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    Nov. 22, 18510 fft) * 1Ltat>tt. 1115 —-—...

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    THE FAIR CAREW. The Fair Carew ; or, Hus...

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    TRAVELS IN EUROPEAN TURKEY. Travels in E...

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    Tiik Buautibs <>* A * Uu °**' „ /V' The....

    " 7 + h 7 rank Beddoeste entitled to hold , and having ted out his main defects , we now turn to the P ° imes for the more agreeable task of justifying 1 ° heautiful extracts our praise of his remarkable Knltv of expression . The poetic imagery and werful expression of these passages claim a place ? fViem beside the " specimens" which Charles Ttnb published from the Old Dramatists— « speciens " which so deplorably misled public taste as f the value of the writers quoted from ! R ead thi s remembrance of an Orgie : — « Twas dull : all men spoke slow and emptily .

    ' < ttranee things were said by accident . Their tongues mtered wrong words : one fellow drank my death , Meaning my health ; another called for poison , Tnstead of wine ; and , as they spoke together , Voices were heard , most loud , which no man owned : There were more shadows too than there were men ; And all the air , more dark and thick than night , Was heavy , as 'twere made of something more Than living breaths . "

    Is it not ghastly and true ? Here is an image of Power : — ( i j ^ i power that strides across the muttering people Like a tall bridge . " Here a powerful expression : — ** O that I could put on These feeble arms the proud and tawny strength Of the lion in my heart !" Here a picture of maiden love unconsciously betraving itself : —

    " A year and more is past Since a brave Saxon knight did share our prison ; A noble generous man , in whose discourse I found much pleasure : yet , when he was near me , There ever was a pain which I could taste Even in the thick and sweetest of my comfort : Strange dread of meeting , greater dread of parting : My heart was never still : and many times , When he had fetched me flowers , I trembled so

    That oft they fell as I was taking them Out of his hand . When I would speak to him I heard not , and I knew not what I said . I saw his image clearer in his absence Than near him , for my eyes were strangely troubled ; And never had I dared to talk thus to him . Yet this I thought was Love . O self deceived ! For now I can speak all I think to thee With confidence and ease . What else can that be Except ^ true'love ? "

    A passage so tenderly thought and delicately expressed is worth volumes of mere imagery , and is dramatic in the highest sense of the word . How true and well said that "Strange dread of meeting , greater dread of parting" ! For a magnificent intensity of expression , take this which occurs a few lines after the confession just cited : — " Enter a Knight .

    KnigJU . Hither , Sir Knight—Duke . What knight ? Knight . What knight , but Wolfram ? Ihilce . Wolfram , my knigVit ! * % *• My day , my Wolfram ]) "ke . Know ' st him ? Sibyl . His foot is on my heart ; he comes , he comes . " The pun " my day , " is like the Old Dramatists , as also the power of that line " His foot is on my heart ; he comes , he comes . " In the same school , and worthy a place beside »» o best , is this : —

    ,., D «& * ' Thither ? Thither ? Traitor 10 every virtue . Ha ! What ' this thought , wapelesa and shadowy , that keeps wheeling round , <* ke a dumb creature that sees coming danger , And breaks its heart trying in vain to speak , f f « n <) vv the moment : ' tis a dreadful one , AVi ' in l ' * ' * ° * every one comes once ; 11 . TV ° th ° S hted hesitating soul , yi heaven and luring sin with promises "'« and contend : oft tho faltering Hpirit , wcomo by the fair fascinating fiend , her

    jjives eternal heritage of life P ; rr ° V ° cnre 88 » 1 ( > r <> no triumphant crime . — * «« u | villain ! that dost long to sin , h >« Uar st not . Shall I dream my soul is bathing niK re viving blood , yet lose my right , lif y h F lllUl « my 8 ol « delight on earth , In h T "S tt / t ( ulow * « chapel wall I JT l > ule painted Hell ! No : by thy beauty , Ho lrft , ? thce ' « " « en . Doubt and caro I'Vown i m tho dmt with tlu ; worm conscience lint ,, , 1 ' ¦ " ' Wolfram : now Amen is said T'i « u ahlu r ° , l ) ei » B in «»» world : Mv ill , * Ilu ! tho very word doth double l , C n f of Ufc : the resolution leans tr i ° ( llvinel y . «* doth Mars ^ rrui f' 'r ™ ^ " ? footboard of his car , ^ ng lnto haMo ^ J u

