the error may chiefly be attributed to a defect of po- | and excrutiating torments inflicted upon the damned, litical sagacity: and there is certainly enough in the real gloom of that awe-inspiring poem springs the lively sympathy which all of us in this coun- from the multiplicity of the human vices therein try feel for any effort to acquire national liberty, depicted, and from the reality of the body and form and in the early promise, (fleeting and delusive, as which is definitely impressed upon that variety by we fear it will prove,) of the Provisional Govern- the specification of the criminals subjected to punment, to mislead us from a true estimate of the ishment. In Lucretia there is an analogous multiprospective results with which this great political formity of crime, but no such counterpoise to reagitation is pregnant. But what excuse can any lieve the impression of its horrors. The moral have for their blindness in failing to recognize the effect of the portraiture is also, in a great measure, direct tendency of such novels as Lucretia? The lost when the vials of iniquity are such fictitious only apology must involve their condemnation. and spectral shapes as those which figure in the They have drunk of the cup that the enchantress novel. The canvass is throughout embossed with offered; they have been transformed into the crea- the marshalled array of the Protean forms of sin; tures of her distorted world—and they cannot de- and the glaring unsubdued deformities of vice fill teet the consequent inversion and perversion of the it up almost exclusively; but the natural horror whole system around them—but all looks natural which might be anticipated from this agglomeraas before. tion of crimes is prevented, and the sensitiveness of the observer paralysed and benumbed by the mode in which these subjects are handled.

But, as we have said, the mere familiarity with vice which such novels are calculated to produce is by no means the source of our deepest dismay; It is unnecessary at this late day to run over the but that premature appetency for the loathsome de- long detail of growing depravity portrayed in Lutails of crime which must have preceded the popu- cretia, or to repeat the separate crimes, which form larity of these works, and whose fast-rooted ex- the staple of the work, we need only refer to them istence is revealed by their extended circulation, so far as may be requisite to illustrate the manner most be deemed infinitely more alarming. It is of Bulwer's procedure in the development of the only in a soil already putrescent that they could plot. The object of the author is to trace the sucflourish, or even prolong their existence a single cessive steps of moral depravation and to refer them day after their publication. Thus the nature of specifically to the combined operation of external the subject to which Lucretia is devoted opens, or agencies, and the impulses of a mind whose tenshould open our eyes to the yawning chasms-the dencies have been warped to wrong by previous greedy abysses which have parted the ground be- training. The nature of Lucretia appears to have neath our feet, and gape to engulph all that is up-been originally warm, impulsive, imperious, and right and pure in the social order of our modern strongly inclined to intellectual activity; but her civilization.

impulses seem to have been noble, her hauteur The whole frame-work of Bulwer's Lucretia is manifested in an abhorrence of prescriptive wrong a scaffolding of crime. It rises stage above stage or conventional meanness, and her intellectual asfrom the bright and wholesome flowers of the pirations subordinate to the kindly affections of the plain, that cluster round and conceal its base, into heart. Such at least, by the fostering care of a the murky atmosphere of a distempered sky, and more favorable education, she seemed likely to bepierces the regions of the air where hang the clouds come. Her career is that of the destroying fiend, charged with the fermenting miasma and the va- silent, secret, cautious as death: stealing slowly pors burthened with the storms of death. From but securely to the heart's blood of her victims, step to step we are led on through all the degrees sucking life like the vampire while fanning them into of iniquity until the dense steams of corruption a prolonged and deluded slumber; hesitating at no grow hot and choking around us, and we are half crime; scarcely visited by any pangs of remorse; stified by the mephitic exhalations which threaten subjecting all feelings to her will; subduing all the respiration of all but those who have been hab-impulses to her policy; crushing by the iron power itated to the sulphurous damps of the literary of her strong resolves all affections; sharpening grotto del Cane, or temple of modern romance. and employing her intellect for the cool, calculating Still, through all the gradations of deepening crime, discovery of the most secure, efficient, and unsuswe are led on tenderly under the guidance of Bul-pected means of perpetrating her crimes. Beauwer, and as we advance we are curiously and care- tiful with the fearful beauty of the Medusa's head, Fully familiarized with all the processes of that her features chiselled by the hand of nature and mellish transmutation by which impulses, originally the sharpening touch of time into the likeness of ood, and which might have been rendered high and noble, are converted into the agencies of the nost complete and unalloyed demoralization.

