The abundance of his materials of this sort is not indicative of his opulence, but of his want of habitual knowledge, and of his most grievous want of taste. There is the extravagance of ostentation, without the refinement of selection; a hasty accumulation of materials, but no choice, nor arrangement. They are likewise extrinsic to the interest of the piece; they are not at all adstricted with the plot, and are entirely unmodified by character, passion, or sentiment. Of the crowd of historical persons, no more mention is made than for the most part is contained in our outline; of ninety-nine out of a hundred only the names are given, and no attempt is made to illustrate their characters either by description or dialogue. They have no connexion with the progress of the narrative, and only interfere with its unity. For exampleon Jocelyn's return to England, his fishing-boat is brought-to, only for the purpose of introducing the name of Sir John Lawson, by whom he is suspected for a spy, only for the purpose of mentioning the Duke of York, the Earl of Falmouth, Mr. Boyle, and Lord Muskerry. Then he is permitted to proceed, because the latter happened fortunately to know him personally, though of this personal knowledge the reader knew nothing before, and hears nothing after. This, as the reader will perceive, is only one instance out of a thousand. In this respect his fiction is more deficient than history, instead of being more perfect, as is demanded by Diderot, and exemplified in Wallenstein, and in general observed by every good novelist. Everything in Brambletye House is of accidental occurrence; there is no apparent connexion, only juxta-position. The poetical imagination is in this matter identical with the philosophical. The latter is not satisfied with the succession of day and night, as giving the relation of cause and effect, but refers for the grateful vicissitude of morn and eve,' to the diurnal motion of the earth. And so the poetical imagination looks for an intimate connexion between the events and in the combinations of the incidents, and without this the work is not only unsatisfactory, but inartificial and imperfect. In this novel, however, there is not even constant succession to indicate mutual relation; for, as in the instance already mentioned, the case only occurs once for that particular purpose, and is a trick so palpable and obvious, that the merest boarding-school girl would detect it at once. is not the way in which historical persons should be introduced this is not the way in which they are introduced by the Author of Waverley. By him they are well selected-are made to increase the interest of the story, and are modified by the nature of his narrative and the attributes of his own genius.

This

We have endeavoured to show the principles of the composi

tion of the novel, by a comparison with the conduct of a dramatic production. What would Mr. Smith say to a tragedy composed upon the plan of Brambletye House? Whatever might be his opinion, we are persuaded that it would not be intelligible either to an audience at the theatre, or to a reader in the closet. Indeed, the thing would show itself so palpably absurd, that no author, with any feeling for his art, could possibly fall into the error. Besides, no knowledge is communicated by these means. All who choose to take the trouble can possess themselves of the antiquarian facts, but the novelist undertakes something more than merely to transcribe from the old documents, or to plunder (which is all that Mr. Smith has any notion of) some recent collection. He is to go beyond the letter that kills, and to give us the spirit that makes alive. The persons that exist in those records only as names, are to exist in his page as individuals, quick and stirring, in a breathing world. So of the events:-it is not enough, that they be extracted from some general account, and detailed in the style of a newspaper paragraph, but some imagination or fancy must be exercised upon them, and they must be represented graphically and vividly. We would recommend this author to see how Dryden and Wilson have treated the Fire of London and the Plague, and compare their richly poetical pictures with his most prosaic and repulsive sign-posts. Poets have the art to make horror fascinating :-nothing can equal the disgust with which the perusal of Mr. Smith's description of the Plague is accompanied. The murderous conduct of his old nurse towards her patient is read with precisely the same abhorrence and heaving of the gorge, with which the naked account of a similar transaction in the newspapers would be read by every subject within his majesty's dominions-unrelieved by any touch of feeling-unredeemed by one grace of fancy or sentiment.

The deficiencies complained of appear to result from the author's poverty of invention. It will be found, that in all its substantial elements his story is the same as that of Peveril of the Peak. It arises from the claim of a Roundhead on the estate of a Cavalier, and some of the incidents are the same. The mode in which Lord Rochester introduces Jocelyn is copied from that adopted by Fenella for the introduction of Julian to Charles II., and the reason for the manner of the introduction is in both instances the same-the morbid insensibility of the monarch to anything that was not capable of exciting him by its suddenness or rarity. The way in which, by the contrivance of Constantia, Jocelyn is rescued from the Tower-wherry, is the same that is proposed by Fenella for the liberation of Julian, on his conveyance

to

to the Tower. The classes of character likewise are the same as in the elder novel; and, unfortunately, some of the individuals are identical. Mr. Smith's portrait of Charles II. is sadly inferior to his master's, and his Rochester is but an affected caricature of the other's Buckingham. Both Julian and Jocelyn are introduced into the levee of their respective patrons, to await their rising very late in the day. The levee of both is composed of the same sort of people. To subject his work to such direct comparison with an earlier and better production was, to say the least, exceedingly injudicious-this is not only servile imitation, but direct plagiarism. Jocelyn himself we readily consign to the author as his own creature. He is without a single virtue, if we except that of personal courage, which, as Dryden says, 'is at best but a holiday kind of virtue; to be seldom exercised, and never but in cases of necessity-affability, mildness, tenderness, and good nature, are of daily use; they are the bread of mankind, and the staff of life.' There is also a mysterieuse, who would fain be a sort of Meg Merrilies, or Madge Wildfire; but a machine more thoroughly contemptible was never invented. Her only spell consists in the utterance of two words- Anathema Maranatha !' —which she denounces at intervals from some concealed locality, and then makes her escape, which is assisted by her constantly wearing a black dress, into a black forest. Meg Merrilies and Madge Wildfire are household words. When will our children be familiar with the name of Molly Lawrence?

