, of any prosecuting attorney behaving so much like a bear as your prosecuting attorney in the novel of Norman Leslie? When did you ever hear of an American Court of Justice objecting to the testimony of a witness on the ground that the said witness had an interest in the cause at issue? What do you mean by informing us at page 84, vol. i, "that you think much faster than you write?" What do you mean by "the wind roaring in the air?" see page 26, vol. i. What do you mean by "an unshadowed Italian girl?" see page 67, vol. ii. Why are you always talking about "stamping of feet," "kindling and flashing of eyes," "plunging and parrying," "cutting and thrusting," "passes through the body," "gashes open in the cheek," "sculls cleft down," "hands cut off," and blood gushing and bubbling, and doing God knows what else—all of which pretty expressions may be found on page 88, vol. i.? What "mysterious and inexplicable destiny" compels you to the so frequent use, in all its inflections, of that euphonical dyssyllable blister? We will call to your recollection some few instances in which you have employed it. Page 185, vol. i. "But an arrival from the city brought the fearful intelligence in all its blistering and naked details." Page 193, vol. i. "What but the glaring and blistering truth of the charge would select him, &c." Page 39, vol. ii. "Wherever the winds of heaven wafted the English language, the blistering story must have been echoed." Page 150, vol. ii. "Nearly seven years had passed away, and here he found himself, as at first, still marked with the blistering and burning brand." Here we have a blistering detail, a blistering truth, a blistering story, and a blistering brand, to say nothing of innumerable other blisters interspersed throughout the book. But we have done with Norman Leslie,—if ever we saw as silly a thing, may we be —— blistered.
THE LINWOODS.
The Linwoods; or, "Sixty Years Since" in America. By the Author of "Hope Leslie," "Redwood," &c. New York: Published by Harper and Brothers.
Miss Sedgwick is one among the few American writers who have risen by merely their own intrinsic talents, and without the a priori aid of foreign opinion and puffery, to any exalted rank in the estimation of our countrymen. She is at the same time fully deserving of all the popularity she has attained. By those who are most fastidious in matters of literary criticism, the author of Hope Leslie is the most ardently admired, and we are acquainted with few persons of sound and accurate discrimination who would hesitate in placing her upon a level with the best of our native novelists. Of American female writers we must consider her the first. The character of her pen is essentially feminine. No man could have written Hope Leslie; and no man, we are assured, can arise from the perusal of The Linwoods without a full conviction that his own abilities would have proved unequal to the delicate yet picturesque handling; the grace, warmth, and radiance; the exquisite and judicious filling in, of the volumes which have so enchanted him. Woman is, after all, the only true painter of that gentle and beautiful mystery, the heart of woman. She is the only proper Scheherazade for the fairy tales of love.
We think The Linwoods superior to Hope Leslie, and superior to Redwood. It is full of deep natural interest, rivetting attention without undue or artificial means for attaining that end. It contains nothing forced, or in any degree exaggerated. Its prevailing features are equability, ease, perfect accuracy and purity of style, a manner never at outrance with the subject matter, pathos, and verisimilitude. It cannot, however, be considered as ranking with the master novels of the day. It is neither an Eugene Aram, nor a Contarini Fleming.
The Linwoods has few—indeed no pretensions to a connected plot of any kind. The scene, as the title indicates, is in America, and about sixty years ago. The adventures of the family of a Mr. Linwood, a resident of New York, form the principal subject of the book. The character of this gentleman is happily drawn, but we are aware of a slight discrepancy between his initial and his final character as depicted. He has two children, Herbert and Isabella. Being himself a tory, the boyish impulses of his son in favor of the revolutionists are watched with anxiety and vexation; and, upon the breaking out of the war, Herbert, positively refusing to drink the king's health, is, in consequence, ejected from his father's house—an incident upon which hinges much of the interest of the narrative. Isabella is the heroine proper; a being full of lofty and generous impulses, beautiful, intellectual, and spirituelle—indeed a most fascinating creature. But the family of a widow Lee forms, perhaps, the true secret of that charm which pervades the novel before us. A matronly, pious, and devoted mother, yielding up her son, without a murmur, to the sacred cause of her country—the son, Eliot, gallant, thoughtful, chivalrous, and prudent—and above all, a daughter, Bessie, frail-minded, susceptible of light impressions, gentle, loving, and melancholy. Indeed, in the creation of Bessie Lee, Miss Sedgwick has given evidence not to be disputed, of a genius far more than common. We do not hesitate to call it a truly beautiful and original conception, evincing imagination of the highest order. It is the old story of a meek and trusting spirit bowed down to the dust by the falsehood of a deceiver. But in the narration of Miss Sedgwick it becomes a magical tale, and bursts upon us with all the freshness of novel emotion. Deserted by her lover, (Jasper Meredith, an accomplished and aristocratical coxcomb,) the spirits of the gentle girl sink gradually from trusting affection to simple hope—from hope to anxiety—from anxiety to doubt—from doubt to melancholy—and from melancholy to madness. She escapes from her home and her friends in New England, and endeavors to make her way alone to New York, with the object of restoring, to him who has abandoned her, some tokens he had given her of his love—an act which her disordered fancy assures her will effect, in her own person, a disenthralment from passion. Her piety, her madness, and her beauty stand her in the stead of the lion of Una, and she reaches the great city in safety. In that portion of the novel which embodies the narrative of this singular journey, are some passages of the purest and most exalted poetry—passages which no mind but one thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the beautiful could have conceived, and which, perhaps, no other writer in this country than Miss Sedgwick could have executed. Our readers will find that what we say upon this head is very far from exaggeration.
Jasper Meredith, considered as an actual entity, is, as we have already said, a heartless, calculating coxcomb—with merely a spice of what we may call susceptibility to impressions of the beautiful, to redeem him from utter contempt. As a character in a novel, he is admirable—because he is accurately true to nature, and to himself. His perfidy to Bessie (we shall never forget Bessie) meets with poetical justice in a couple of unsuccessful courtships, (in each of which the villain's heart is in some degree concerned,) and in a final marriage with a flirt, Helen Ruthven, who fills him up, with a vengeance, the full measure of his deserts. Mrs. Meredith is a striking picture of the heartless and selfish woman of fashion and aristocracy. Kisel, the servant of Eliot Lee, is original, and, next to Bessie, the best conception in the book. He is a simple, childish, yet acute and affectionate fool, who follows his master as would a dog, and finally dies at his feet under circumstances of the truest pathos. While Miss Sedgwick can originate such characters as these, she need apprehend few rivals near the throne.