the angular regularity of her impassive mind, the original loveliness of her person, and her face wanes into the unearthly and spectral symmetry The horrors of Dante's Inferno are relieved rather and expression of a spirit of the lower world. By han heightened by the fantastic array of varied what means was this great change effected? What

is the metaphysical solution of such a horrible perceptible, but impregnating with death the liquid transmutation? These are the questions which it is with which they are mingled-so the fatal sophisms the object of Bulwer's novel to answer and explain. of Dalibard blend with all the natural streams of We take no note of the exquisite characters of Lucretia's intellect, and envenom them insensibly Percival St. John, and Helen Mainwaring, nor of and irresistibly in their sources. the manly and practical virtues of the younger But the action of mind upon mind, however diArdworth, neither will we suffer ourselves to be rect, is neither exclusive nor independent of cirdetained by the subordinate, or else common-place cumstances. Its influence may be counteracted, villainies of Gabriel Varney. Our object is not to disturbed, or confirmed by any one of the thousand examine every thing which may be in the novel, casualties which form the net-work of human life. to speculate upon all the forms of excellence or The curve which a body in motion describes while crime which may be introduced into its pages, nor descending through a fluid is determined both by to present a summary of its incidents, but solely to the force originally impressed and the resistance investigate the nature and causes of the danger to which it has to experience. Thus, in life, a defibe apprehended from this type of literary conta- nite direction may be communicated either by spongion, so that we may repel and reprehend in future taneous impulse, or an artificial (because extrinsi any similar attempt to seek an unsuspected en- cally excited) volition, but to arrive at the intertrance into the minds of men for similar corrup- pretation of the actual course pursued, we must tion clothed in the like weeds of fascinating fiction. take cognizance of the modifying influences of exThe original instrument in the perversion of ternal circumstances. When we would determine Lucretia's mind and feelings was a French refugee in advance not merely the tendency but the actual by the name of Dalibard, a man of peculiar char-career of a mind subjected to our manipulations, acter, singular acquirements, and wonderful intel- whether for good or evil, we must in our operations lectual power. He was brought into contact with make all the due allowances for the influence of Lucretia at her most susceptible age, and, as he circumstances, and adapt our schemes to them in infected her strongly with his own diseased mental the same manner, that in our construction of maconstitution, and aided materially in determining chinery, we are compelled to introduce compensa. the moral complexion of her after life, it is neces-tions for the tension, resistance, and friction of the sary to take particular note of him. materials. The first aphorism of the Novum OrDalibard is the incarnation of the ideal spirit of ganum is true in the moral and intellectual world, the earlier Revolution in France. He possesses no less than in the physical; it is only by our knowlthe wonderful intellectual vigor and comprehen- edge of all the facts, and our due application of siveness, the variety and extent of attainments, the that knowledge that we are enabled to operate the practical energy, the unscrupulous disregard of specific result desired. Hence for the solution of morality, the indifference to means, provided the the transmigration of Lucretia from the compara end be attained, the unhesitating insouciance in tive purity and nobility of her original nature into the commission of crime, the total negation of all the demoniac Circe which she afterwards became, natural sympathies, the selfishness, and the fiend-it is necessary for us to regard the character of the ish sagacity which characterized that stormy pe- original materia subjecta, the tendency impressed riod. The associate of the Robespierres, the St. upon her from without by the poisoning sophisms Justs, the Bailly's, the Fouchés, the Chéniers, the of Dalibard; and the circumstances by which she Lavoisiers, and partaking in a great manner the was surrounded and to which he was obliged to peculiar characteristics of all, he is led by circum-adapt himself in order to attain his ends. stances to devote the wonderful energies of his It is true that Dalibard is murdered before the powerful mind, and the singular fascination of his felonious career of Lucretia fairly commences-his varied attainments to the systematic corruption of death constituting her first act of participation in the mind and heart of Lucretia. He is thus the deliberate crime, and that act necessitated in some Mephistophiles of the plot, and, though early swept degree by the compulsion of self-defence--but, as from the stage, he leaves behind him in his acolyte the magnet imparts its virtue to the steel, so by a more dangerous instrument of evil than even habit, familiarity, and contact, the spontaneous inhimself. His nefarious principles are purified and clinations of Dalibard have been so far infused intensified, his criminal machinations refined and into the heart of Lucretia, as to require only the sublimated by the still higher intellect of Lucretia, enticement of circumstance to call them forth into which he has trained to wrong, and moulded into active development. The extrinsic force which an unalloyed appetency for crime. The impor- had originally set the diabolical machinery in motance of Dalibard's rôle consists in the terrible tion is no longer necessary, when its action has efficacy of the poison which he distils into the already generated a much more potent vis viva lo mind of Lucretia, and the fiendish sagacity of the mode of its administration. Like the crystalline drops of the aqua tofana—colorless, tasteless, im

