THE TRIALS OF LIFE*, BY THE AUTHOR OF DE LISLE.
LITERARY SPECTATOR.
WE recollect that we gave the former production of this writer the title of the Book of Matrimony (in the Atlas); and the publisher was apparently so well pleased with the description, that he has repeated it in every advertisement since. If we call this second work the Book of Incest we apprehend it will be found no recom- mendation. The authoress has been a unfortunate in her subjects. The interest of the first of the two tales (the " Amesfort Family") turns upon a young man falling in love with his father's wife ; and that of the second (" Alicia") upon a husband seducing his wife's sister. Neither can the title of " Trials of Life" be deemed in the least applicable : the parties are all as miserable as misfortune can make them, but solely as the result and natural consequence of egregious error and imprudence. If a young wo- man, ignorant of the world and infatuated with passion, consents to live with a male relative as his mistress, and is consequently un- happy, it can hardly be termed a "trial of life," unless indeed transportation for forgery be dignified with a similar name. We have a great respect for the authoress of these volumes, in spite both of the inaptitude of her titles and the unluckiness of her subjects. She is a woman of talent and information (though, as in all women, it II information of that incomplete kind which constantly lets down its possessor into a platitude or a piece of pe- dantry) : she has knowledge a the world, and observation • and, we should think, virtuous and amiable intentions. De Lisle was certainly written with a more vigorous hand than the present volumes ; and though in parts sufficiently melancholy, it had not that gloomy and unredeemed wretchedness which oppresses the heart of the reader without exciting his imagination. If we were to say that the effect of these tales is that they seem too real, we should "pay them too high a compliment : they have the air of being " ower true," but it is not that they are so artfully written as to conceal the art of the composer—it is, we believe, because the foundation of the story being real,.the authoress has been shackled by the necessity of adhering to her original. A tale should either be all false or all true : no instance can be adduced in which fic- tion has amalgamated with fact. When the reader sees " * filet " printed at the bottom of the page, he does not need to be told that the word should be written "* dull." They will not harmonize— they will not work into each other. It is beyond the art of the smelter to weld together wrought and cast iron : they are chemi- cally altogether different things. The attempt in these volumes has given to much truth an air of improbability and romance. There is scarcely any point of either story that we could not fix upon, and demonstrate, to the conviction of every rational .aa .son, that it is naturally inconsistent with the rest of the structure. Take for a random instance, Alicia's application to the Prince Regent for a pension, on no grounds whatever but that the Prince had once been her admirer, and had attempted to shake her fide- lity to her husband by some magnificent presents. That some women—perhaps that the real Alicia—might take such a step, is conceivable ; but it was a degradation that the supposed Alicia never could have been reduced to, and undoubtedly not under the circumstances of the story. The virtuous, high-minded heroine of the tale called " Alicia," as she is here painted, capable of any sacrifice for the maintenance of her purity in word and deed, could not have dreamed of trading upon a former criminal admiration, for the sake even of sustenance, much less for the sole purpose of avoiding the dreadful alternative of living on only fifty pounds a year alimony. In the first tale, in like manner, there is not a stage of the story which is not inconsistent with the nature of society as at present constituted. We are to suppose that a nobleman has a former mistress and near relative living within a stone's throw of the castle where he resides ; that she has a fine family by him, and yet neither his friends, nor the children though grown up, nor yet his wife, nor in fact any body else, are aware of the connexion that had subsisted between them. Every reader who takes his head from the book and looks abroad, must acknowledge that such universal ignorance never could have prevailed in this scandalous and malicious world : and if this supposed ignorance be not granted, the whole fabric falls to the ground: in that case, the son never could unwittingly have made love to the peeress his quasi mother- in-law, and have ordered post-horses to go off with her. It is not often we look for wisdom in novels ; and yet it is the wisdom for which we value these tales. There are observations, scattered up and down, that are worth reflecting upon—that are gathered from life, and may be useful in life. As an instance, and just in passing, we will refer to the authoress's notion of advice by way of example. "I am not," says one of her personages—who is, by the way, a well-drawn and powerful character, (it is Isabella Albany, in the " Amesfort Family")—" I am notaone of those who complain of advice not being taken : in all matters not absolutely of principle, there is a great absurdity in giving it, and it is for- tunate that it is not always followed ; since, however good in itself, it must be given according to the feelings of another, and not of the person who is to act ; consequently, when it is taken, it generally paves the way to an inconsistency ; for a man does not the less revert to his own character, for having for one moment followed that of his friend." This is shrewd and sensible ; and of this kind of merit there is a considerable portion in the Trials of
Life.
* 3 Yeigo 749114A xhill, In point of character-drawing, there Ps a great inequality, an d often a great inconsistency. The truth is, people write novels to fast : the only ambition of the authors is to get a sum in ready money from Mr. COLBURN, Mr. Bum., or any other person in the way of turning them to account ; and if it should happen that the thing pleases, so much the better, for a higher price may be expected for a second. All that is fame and reputation, is well known to be as flitting and as temporary as the other arrangements of a London season. They who improvise novels never expect for a moment that they are speaking to posterity: their leaves fall with those of autumn. The authoress of De Lisle, a person of a mas- culine understanding, and one who has seen a good deal of the fluctuations of life, ought to aim at something better than being affieked at the doors of the circulating libraries for a few months as the last new fashionable novel.
We may just add to these remarks, by way of postscript, that the treatment which SHERIDAN, under the character of Mr. J. R. Blarney, receives, is far from just ; and we have little doubt that the authoress, in her sketches both of him and of Lady CRAVEN, the late Margravine of Anspach, has been actuated by feelings which approach to personal pique ; and at any rate, for a moralist taking the high tone which the authoress of De Lisle occasionally assumes, it is a poor achievement to turn the pages of a fashionable novel into a harsh satire of the dead. If she has seen vice and can expose it, let her avail herself of this experience and these talents to cast useful examples from the mint of her own brain, and not use her ingenuity for the mean purpose of reflecting on bygone imprudence or even on bygone vice. In short, it was an evil hour when the authoress of De Lisle determined upon telling real tales and bringing on the stage real characters : she has injured her reputation as a novelist, and let herself down from the high position of a moral tutor, which she had in the first instance assumed, almost on a level with the author of Tremabte.
In order to assist the readers of De Lisle in foaming their expec- tations of this work, we may say that it contains nothing answer- able to the promise of the episode in that work giving an account of the life of a German lady of pleasure ; while it is singular that the imagination of the authoress runs very much upon sanctifying liaisons of this kind. There is another elaborate attempt of the same sort in the work before us : to be sure, there is much repen- tance, remorse, and misfortune, mixed up with the story ; bat it is easily seen that this is all confectionary to sweeten and faci- litate the passage of the main circumstances. We may gene- ralize this remark, and add, that the religion and piety of the au- thoress—and these are introduced in large portions—sit very ill upon her : they are tagged to actions and dialogues like morals at the end of the fable : they are inconsistent with many main threads of her thoughts, and constantly subject her to charges of inconsist- ency. We conclude they are assumed on the supposition that piety is to a novel what salt is to beef—that it makes it last. If the au- thoress would write an evangelical novel, she must be evangelical ; and we refer her for an example to the authoress of a novel simply called Trials.
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