In Peveril of the Peak, Fenella performs the part of a mysterieuse. She is one of the most delightful inventions of the author. She is so interesting, that we reluctantly admit that her deficiencies of speech and hearing were only assumed for a sinister and destructive purpose, and are scarcely willing that she should depart into exile with so unprincipled a villain as her father: for in her there are noble elements, though doubtless inconsistent with her education and station. She should have been less idealized first, or less common-place afterwards. At the outset of his work, the author was free to choose the form and disposition of the portrait that he intended-at the termination, he was bound by the circumstances of his evolved story. To the law of connexion, so violated by Mr. Smith, he was compelled in part even to sacrifice the attributes that rendered the character interesting to his readers and dear to his own imagination. We regret that he has not reconciled both requirements by a more skilful management. The novel in which Fenella appears is full of incident and character, and throughout most felicitously written. Major Bridgenorth, and Alice Bridgenorth, and old stout Sir Geoffrey Peveril, are names that will not leave us till we die ;'

nor,

nor, in the meantime, will little Geoffrey Hudson be forgotten. For these high-souled personages, Mr. Smith gives us Winky Boss and his wife, old Beverning and Sir John Compton-characters of some humour, but coarse and ungainly; and Julia and Constantia, the materials of the circulating library, time out of mind, and essentially prosaic.

There is something noticeable, also, in the choice of subjects of the two authors. The one is contented with a breach of the Royal Indemnity Act and Titus Oates's plot, which demand invention to render them interesting; the other will be satisfied with nothing less than the Plague and the Fire of London, which are subjects that in good hands do everything for themselves, but overwhelm a feeble wit with their magnificence. Thus it has been in the case of the work before us. Moreover, a judicious writer might well pause before treating of subjects consecrated by the touch of preceding genius. But

Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread!'

There is, indeed, one historical character which Mr. Smith has originally attempted,-that of Cromwell; but he has not trusted himself far with the Protector. We hear no more of him after the first volume, where he is introduced upon the occasion already mentioned. It is but a sketch-meagre, and ill understood. It was reserved for the author of Woodstock to give to the character personality and vigour. This he has done, though we are free to confess, that there is room for a man of genius to improve upon the outline of the novelist, and we wish it had been filled up by him in a style less sentimental. As it is, it is the best representation that we yet have of the character; but if he should see reason to attempt it again, we have no more doubt of his success than of his ability to succeed. The mind of such a man as Cromwell is a subject worthy of such a developement as Sir W. Scott could give to it, if he would.

The Tor-Hill is a very inferior production to BrambletyeHouse, but written in precisely the same manner. The author is an imitator, but no artist: he is a mere literary mechanic, who puts parts together according to direction or precedent; but is incapable of preconceiving a whole: he is a builder, not an architect. We cannot afford to illustrate this second piece of joinery, by a detail of its construction: it is enough to say, that the historical characters and events are equally accidental in their introduction as in the former novel, and have no peculiar influence on the interest of the narrative, and no intimate connexion with the arrangement of the argument, or the progress of the fable. There is, perhaps, more selection; they are not huddled together in such crowds as on the previous occasion, but they are quite as use

less

less and idle. Neither does the story tend to illustrate the time in which the action is laid: all that happens might have happened at any other period; the characters are not necessarily of that age; we have only the author's word that such things were, and overcame men like a summer's cloud without their special wonder. We have the names of Henry VIII., of Anne Boleyn, of Cardinal Wolsey, and a whole-length portrait of the Laureate Shelton; but all that they do or say neither gives, nor has any tendency to give us, any clearer conception of the events or motive-springs of the Reformation than we had before; indeed, if we had only this novel to refer to, we should not be able to form any conception at all of its character. It would really be performing an act of cruelty towards the author to attempt any outline of his fable, or to analyze the heterogeneous materials of which these volumes are composed. We should benefit nothing by an endeavour to detect the principles of the composition of a work evidently written on no principle intelligible to its author. But still we did expect to find some discrimination and portraiture of character. The characters of Winky Boss, and the old Burgomaster Beverning, induced us, at least, to expect some small faculty of this kind; but we are persuaded that Mr. Smith must now feel that the thing is altogether a failure: indeed, of this he must have been conscious, even while in the act of composition. The fact is, that he has broken down under every one of his principal characters, and the inferior ones are of a class incapable of conducting him very far on his journey; and accordingly, they almost desert him and his reader at the end of the first volume. His personages

have exactly one joke a-piece, which stands the author in stead upon every occasion.

The first character is Sir Giles Hungerford, an over-angry personage slain in the wars at Calais, before the eightieth page of the first volume. This important knight is chiefly remarkable for having invented a helmet, or skull-cap, (which the most antiquarian author uses as convertible terms,) on a principle which, being his own, he defends as an improvement, though, entirely owing to its absurdity, he has just received a mortal wound in the face from an arrow. The facetious novelist endeavours to make the circumstances of his death ludicrous, by the old knight's contempt of arrow wounds. He is willing to die of a trivial blow which he had received from a battle-axe, but he disdains to die of a bodkin in his face;' and this stuff is repeated till the breath is out of the body.-Poyns Dudley, his nephew and squire, to whom he intrusts his last letter, directed to the guardian of his son, Cecil Hungerford, is a mere tool in the author's hands to carry on the story, to whom, therefore, it would have been incon

venient