27 FEBRUARY 1841, Page 19

MR. JAMES'S CORSE DE LEON.

Ms. JAMES'S last fiction is of the same smooth and even texture as any of his former productions, though the tissue is less glittering and its fabric slighter than some : the figures of the design, too, are less distinct, and the hues less bright and powerful. Mr. JAMES appears to set about weaving the web of a story with the mechanical routine, and, let us add, the dexterity of a skilful crafts- man at his loom : incidents and characters gleaned from history, and details of costume and manners, form the warp, across which the woof of description and dialogue is shot ; the pen of the ready writer flying as swiftly as the weaver's shuttle. only curious to know what device the author will resort to next to extricate the loving pair from each successive dilemma. Thus the lady Isabel is locked up and left under the care of her mother, yet the priest contrives to let the lovers meet, and privately marries them : the bride and bridegroom are separated at the altar, but Corse de Leon opens the bridegroom's dungeon-door, while the priest carries off the bride from the custody of her persecutor : Bernard de Rohan is condemned to death for the murder of his bride's brother, but he is whisked out of prison by the omnipotent Corse de Leon, with as much adroitness as a conjuror transfers a card or a handkerchief from one box to another ; and to prevent the happiness of the lovers from being delayed, Henry the Second is accidentally killed (according to history) at a tour- namen t.

Catherine de Medicis and Diana de Poitiers figure in the story ; but they are mere accessories, like the other historical personages, and leave no impression : indeed the real characters want relief as well as vitality ; they are not so much wax figures as faint sketches. Despite all these deficiencies, arising from a want of the creative and vivifying power of original genius in the writer, Corse de Leon is pleasant reading for those who take up a novel for time-killing ; and this, like every production of Mr. JAMES'S pen, bespeaks not only a cultivated taste and a well-stored mind, but an amiable spirit and enlarged sympathies.

The following passage, though ostensibly applied to the old Court of France, has evident application to the affectation prevalent among a certain set of fashionables at the present day.

AFFECTATION OF INDIFFERENCE.

"There has there risen up," he added, "within my memory, a habit, an affecta- tion of indifference, if you like to call it so, to all things on this earth ; which in- difference is born Of a corrupt and a degraded heart, and of sated and exhausted appetites. To a high mind, furnished with keen and vigorous faculties, nothing on earth can be indifferent; for acuteness of perception, a quality which in its degree assimilates us to the Divine nature, weighs all distinctions. As God himself sees all the qualities of every thing, whether minute or great, and gives them their due place, so the grander and more expansive the intellect may be, the more accurately it feels, perceives, and estimates the good or evil of each individual thing. The low and the base, the palled taste of luxury, the satiated sense of licentiousness, the callous heart of selfishness, the blunted sensibilities of lust, covetousness, gluttony, effeminacy, and idleness, take refuge in in- difference, and call it to their aid, lest vanity, the weakest but the lastpoint to become hardened in the heart of man, should be wounded. They take fir their protection the shield of a false and tinsel wit, the answer of a sneer, the argu- ment of a supercilious look, and try to gloze over every thing, to themselves and others, with a contemptuous persiflage which confounds all right and wrong."

We must let Corse de Leon be heard in defence of his lawless courses ; especially since the highest court of judicature in this country only the other day furnished a fresh instance in support of the robber's plea of justification : indeed the passage reads as if it had been suggested by the splendid farce of the CARDIGAN Trial.

A BRIGAND'S PHILOSOPHY.

"It is because man's law is not God's law that I stand here upon the moun- tain. Were laws equal and just, there would be few found to resist them. While they are unequal and unjust, the poor-hearted may submit and tremble; the powerless may yield and suffer ; the bold, the free, the strong, and the de- termined, fall back upon the law of God, and wage war against the injustice of man. If you and I, baron," he continued, growing excited with the heat of his argument ; " if you and I were to stand before a court of human justice, as it is called, pleading the same cause, accused of the same acts, would our trial be the same, our sentence, our punishment ? No! all would be different ; and why ?—Because you are Bernard de Rohan, a wealthy baron of the land, and I am none. A name would make the difference. A mere name would bring the sword on my head and leave yours unwounded. If so it be, I say—if such be the world's equity—I set up a retribution for myself; I raise a kingdom in the passes of these mountains, a kingdom where all the privileges of earth are re- versed. Here, under my law, the noble, and the rich, and the proud, are those that must bow down and suffer; the poor, and the humble, and the good, those that have protection and immunity. do, ask in the peasant's cottage; visit the good pastor's fireside; inquire of the shepherd of the mountain or the farmer on the plains: go, ask them, I say, if under the sword of Corse de Leon they lose a sheep from their flock or a sheaf from their field. Go, ask them if, when the tyrant of the castle—the lawless tyrant, or the tyrant of the city—the lawful tyrant, plunders their property, insults their lowliness, grinds the face of the poor, or wrings the heart of the meek—ask them, I say, if there is not retribution to be found in the midnight court of Corse de Leon—if there is not punishment and justice poured forth even upon the privileged heads above."