assume its place and functions. Natural science assures us that the momentum once imparted to a body resting in space will never be lost, but its

motion will be unending; so, when the mind has been formed and hardened into the pursuit of a particular course, it needs no extrinsic aid to produce continuity of direction, for all opposing influences have then become feeble and insignificant. Hence the native character of Lucretia, the tendency impressed by Dalibard, and the surrounding circumstances are the sole elements needful to be considered for the solution of Lucretia's career. After the impulse is definitely given, it is indifferent to the metaphysical analysis whether Dalibard lives or dies. The only remaining question to be asked, is as to the mode in which new circumstances develop more and more the same tendencies, and incite to the commission of new crimes, which, in their turn, react upon the tendency, multiply its activity and efficacy, and incite to other crimes by that fatal and indissoluble chain of continuity which links to the crime committed the almost inevitable necessity of the commission of further crimes.

phenomena, the strictness and the intensity of the abstraction which such contemplations require must keep out of view the accessary, but more important considerations, which address themselves to the moral feeling. Of this Bulwer must have been fully aware; at least there is no excuse for even a momentary failure to take note of it. For, it was exactly by this process, as represented in the novel itself, that Dalibard was enabled to infiltrate his corrupting venom into the mind of Lucretia. His success in contaminating her feelings and intellect was due to the sedulous care with which the approaches were made by his insidious artifice, the diligent employment of all casual opportunities, and the dexterous versatility with which he adapted himself to every change of circumstances, and all the fleeting hues of capricious feeling. The original infection was communicated in the form of abstract maxims relative to human life and conduct, speculative dogmas, having no direct or These are the points which Bulwer's Lucretia perceptible connexion with individual action, and is intended to solve, and the solution is character- abstract metaphysical theories having none of their ized by singular acuteness, and a constant adhe-bitter fruits cognizably displayed. By the undue rence to the conditions of the problem. It is not excitation of the strictly analytical powers of the our intention to follow the metaphysical develop- mind, and the consequent exaggeration of the relament of character and incidents. Any such at- tive dignity of the intellect in the human microtempt would prolong our remarks to a most tedious length, while it would be both too late, in point of time, to be appropriate, and would distract the attention from the moral purposes to which this essay is devoted. Our design will be accomplished by the exhibition of the injurious influences calculated to result to society from the strict observance of the above conditions, and the metaphysical mode of treatment which such analytical speculations require.

cosm, the natural play of the feelings of Lucretia was insensibly diverted into wrong channels, all considerations of right and wrong were first overlooked and finally disregarded in the exclusive and undue appreciation of the mental energies and intellectual ability displayed, her whole moral nature was introverted, and all speculation about the means or results of human action became a mere critical investigation of the agencies, the activities, the combinations by which the conduct of meu was obviously influenced and apparently determined. We shall have occasion to return to this

We know not whether others have felt in reading, as we have in writing the above analysis of the essential conditions under which alone Bul- last topic for the sake of exposing the radical and wer's design could be legitimately carried into fatal fallacy involved in it; but, in the meantime, execution; but to us this minute and critical ex- we would call attention to the utter absence of all amination of the agencies of depravation and the excuse for any real or pretended ignorance on the influences productive of crime, seems utterly to part of Bulwer of the tendency of his mode of exclude all moral appreciation of the iniquities treating a criminal career, when he himself reprecommitted, to paralyse, because failing to awaken, sents the gradual depravation of his heroine's heart the natural horror which the enormities of sin and intellect, as the consequence of analogous would otherwise inspire, to gloss over vice by con- tainpering with the great questions of right and cealing it from our sight beneath the veil of meta-duty, and with the evolution of the psychical tenphysical subtlety, and to familiarize the mind unwil-dencies, by the slimy, oily, perfidious metaphysics lingly by bringing it into such close and contin- of Dalibard.

tal contact with crime, while the vigilance of Having thus dismissed as invalid the only apoloour native feelings of abhorrence is prevented orgy which could be offered by or for Bulwer--(and thrown off its guard by its curious and attentive in speaking of Bulwer and Lucretia let it be reabsorption in inquiries of a character wholly dismembered that we intend our remarks to be applisimilar. This is exactly the first, and one of the cable to all similar interpretations of the growth chief dangers to be apprehended from Lucretia. and development of crime, and to all authors who We have already alluded to it more than once in employ their talents in such formulized explanathe course of our previous observations. While tions of vice)-having, then, dismissed the apolothe mind of the reader or speculator is assiduously gy, we will return from the digression to a more engaged in the recognition of the metaphysical minute examination into the nature and causes of

that pernicious tendency which is to be apprehen- the process only leads to the more exact co-ordided from such productions. nation of phenomena already observed. We forThe exaggerated predominance of crime in a get, however, while engaged upon the work of work of fiction, is, for reasons already sufficiently separation into the component parts, how much that explained, in itself a source of peril: so is the cu- is most essential may insensibly escape by volatil rious portraiture of the lives and character of crimi-ization, and leave behind only the dead and more nals.