    Even as my death'dispensing thought does now . Ho ! Ziba ! ^ Enter Ziba . Hush ! How still , how full , how lightly I move , since this resolve , about the place , Like to a murder-charged thunder cloud Lurking about the starry streets of night , Breathless and masked , O ' er a still city sleeping by the sea . Ziba , come hither ; thou ' rt the night I'll hang My muffled wrath in . Come , I'll give thee work Shall make thy life still darker , for one light on ' t Must be put out . O let me joy no more , Till Fate hath kissed my wooing soul ' s desire Off her death-honeyed lips , and so set seal To my decree , in which he ' s sepulchred . Come , Ziba , thou must be my counsellor . " We could multiply extracts , but enough has been given to indicate the nature of these volumes , to which we refer all lovers of poetry . On turning over these pages from which so much beauty rises to delight us , we are more than ever impressed with the sense of multiplied greatness demanded b y a fine tragedy . Tragedies are among the first things youthful poets aim at . Of all literary efforts they present the greatest amount of absolute , irredeemable failure . They seduce dwarfs to attempt the labour of giants . Given a poetic soul , think of what further indidsensable conditions there go to the production of a fine tragedy : the poet must have undergone tragic emotion , not simply of the pathetic but of the peace-shattering kind ; to profound emotions he must add varied experience of men , their ways , their habits , and their motives ; and even then all is not done—he must add thereto the instinct of dramatic art , and the knowledge of its limitations . What wonder that a fine tragedy is not written once in a century ? As tragedies these works of Beddoes are puerile ; as specimens of poetic expression they can scarcely be too highly praised .

    Nov. 22, 18510 Fft) * 1ltat>Tt. 1115 —-—...

    Nov . , 18510 fft ) * 1 Ltat > tt . 1115 — - ——^ ^^^*^«^^^ Mfc ^^^ . _^___ „ ....

    The Fair Carew. The Fair Carew ; Or, Hus...

    THE FAIR CAREW . The Fair Carew ; or , Husbands and Wives . Tn 3 vols . Smith , Elder , and Co . " I am reading an idle tale , " writes the charming Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to her daughter , " not expecting wit or truth in it , and am very glad that it is not metaphysics to puzzle my judgment , or history to mislead my opinion . " A quiet ,

    contented frame of mind , such as the novelist loves to meet with , and such as would welcome the calm mediocrity of works like this Fair Carew . We are neither young enough nor old * enough to extend very warm welcome to a book which does not charm us by its art , or set us thinking- by its reality ; and although The Fair Carew gives indications of a talent which may in maturer years produce works that will stand eminent above the " novels of the

    season , yet in itself this novel decidedly belongs to those of the season , rather better than the generality , rather inferior to some few . One can read it in an idle evening , and find the reading pleasant . But the great test of a book is " Do you desire to reread it ?"—and so little does The Fair Carew fulfil such a test that , when the volume is closed , the work vanishes from your thoughts . A novel may interest by its story , by its skilful delineation of character , by its acute remark , or by its sustained eloquence . A good novel unites these qualities ; but the possession of one of them is often sufficient for success . We cannot recognize in the The Fair Carew any power of eloquence ,

    nor any acuteness of observation . , The story is not without interest , though made up of threadbare materials . The best quality in the book is the power of sketching character , which , though it does not go beyond sketching , has nevertheless a distinctiveness and freedom of touch which give hope of future excellence . Mrs . Damer , Esther , Mrs . Hamilton , and Mr . Francis are skilfully touched and without exaggeration . ( Something in the handling of the pencil here reminds uh of the incomparable Miss Austen , whom we take it the authoress of The [ Fair Carew ( we assume the sex of the writer ) has consciously or unconsciously made a model .

