LITERARY NOTICES.
THE CAVALIERS OF VIRGINIA, or the Recluse of Jamestown. An Historical Romance of the Old Dominion. By the author of a Kentuckian in New York. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1834.
This work is by a Virginian,—and with that sort of partiality which inclines us to espouse the literary claims of our native state, (too long and too unjustly neglected,) we were predisposed to receive it with favor. Some of the northern periodicals moreover had lauded its merits, and we own that we felt some pride in the reflection that one of the most interesting periods in our early colonial history, had attracted a native adventurer in the field of historical romance. We regret to say that we are much disappointed in the manner in which the task has been executed. Our feelings and partialities, which were all on the author's side,—we are compelled to surrender to the stern demands of literary justice. The "Cavaliers," in our humble opinion, is unworthy of the subject it was intended to illustrate,—and although not entirely destitute of merit,—its faults are so numerous and censurable, they greatly preponderate in the estimate we have formed of the work. In the first place, the author has evidently failed to make himself acquainted with the history of the age and the character of the incidents which he has chosen as the groundwork of his story. The portrait of Bacon, is but a poor and feeble likeness of the original,—and that of Sir William Berkeley, is the merest caricature of that brave, accomplished, but despotic vicegerent of royal power. Bacon is represented as a kind of half frantic, inconsiderate stripling—something of a dandy—but more of a wild and reckless lover, whose thoughts were principally occupied by his "ladye love;"—and but slightly, if at all, by the wrongs of his suffering country. Far different indeed, was the noble and lofty heroism of the real Bacon—a character which shines in the foreground of our ancient history,—with a lustre, that despite of the efforts made to diminish it, will vie with the Wallaces and Tells of other ages and countries. Sir William Berkeley, though certainly a tyrant, was not the vulgar insensate wretch which our author has made him. His ambition was made of "sterner stuff," than to be employed upon petty schemes of matrimonial alliance,—and the Knight, "in a blue velvet doublet and pink satin breeches," is but an outre representation of the ancient and renowned Cavalier,—who had battled with the red man in his savage lair,—and had exchanged the luxuries of English society, for the perils and hardships of a wilderness.
There is another capital defect in our author, which if he ever hopes for success, must be first overcome. He leaves his pictures, both of character and incident, altogether unfinished,—and darts with a meteor-like swiftness from subject to subject,—reminding the reader of a show-box,—in which the eye scarcely lights upon one spectacle, before it vanishes,—and is substituted by another and a different one. This perpetual flash and glare, without even the merit of distinctness, is far more painful than agreeable;—and the author would do well, if he bestowed more pains in separating the several parts of his story,—and a little more skill in the arrangement and harmony of his coloring. In truth, if he intends to repeat his efforts; and is really a bona fide candidate for fame, we would advise him to put more oil into his lamp, and expend some additional labor in fitting his offspring for public exhibition. He does not employ sufficient thought in the composition of his narrative,—but suffers his imagination (rich and vivid enough,) to run riot without restraint or limit. The conduct of Bacon, after the interruption of the marriage ceremony, as described in the first chapter of the second volume—is the conduct of a bedlamite, rather than of a rational being; and the whole scene of his mounting his fiery courser,—plunging into the river and swimming to the opposite shore,—his head bared to the "pitiless storm"—"the monsters of the deep his playmates, and the ill-omened birds of night his fellows;" is such a tissue of exaggeration and sublime fustian,—that what was evidently intended for great effect, is in reality extremely ludicrous. The hero indeed, acts so little like a man of sense, in this nocturnal aquatic excursion, that the reader feels much more sympathy for "the white silk breeches and graceful blue cloak," (which were likely to be spoiled by the half saline element,) than for the poor unfortunate wight of a bridegroom himself.
The author has moreover been guilty of a very strange mistake in his geography. He makes his hero swim, "Leander-like," over the majestic James,—which according to our reckoning, and agreeably to the map of the country—would have landed him on the south side, in the very respectable county of Surry;—but, to our utter amazement, the next glimpse we have of him, he is rushing on his fleet courser into the wilderness on the margin of the Chickahomony,—which our best informed geographers have placed on the north side of the ancient Powhatan,—now called James river. Such mistakes are altogether inexcusable,—and the more so as the author is a native of the "Old Dominion," and ought to have been more circumspect in his topography. Equally unfortunate is his arrangement of historical events,—for if he had looked a little into our early writers, he would have found that Bacon was never carried prisoner to the Eastern Shore; and that the treachery of Larimore, did not betray the insurgent squadron into the power of Berkeley, until after the destruction of Jamestown. These errors in chronology however, might have been forgiven, if the author had otherwise redeemed himself from equally formidable objections. The whole story of the Recluse,—and the miraculous preservation of Bacon when an infant, as related by the old nurse,—strike us as evincing poverty of invention, and as altogether too absurd for an ordinary writer at least to use as materials for romance. Scott, perhaps, might have turned them to some advantage;—at all events, the matchless vigor and beauty of his style, would have thrown a veil over other imperfections. The author might have made something of Wyanokee, but unfortunately failed to do it,—and we cannot say that we even felt interested in the sorrows of Virginia Fairfax. The girl is well enough—very pretty—amiable—and all that, but she wants force and individuality of character. The whole scene in which the dying Mrs. Fairfax is exhibited in the bloody conflict with the Indians in the neighborhood of Richmond, is particularly horrible, and in wretchedly bad taste.
In taking our leave of the author, we would also advise him, when he writes another romance, to "sink the shop,"—or rather the profession; and not to describe the wounds and bruises of his dramatis personæ with that technical precision which only surgeons and anatomists can fully comprehend. We would also recommend to him, as a medical man, that when any unlucky hero of his is hereafter tied to an Indian stake, by all means to have him rescued before the pine splinters have actually pierced the flesh,—especially when that hero is made so soon thereafter to perform a series of active exploits requiring sound bodily health and great muscular exertion.
We have taken no pleasure in this free commentary upon the work before us, and have only been induced to make it by a sense of duty. Its author is evidently afflicted with a kind of rabid propensity to write works of fiction; and, if he is resolved to gratify it, we do most earnestly entreat him for his own sake and for the sake of his native state, to invoke hereafter a little more reflection, a purer taste, and a more enlightened judgment in aid of his labors.
VATHEK.
The publisher having sent a copy of the above work to a correspondent in whose literary attainments, taste and discrimination we place great confidence, received the following criticism from his pen: