THE HARDENS, AND THE DAVENTRYS,
DISPLAY in pretty equal proportions the different qualities of Miss Rums's former works. There is the same lightness of manner, the same sparkling style dashed with an affectation of finery, as in her Portugal, with a similar quickness of perception as regards external objects and equal felicity in painting them. As a set-off, we have all the faults of Speculation,—exaggerated .characters, improbable incidents, governing events morally im- possible; the picture is drawn neither from the experience of the present nor the study of the past—it is not life as it is, or as it ever -was, but life as Miss PARDOE fancies it.
The Mardens is a tale of love and murder. Mary Marden, the -sole daughter of an ancient house, is loved by the poor curate of the parish—a sort of village Berkeley*, and by Mr. Daubigny, a villain of that stamp who is only met in novels, and not often there. By a lie such as few would credit without evidence, and none in the way Mr. Daubigny tells it, Mary is led to believe that her father is ruined; and, after a scene in which her suitor be-
• "Manners with earldorrr are to Benson given, To Berkeley every virtue under heaven."
haves more like a candidate for Bedlam dein for a fairlady's hand, she consents to marry him. At this juncture, a nabob uncle of the curate dies, and leaves him a large fortune. He avows his love; but is, mysteriously, and as it appears- to the reader absurdly enough, rejected. He departs for places beyond the seas ; Mary Marden goes to the altar, and the first part ter- minates with her wedding. At the opening of the second part, sixteen years have passed. Mrs. Daubigny has died, broken-hearted, long ago. Her husband has turned out a scamp ; having filled his house with naughty women, squandered his property, and travelled for the purpose (it would seem) of committing some dark deeds abroad, and bringing back a foreign Jezebel for a housekeeper : his daughter has been removed to her aunt's ; and the neighbours are rather shy, as well they may be, of such a personage. In this position of affairs, a mysterious stranger arrives in the vicinity ; who is of course Howard incog. He makes inquiry respecting all that has happened during his absence; and then sets out on a visit to his quondam rival, with the sole object of giving him, in trust for his daughter, a family jewel of great price, which Daubigny, it seems, had sold to raise the needful, and which according to all human probability he would sell again. A scene of course takes place; which terminates, however, in a sudden friendship. Mr. Howard consents to stop all night; sups, takes a mortal potion, and is found dead in his bed in the morning. If it were worth while to remark on minutia3 in such a tissue, we might observe, that the circumstance of a gentleman whose character was blown upon receiving into his house and retaining all night a stranger, of whose name he professed total ignorance, would not have passed without comment at a coroner's inquest, nor would the matter have been so easily huddled up as Miss PARDOE opines. But though the verdict is " died by the visitation of God," and every thing appears to go off smoothly, the author has set her heart upon a trial scene, and Mr. Daubigny is not to be allowed to escape. By a change of circumstances—more wonderful, as not being preternatural, than any recorded in the veracious narratives of " God's Revenge against Murder "— assisted too by the egregious folly of Mr. Daubigny, who persists in making a speech and calling a witness after the judge had stopped the case for want of evidence, the poisoner is convicted, and left for execution ; the trial having been conducted as never trial was yet conducted, the counsel for the prosecution having stated the case as never before was a case stated, and "the fetters having clanked upon the prisoner's legs" in a most unusual manner—it being contrary to the practice of our criminal juris- prudence to try a man in irons.
The Daventrys, though not exhibiting greater probabilities, will furnish more pleasure to the reader; for the remoteness of the time renders it more difficult to detect palpable absurdities. The tale is one of chivalry ; the scene is laid in England, at the opening of the reign of Richard the First; the heroine is a Jewess; and the interest turns upon the persecutions which the suffering tribe underwent from the popular frenzy,—ostensibly excited by religion, but really by cupidity and revenge. In the earlier parts, the character both of Jews and Christians is painted too much en beau to be natural, and their cast of thought and style of lan- guage is too purely modern and young-lady-like to be real ; but some of the scenes at York—where distress, and finally the extre- mity of suffering, put an end to all artificial modes—arc vivid, if not true.
There is no fault, says a profound critic on art, which may not shelter itself under the sanction of a great name. What is true of painting is true of romances ; but the writer, like the artist, should remember that it was not because, but in spite of their defects, that the original authorities gained their celebrity. Every exaggeration of the Minerva Press may perhaps be nearly paral- leled from some work of reputation ; but the injudicious copyist forgets that he is forcibly removing from a peculiar soil and a congenial atmosphere something which will not bear transplant- ing, or which is only pardoned, not praised, or which is saved from reprobation by some quality which he has not, and does not comprehend. An improbable event, a claptrap action, a senti- ment which outherods Herod, may be redeemed by some happy art of narration, some extraordinary truth of execution, just as the gross historical absurdities of the Dutch school are overlooked for the mechanical excellence of their artists, and the truth with which they represented such objects as they selected.
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