    May we suggest to all novelists that Miss Austen , incomparable as an artist , ia the most dangerous of models ? It is only plenitude of power that restrains her from the perils of the form she has chosen—the perils , namely , of tedium and commonplace . Dealing as she doea with every day people aud every day life , avoiding all the grander tragic emotions and more imjKiHsioned aspects of Life , her art consists in charming us by the fidelity of ths p icture while relieving it of all tho tedium of reality . One degree less felicitous , and failure

    begins ! She makes her people speak and act as they speak and act in every day life ; and she if the only artist who has done this with success and pleasant effect . Macaulay styled her a Prose Shakspeare . We cannot , for our parts , conceive Shakspeare under prosaic conditions , poetry being so essentially involved in the whole structure of his works ; but if we divest him , in thought , of his winged attributes—if we set aside his passion , imagination , fancy , and rhythm , there will remain

    a central power of dramatic creation , the power of constructing and animating character , which may truly be said to find a younger sister in Miss Austen . Observe , however , that in place of hia poetry we must put her daring prose—daring from its humble truthfulness . Here again is a serious danger : into it all Miss Austen ' s imitators fall , they cannot keep to the severe level of prose : they rise above it , and the result is incongruity ; or they sink below it , and the result is tediousness .

    The authoress of The Fair Carew has lapsed occasionally into tediousness by the introduction of superfluous matter , and by presenting episodical scenes and people which do not excuse their presence by arresting our interest . If the work be a first attempt , we shall be glad to meet the authoress again ; for , as we have already indicated , the authoress is cleverer than her book .

    Travels In European Turkey. Travels In E...

    TRAVELS IN EUROPEAN TURKEY . Travels in European Turkey , in 1850 . By Edmund Spencer , Esq ., Author of Travels in Circassia . 2 vols . Colburn and Co . Under two very different aspects , namely , politics and entertainment , this work has unusual claims on attention . Mr . Spencer is an experienced traveller . He visited places not yet vulgarized by tourists ; and visiting them as he did , acquainted with the language , familiar with the history , and

    prepared by general knowledge of the people , he was no cockney wanderer amazed and mystified by all he saw , he was no tiresome litterateur " getting up " a book . His observations , therefore , have a value not commonly found in travels through Turkey ; while as a matter of entertainment the mere fact of his swerving from the beaten track is enough to keep the interest alive . He takes us through

    Servia—Bosnia—Bulgaria—Macedonia—Thrace—Albania—Epirus—the Ionian Isles—Hungaryand the Lower Danube . In point of matter we have only unqualified commendation to bestow on Ins book ; with regard to style we should make eome reservations . There is nothing vicious in it , —no " imaginative writing , " no flippancy ; but there is " something too much" of commonplace diction . Mr . Spencer will understand what we mean by a single illustration : no good writer now-a-days expresses the danger of a mountain-pass by saying that one false step " would plunge him into eternity ; " such flowers of rhetoric grow in the penny-a-liner ' s garden , but are not highly appreciated elsewhere .

    The political questions involved in the existence of Turkey are momentous . A careful reader of Mr . Spencer's volumes will gain some clear conceptions of the various races now living under tho Sultan ; and of the means which Turkey possesses to uphold her position in Europe . Upon English sympathies Turkey has peculiar claims : first , that she is coveted by the Northern Bear ; second

    that under her minarets the exiled Hungarians found noble protection against despotic Austria and peremptory Russia ; thirdly , that Englishmen are treated there with unfeigned kindness and respect , the very name of Englishman being almost as good as an imperial firman . Nay , Mr . Spencer has urged in several places a claim that will thrill the very heart of England—a claim upon commercial enterprise . Here is an instance : —

    " Our wealthy swineherd pointed out to me a drove of fat grunters , who were then most diligently turning up the earth in Hcarch of some root more dainty thuu the heaps of acorns that lay around them , and requested me to tell him how much ho should bo likely to obtain a head for them in tho London markets . When I assured him that qach unimal would be worth at least three hundred Turkish piastres , he cast upon me a look expressive atonco of incrodulity nnd anger , evidently regarding mo as some mischief-loving Frank , who was amusing himself with his ignorance . Then , without even vouchsafing mo a single ' slouga ' or 4 phala-bog , ' tho usual salutation at parting , he Hpurred hia steed , and , being well mounted , Hoon lot ' s us in tho dutunco .

    " 1 did not feel surprised at the conduct of the good Servian , or his disbelief in rajr w ^ tiona , » irtc « the AuBtrians , who are tho sole puMJ ) jiA « w « h «* e , never pay more than three or four Jfctyiltyl ft head for th « f #

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 22, 1851, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_22111851/page/15/