cult a task. We have, indeed, a translation of Wilhelm Meister' by the hand of a master of the language; but its author has adopted, upon principle, that Anglo-Teutonic style, which no scolding or admonition will ever make palatable to our prejudiced taste; and it is, moreover, a work, which, as a whole, it is perhaps impossible to read with advantage in any tongue but the original. But Goethe, in his prose compositions, is, as it seems to us, one of those writers who might be most easily made known to us by fragments; because his several works seldom present a distinct unity of object, but consist, for the most part, of a number of detached trains of thought, alternately taken up and laid aside. His tales, romances, and reviews, his memoirs, (hitherto exceedingly ill translated,) and their still more interesting continuation in the Italian travels, the Campaign of 1792, and the 'Tag und Jahres Hefte,' (from which the notes to the volumes before us contain most interesting extracts,)-all these might surely afford materials which, when wrought on by such a hand as Mrs Austin's, would do more towards imparting to the British public some knowledge of the great idol of their Teutonic brethren, than if some persevering translator were to render accessible to us all the heavy volumes of insipid or paradoxical commentary, with which his admirers have sought to overlay correct criticism, and to deter the student from forming a free and impartial estimate of his character and powers.

ART. VI.-Recollections of a Chaperon. Edited by Lady DACRE. 3 vols. 8vo. London: 1833.

T

It is not our purpose to enquire whether the present great de

mand for novels is to be attributed to the increased number of those who seek amusement from reading; to our undramatic habits, and the decline of the stage; to the impulse, still unspent, contributed by the example of the author of Waverley, and the minor successes of others; or to the accidental absence at this time of any great and unexhausted poet. It is probable, that all these causes combine in a greater or lesser degree to stimulate the demand for this agreeable species of literature; and it is immaterial to ask which cause is most likely to preponderate. Neither shall we enquire whether the supply bears a just proportion to the demand, or whether the public are satiated with its abundance. Be this as it may, we see no near prospect of a material diminution; and while it continues, we must hail with

satisfaction the appearance of those works which best fulfil the promise of their pretensions.

It is no longer necessary to defend the novel against those sweeping denunciations by which it was once assailed, and which were at no time either philosophical or candid. It is true they were once seemingly justified by the multiplicity of bad publications of this kind, and the extreme paucity of good ones. But even if there had been no good ones, a truly sagacious and philosophical critic ought to have perceived the inherent capabilities of this species of composition. Fictitious narrative can often better illustrate those general truths which experience teaches, than the bare relation of partial facts; and many a novel, devoid of every other merit, may not be without its value as a faithful portrait of the manners of the day. It is sometimes urged, that from a delineation of the customs and manners of a single class, no just inference with respect to the state of society can be drawn; but it should be remembered, that in fact no novel does treat of one class only. Society in England is composed of ranks that press so closely on each other, that though we can view its lengthened chain as a whole, or mark at long intervals the variety it includes, it is difficult to distinguish each link that binds it together. Nevertheless, each link is a departure from the single narrow circle; and we venture to assert, that the simplest tale of the most uneventful life, was never yet related without the introduction of characters moving in different spheres. Under the vague title of fashionable novels,' (a title which it pleases publishers to give, and the public to adopt, without much propriety or meaning,) we may collect a tolerably accurate delineation of almost every description of the educated classes in this kingdom; and it must be allowed, that from this mass of productions, posterity will receive that faithful portrait of the social habits and feelings of the day which we would so gladly have received from our predecessors. The readers of the twentieth century will be in this respect more fortunate than we are. We have received in the garb of fiction some sketches of the social habits and feelings of other times, but they have been conveyed in the less elastic and comprehensive form of the poem or the play. In both of these the language is more conventional, and description is almost excluded from the latter; and we therefore receive from them less information than if novels had been written in their stead.

Novels are now so numerous, that whatever may be their claims to a permanent reputation, they are scarcely regarded by the public in any other light than as ephemeral publications. They are read rapidly and soon forgotten; and the tale of one

week is almost obliterated from the mind of many a reader by the novelty of the next. There is, therefore, no point of view in which the public is less disposed to regard the novel than as a record of the present time, addressed to the readers of a future age. This, it may be said, is not their object. If it were, the aim would be too ambitious. They are not written with the hope of being read in another century. On the contrary, they are, perhaps, beyond all works, save the periodical essay, or the party pamphlet, written peculiarly for the present day. This is true; yet we may be allowed to consider the use of a work as distinguished from its object-its applicability, as well as its intention. Novels are not meant for records-but they may become records nevertheless. This is an ulterior use, independent of present success, and not determined by the same qualities; save only the one great quality which ought to be alike essential to success, either present or to come-the adherence to abstract truth. This adherence is not indeed essential to the acquisition of present popularity so much as we could wish; but it is evidently essential in order that a novel may possess any claim to utility as a record of present habits to future times. The dullest novel possessing this quality, will, under this point of view, have a value, which we must deny to the most amusing production that possesses it not. In saying this, we mean only to recommend more strongly our adherence to abstract truthnot to advocate dulness, or decry the faculty of conveying amusement—for the novel, if dull, be it as faithful as it may, will not float down the stream of time; and unless it bears with it a rich freight of interest and entertainment, it will not reach posterity at all.