easily cognizable constituents. We look for those The whole tissue of the narrative in Lucretia is, particular elements which in advance we anticipa as we have previously observed, from the begin- ted, those we discover, and those only; and thus ning to the close, a web spun, warp and woof, by when our analysis is pushed to its furthest limit the intertexture of vice and crime. And the per- we have no assurance of having recognized all the ils that must result from familiarizing the mind to agencies at work, nor of having thus a full explathe habitual contemplation of such topics are en-nation of the phenomena which we would interpret. hanced by a metaphysical mode of exposition. Nugatory as may be the actual result, tallacions as The study of crime is too apt thus to become a is the process, so much nice observation, such close mere exercise of the intellect--the concentration and unintermissible attention are required, that we and attention of the mind requisite for the compre- can scarcely take any note of any thing but the hension of the agencies at work, and for the recep-metaphysical processes employed, and the conclation or rejection of the metaphysical solution pre- sions resulting from the metaphysical analysis. If vents or deadens the moral appreciation of the then the proposed theorem be the interpretation of crime or the criminal--thus, by proceeding from the mode in which crimes or a vicious disposition special instances to general views, the distinctions may have been generated, our thoughts will be oc of right and wrong become confused or indiffer-cupied merely with the metaphysical solution, and ent--and this obscurity of ethical principles soon in most cases will absolutely, because unsuspiciousgenerates that spurious sympathy which, either ly, exclude all moral decision upon them. Moral from carelessness or corruption, knows not how to distinguish between the offence and the offender. On each of the last four topics we shall offer a few remarks: we deem it unnecessary to dwell upon the other, as it has been elucidated with sufficient

fulness before.

estimates are formed upon the aggregate acts or facts; metaphysical interpretation draws us off in an entirely different direction, breaks these acts or facts up into a series of explanatory conditions, disperses the rays of light which should be concentrated, carries us to the other extremity of the It is the general opinion entertained by those line, and asks for an estimate of the analysis of the who have most critically examined existing sys- crime, which is directly adverse to an estimate of tems of metaphysics that, with the possible excep- its heinousness. In this way, the metaphysical tion of some of the reveries of the Transcendalists, study of a criminal career, or such a galaxy of they are of a purely analytical or negative charac- crimes as begems the pages of Lucretia, becomes ter-being efficacious only in unsettling the grounds merely an intellectual exercise: it not merely exof belief by successively eliminating the supposed cludes, but has a tendency also to prevent the apcertainties on which credence rests, while they re-preciation of the incidents represented, relatively main wholly inefficient to replace the ruins which to considerations of immutable right and wrong. they have made. It is not our intention at this It should be added that an explanation is too fretime to examine the various systems of Metaphy-quently regarded as an excuse, which should put a sics which have been proposed, we shall pass no stop to all further inquiry, and extend perfect imsentence upon the Transcendentalists, nor inquire munity to the thing explained. This is too inti whether this negative character is a necessary in- mately concordant with the intellectual and moral cident of all other schemes. Without, therefore, weaknesses of human nature not to have fallen examining or developing the view presented above, within the notice of every one; and from the same or attempting to trace the tendency to its origin, cause we may judge the extent to which such an or to suggest a countervailing principle as a reme- erroneous view would operate in withdrawing at dy for this disorganizing characteristic, we may tention from the guilt of any person whose guilt might content ourselves with calling attention to the fact have been delicately traced back to a long series that such metaphysics, no matter with what talent of antecedent and mutually dependent influences. expounded, as are employed by Bulwer and other The slave who told his master that it was in obedinovel writers, are entirely of this negative charac-ence to his destiny that he had stolen a cloak, aster. The intellectual exercise, however eagerly suming his fatalism to be true, conceived that this or skilfully pursued, must be absolutely without explanation was a valid defence. He was answerany truly satisfactory result, for it can only employ ed in the only way in which such persons should the methods of analysis, or severance of an aggre- be answered, that it was his destiny also to be whipgate into its parts. It is therefore simply a critical ped for stealing. So those ultra-phrenologists who operation, and the successful accomplishment of explain the vicious disposition by natural tenden

cies which are referred to organic peculiarities, and on this account regard guilt as the mere consequence of physical structure, obliterate the notion of right and wrong by the interpretation of phenomena, and convert the estimate of crime into a phrenological speculation. We thus perceive how readily the metaphysical solution of vice degenerales into a mere exercise of the intellect, and how closely this pernicious tendency is associated with the characteristics of the present day.

serious error.

