CONTI.
IN the tale which gives the title to his volumes, Mr. CHORLEY has displayed considerable power and skill, and exhibited faculties of no every-day kind,— a distinct sense of national character, not only in itself, but as it modifies that of the individual; a nice dis- crimination in marking his persons ; and something of dramatic ability in bringing them out. The greater part of the incidents of Conti are of too romantic a kind to admit of being the results of observation, but those scenes which are laid in actual life display no lack of acquaintance with the manners of the world. Of its events we suspect the writer to have had less experience : his story is drawn from the older novelists of the circulating library, though partly modified by his knowledge of life, and by the par- ticular object he professes to have had in view in composing his tale.
This object was, to increase the social estimatisn in which a cer- tain class of artists are held. The author endeavours to accomplish it by showing, from the conduct of his story, that two singers and a fiddler possess higher qualities than a gentleman, a baronet, a lady of title, and a fashionable weak woman. If these personal limitations of Mr. CHORLEY'S tale were extended to a considerable part of our aristocracy, a cynic perhaps might be inclined to argue, that a case was made out to lower the gentlemen but not to raise the artists. Waiving this, however, a novel could establish nothing in favour of Mr. CHORLEY 'S view, (because a few cases must always be exceptions,) unless he proved that the preparatory studies and modes of life of the actor and musician had a tendency to expand the intellect, to refine the taste, to sharpen and strengthen the reason, and to control the will and the passions. With experience—especially with late experience—staring us in the face, it may be predicated that a story constructed to develop such a theory would fail in its object, and in the still more im- portant object of being a good novel. Luckily, Mr. CHORLEY does not attempt to paint the mental and moral training of artists greatly different from what they really seem to be ; so that the theatrical persons of Conti, besides proving nothing for the philo- sophy of the author, do not even turn out to be individual para- gons. Great generosity, violent passion, reckless disregard of forms, unreasonable hopes, and unmeasured repinings, are illus- trated by Conti and his sister Celestine. Carl, the violinist, is a much higher character ; but his virtues and qualities are of a homely order ; and, as if to blow his own theory into the air, Mr. CHORLEY makes the equal loves the happy loves. Carl and Celes- tina marry after their troubles. Conti indulges an unequal pas- sion, clandestinely -avowed and secretly carried On, at Naples; the lady arrives in London, and changes her mind ; she weds a profligate man of fashion, and is wretched; her suitor, after play- ing a variety of fantastic tricks, goes mad, and on his recovery quits the stage.
These are the denouements. They are retarded and forwarded by various incidents, and many characters; which are presented to the reader in a succession of detached scenes or :ether parts,—the breaks between being left to be filled up by the imagination, or they are subsequently supplied by a retrospective narrative. The first part opens at the country-house of Colonel Hardwycke, in England, with the death of Conti's mother,—an Italian actress,
who bad left Italy with the Colonel, and dies on hearing of his in- tended marriage. In the next act, we are transported to Nurem- berg; where Conti, now cast off by his father, is trained to music, under an amiable and enthusiastic German professor ; whose character and habits are well described, as are those of his foster- children. At Nuremberg, too, we become acquainted with Celes- tina; but her relationship to Conti is not discovered till the third section of the tale. This takes place at Naples; where Conti, Carl his foster-brother, and Celestina are assembled, and where, be- sides much romance and some love-making, there are the anxieties and excitements of a double debit, and a spirited account of the deb& itself. The fourth part takes the reader to London, and ex- hibits the career of the successful opera-singer in the metropolis; where, according to Mr. CHORLEY, he is outwardly courted and inwardly scorned. In London, Conti encounters his father,—now a baronet, with a changed name, and sobered down into a "serious'' married man : here also lie meets Miss Featherstone, his faithless Neapolitan love; and the interviews between these parties, and the circumstances which lead to them or spring out of them, form the passion and novel interest of the tale.
A peculiar feature of the work—and one, indeed, which it a distinctive character—is the connexion of musical art with the conduct of the story; by which an interest is imparted to critical remarks and public exhibitions, which they would not possess alone. It is true that these parts are tainted with the spirit of the green-room,—an objection which applies more or less to the whole of the tale ; but they have a novelty about them, which is some- thing in these days.
Conti, however, occupies but half of the volumes: Tharemain- ing part consists of another tale, called Margaret Sterne, and a few miscellaneous musical papers. The latter are what they profess to be—" Fancies ;" and give in a spirited manner: the im- pressions which certain of the works of the greatest composers have made upon this writer's mind. Margaret Sterne is a far more quiet and homely talc than Conti; but so quiet that its earlier parts are prolonged into tediousness. It endeavours to illustrate the same theory as the more stirring work. Peculiar circumstances throw the beautiful and sweet yet firm-minded daughter of an organist in the way of a gentleman of ancient family and large fortune, who is deceived in his first wife, and marries Margaret Sterne on her death. Yet here, as in Conti, thc philosophy halts. Margaret's musical qualities are of small recount in the eyes of her gentle lover ; and so slightly does she account her art, that she gives up its public exercise long be- fore she has the least prospect of marrying DE BEAUVOIR, because she imagines that he might think its practice inconsistent with the delicacy of woman.
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