Under this view of the uses of the novel, that species which describes existing manners is to be preferred to the historical romance. We regret with reason that the days of Elizabeth and the Stuarts produced no novels descriptive of manners as they then existed; but we cannot equally regret that the writers of those times did not give ús historical novels, describing manners and customs as they believed them to have existed in the days of the Plantagenets. Such works, attractive as they might have been to those for whom they were written, would, as records, be valueless to us. The best historical novel is but an approximation to the truth. In reading those of Sir Walter Scott, we dwell with delight on that charm so peculiarly their own, whereby we are transported to times long past, and made to live in the age of which they treat. The minuteness of his descriptions has lent an air of truth to his rich details of picturesque costume. He has even heightened the illusion by inventing a style of language to which we are unaccustomed; and so dexterously

has he contrived an amalgamation of the real and ideal, that we fondly desire to accept the whole as a truth. But reflection tells us, that true to nature as are the characters described (for human nature in its passions and capacities may be alike in all ages), it must ever be remembered that when the rude customs of comparative barbarism are ornamented with the refinement and feelings of superior civilisation, the beauty of the picture may be heightened, but the portrait is no longer faithful. Historical novels may combine research with originality; but the most accomplished genius of the nineteenth century could not view the events of past times with other feelings than those of the present. We are therefore inclined to think, that novels, descriptive of the manners of the day, if imbued with a sufficiency of talent to enable them to live, will be more acceptable to our successors than equally well-written novels of the historical class.

We will now turn to one of the most pleasing recent specimens of the former of these classes, the Recollections of a 'Chaperon;' a collection of tales, which rumour assigns to Mrs Sullivan, the daughter of their accomplished editress, Lady Dacre. The name of the lady under whose auspices they are thus offered to the public, could not fail to ensure their perusal, and to excite expectations of their merit which, if not fulfilled by all the tales, has been fully redeemed in that of Ellen Wareham,' and in many parts of Milly and Lucy.' Of the others, entitled, The Single Woman of a certain Age,' Warenne,' and An Old Tale, and Often Told,' we prefer the former. It is simple and natural; but, like the other two, deficient in interest and power. Perhaps it deserves to be more interesting than it is, and than the unromantic title would lead us to expect; for the heroine is truly a heroine of the best kind -full of that passive heroism which belongs to woman more than to man-a much-enduring and unmurmuring spirit, who has generously sacrificed her own happiness for that of another. An Old Tale, and Often Told,' is the enumeration of those mortifications to which a divorced woman is subjected by society, whose laws she has outraged. Nothing can be more natural than the incidents in this plotless tale; but it bears its condemnation in its title; and the subject has, moreover, been better treated before, in a posthumous fragment entitled Emmeline,' by a female writer of distinguished talents, the late Mrs Brunton. Milly and Lucy' is the history of a young and beautiful girl, whose imagination has been wrought upon by the simple tale of her widowed nurse Milly, to determine never to marry any one to whom she is not devotedly attached. The narrative which produces this laudable determination, and which forms a kind of

preface to the tale, deserves much commendation. It is very pathetically conveyed, and without any vulgarity or effort, in the simple language of uneducated life. The following passage will appeal strongly to those who have known the half-formed apprehensions that crowd on the mind on approaching a home under circumstances of anxiety. It is the conclusion of a wife's journey to join a dying husband in Canada.

'I looked at the sun, and it was not above half way down. Just then there was a rise in the road, and I could see some smoke, and the roofs of some low huts, and some little patches of ground that were cultivated, and I strained my eyes to try and make out the last but one; I don't know how I got over the ground, but I soon did reach the first house, and I saw a child at play, and I asked him which was John Robarts's. I could hardly breathe while he answered, "He lives out yonder." He lives! and when I heard him say that, I first knew I had been afraid of never seeing John again.

'I ran as well as I could to the hut. It looked wretched and halffinished; the door was ajar-I pushed it open-there was nobody in the kitchen-I heard no noise-I listened-I did not dare step on. Just then my child cried, and a voice from within said, in a hollow tone, "Who's there?" I ran into the bedroom, and there lay my husband, sick, pale, and weak, but it was my husband alive, and all seemed well.'

Nor do the ungrammatical superlatives of poor Milly diminish the sympathy she inspires in the following account of her husband's last moments:

Yes, Miss Lucy,' and her faded eyes flashed with almost youthful brightness; He was the kindest-hearted, the truest-hearted, and the bravest-hearted man as ever lived. He feared nothing, but to do wrong, and to part with me. His thoughts were always on me; and when he was taken, the last words he ever spoke were, 66 my own Milly," and the last look he ever gave was for me, and my hand felt the last pressure his ever gave.'

Lucy, though heroically determined to marry for love, becomes dazzled by the rank and possessions of an admirer old enough to be her father. Mistaking the flutter of gratified vanity for genuine attachment, she hastily concludes that Lord Montreville's well-bred toleration of her childish pleasures is a proof of congeniality in feeling and in taste; and incurs the disappointment of discovering how much the good-nature of the husband may fall short of the good-breeding of the suitor. Lord Montreville, the husband, is a middle-aged roué, who ' had lately succeeded to the title of his elder brother; having 'passed through the career of a gallant gay Lothario, with the ' reputation of having been the most irresistible, and the most • discreet, but the most general of lovers.' His newly acquired rank and possessions suggest to him the propriety of marriage;