After the incidental observations on the subject in the last few paragraphs, it is scarcely necessary to make any further remarks on the tendency of Bulwer's Lucretia and works of like metaphysical complexion to prevent and deaden the moral appreciation of human actions. This paralysis of the moral action of the feelings is followed by insensibility to the wide opposition between right and wrong, and ultimately by an artificial incapacity to determine the vital distinction between them. We have already mentioned that this metaphy- When every human action is supposed capable of sical interpretation of the agencies that conduce to resolution in the crucible of our metaphysical anathe production of crime involves a radical fallacy, lysis, and our curiosity in speculation is directed on which indeed it rests as its principal basis. We to the recognition of the now dissociated elements, have also stated before that we can have no assu- under the conviction that these will furnish us with rance of having taken all the agencies into the cal- the full explanation of human actions, whether virculation, and this of itself would vitiate the solu-tuous or vicious, then the processes of human detion. Neither can we test the degrees of influence velopment appear identical, whether directed to exercised by either the direct or the resisting for- good or to evil, and in either case the aim of our ces which may be engaged in the conflict of mind investigations is the same-namely, the detection or feelings. We have no barometer to determine of the concurring causes which have effectuated by the rise or the fall of the mercury the specific the given result. pressure exercised by each influence at each par- This identity of scope and process is alone sufticular time. We have no apparatus to test the ficient to confuse all distinctions of right and wrong, degrees of moral agencies, and thus all our calcu- but they are further obliterated by the metaphysics lations on such subjects can only be vague approxi- employed in such modes of investigation. What mations, and must always be exposed to grave and is the difference between right and wrong when But none of these was the particu- they are both equally traced to the combined and lar fallacy to which we alluded, although the last definite operation of constitutional tendencies and is closely allied to it. The diagnostics of disease external influence? Both will equally appear to are delusive even when weighed by the science, be the inevitable result of uncontrollable agencies. the genius, and the experience of the most able We have already exhibited the radical fallacy inphysician, because independent of their frequently volved in these explanations; but when they are equivocal character, he has no means of apprecia- assumed, either through ignorance or design, as ting the mode, the degree, or the efficacy of the logical and conclusive, where is the possibility of resistance which the vital forces may oppose to the introducing a distinction between right and wrong. attacks of the malady. And similarly in the devel-Are they not both equally due, as the interpretation opment of human character, whether healthy or shows, to laws of exactly the same character ? are distempered, we have no power of forming even not both ultimately the result of necessary impulan approximate estimate of the feebleness or the ses and influences? How are we to escape from strength of the resistance which the native moral the vicious delusion? We can only fall back upon energies either did oppose, or might have opposed beggarly Benthamism, which conceals the difficulto the corrupting influences of external agents, or ty, which it affects, but is unable to explain. Vireven to a spontaneous impulse towards wrong from tue and vice then derive their character entirely within. The double play of conflicting appeten- from mere questions of expediency or general utilcies is one of the inexplicable paradoxes of human ity, the immutability of justice is instantly cashiernature which the individual consciousness of each ed, because its functions are gone; and a change man compels him to recognize in his own case. of utilities would so shuffle the cards that murder What is true of each man individually, is true gen- and benevolence would reciprocally assume an enerally of all. We have no means of arriving at tire difference of moral complexion. The mistake any knowledge of the strength of the moral oppo- that was made by Bentham and the Utilitarians, sition to incitements to wrong, we only know that and before them, by Paley, though in a less degree it decreases with each new failure, and thus every than is usually snpposed, was to imagine the coinmetaphysical explanation of human guilt must be cidence of right and general utility and the concurfallacious, none can afford any defence, or dimin- rence of wrong and general disadvantage to be an ish the responsibility of the vicious. In Lucretia absolute proof of the dependence of right and wrong as the subject is treated by Bulwer, this great truth upon considerations of expediency. Yet the genis not merely overlooked, but it is smothered and eral utility is merely a symptom of the presence hence the fallacy, as all illogical reasoning does, assails the foundations of morality.

of right; not its reason, or its cause : and the erection of a system of morals on such a basis is ex