MR. RAWTHORNE'S ITALIAN ROXANCE. • No one can read many pages
of Mr. Hawthorne's new romance without feeling satisfied that the seven or eight years which have elapsed since the publication of its last predecessor have not been wasted as regards the cultivation of his art. That long silence is fully justified by the proof now given to the world of what has been accomplished in the writer's mind during the interval. He has studied Rome, Italy, Painting, and Sculpture, till he has become as thoroughly imbued with the spirit of each and all of them as we have hitherto known him to be with that of his native New England. Thus he has developed within himself new organs, as it were, of thought and feeling, without losing anything of the symmetry and vigour of those which he had already exercised so happily for our delight and instruction. Novels and romances, having their scenes laid in Italy, have been written ere now with more or less truth of local colour, caught from the experiences of a six months' tour; and dissertations on art have been woven more or less skilfully, more or less incongruously, into a web of, fiction; but never before, unless our memory be greatly at fault, has Italy inspired a romance writer with a work like Trans- formation, so composite in its elements, so perfect in their or- ganic harmony. Strongly as the reader is interested in the story and eager to pursue it to its denouement, he is never im- patient of the reflections on art or the local allusions that are con- stantly meeting him in his progress, so naturally do they pre- • Transformation ; or the Romance of Monte Beni. By Nathaniel Hawthorne, Author of The Scarlet Letter," &c. In three volumes. Published by Smith, Elder, and Co.
'Crosse depapaute.
If has other things to 'charm away the stranger's disgust besides .ponderous memories and its glories of modern art. How exquisite-is this picture of the Borghese Gardens ! But first we Must posiess the reader' with a knowledge of the striking resem-
blance which the Doinifello mentioned below bears to the Faun • of Traxitelei:- • - t
- "The entrance to these` grounds (as all My readers know, for everybody now-a-days has been in Rome) is just outside of the Porta del Popolo. Passing beneadh.,that.not very impressive specimen of Michael Angelo's ar- chitecture,- a minute's walk a ill transport the visitor from the small, un- easy lava stones of the Roman pavement into broad, gravelled carriage- drives, whence a little farther stroll brings him to the soft turf of a beautiful seclusion. A seclusion but 'seldom a • solitude.; for priest, noble and.popu- lace, stranger and native, all who breathe Roman air, find free admission, and come hillier to taste the languid enjoyment of the day-dream that they call life. But Donatello's enjoyment was of a livelier kind. He soon began to draw long and delightfullireaths among those shadowy walks. Judging by the p/easure which the sylVan'eharacter of the scene excited in him, it might be no mealy faneiWthedry to set him down as the kinsman, not far remote, of that wild; sweet, -playful, -rustic creature, to whose marble image he bore se strikin,g.a resembLance. How mirthful a discovery would it be (and yet with a touch of pathos in it), if the breeze which sported fondly with hii.clitatering locks were to waft them suddenly aside, and show a pair of leaf-shaped, 'furry eitra! What an honest strain of wildness would it indicate ! and into what regiina 6f-rich mystery would it extend Donatello's sympathies, to be thus linked. (and by no monstrous chain) with what we call the inferior tribes of being, whose simplicity, mingled with his human intelligence, might partly restore what man has lost of the divine. The scenery amid which the youth now strayed was such as arrays itself in the imagination when we read the beautiful old myths, and fancy a brighter sky, a softer turf; a more picturesque arrangement of venerable trees, than we find in the rude and untrained landscapes of the Western world. The ilex-trees, so ancient and time-honoured were they, seemed to have lived for ages undisturbefi, ,and to feel no dread of profanation by the axe any more thart.overthrow ,by the thunder- stroke. It had already passed out of their dreamy old memories that only a few years ago they were griev- ously imperilled by the Gaul's last assault upon the walls of Rome. As if confident in the long peace of their lifetime, they assumed attitudes of indo- lent repose. They leaned over the green turf in.ponderous grace, throwing abroad their great branches without danger of interfering with other trees, though other majestic trees grew near enough for dignified society, but too distant for constraint. Never was there a more venerable quietude than that which slept among their sheltering boughs; never a sweeter sunshine than that now gladdening the gentle gloom which these leafy patriarchs strove to diffuse over the swelling and subsiding lawns. In other portions of the grounds the stone-pines lifted their dense clump of branches upon a slender length of stem, so high that they looked like green islands in the air, flinging down a shadow upon the turf so far off that you hardly knew which tree had made it. Again there were avenues of cypresst resembling dark flames of -huge funeral candles, which spread dusk and twilight round about them instead of cheerful radiance. The more open spots were all a- bloom, even so early in, the season, with anemones of wondrous size, both white and rose-coloured, and violets that betrayed themselves by their rich fragrance, even if their blue eyes failed to meet your own. Daisies, too, were abundant, but larger than the modest little English flower, and there- fore of small account. These wooded and flowery lawns are more beautiful than the finest of English park scenery, more touching, more impressive, through the neglect that leaves nature so much to her own ways and me- thods. Since man seldom interferes with her, she sets to work in her quiet way and makes herself at home. There is enough of human care,, it is true, bestowed long ago and still bestowed, to prevent wildness from growing into t..--qp"ell—ee.to him, not as incumbrances and impediments 11,:i/RV9n
e. and' d . "that concerns them. It is as if the life of the
ykik:fi;a:real -presence.among the human actors, and its 1 _,,,were felt by: them to be one of the forces by win Ae..pe. ',e 'their" lives was determined. To be able to indi6iit:C.tliii.naysterious influence as Mr. Hawthorne has done, one milst'have-.lived consciously under it, questioned, tested it ; one must have become naturalized intellectually and morally in Rome ; and this is "possible for a foreigner, as he has proved, without the surrender of hiti own national and cosmopolitan im- munities. See how he confesses the power of Rome's immortal spirit transcendent over the corruption of her corpse ! "'When We have mice knoivn Rome, and left her where she lies, like a long decaying corpse,"retaining a trace of the noble shape it was, but with accumulated dust:aritra fungous growth overspreading all its more admir- able feittures-tleftti*in utter weariness, no doubt, of her narrow, crooked, intrierite. atiketa, so liacomfortably paved with little squares of lava that to deal], over them, ii.a,Renitential pilgrimage, so indescribably ugly, more- over, so,liold,. ;alley-like, into which the sun never falls, and where a chill wind. forces. its "-deadly breath into our lungs—left her, tired of the eight of those liiimenee seven-storied, yellow-washed hovels, or call them palaces,.where all tharis dreary in domestic life seems magnified and mai- tiplied,_and Weary of elimbing those staircases, which ascend from a ground- floor of cook-shops, cobblers' stalls, stables, and regiments of cavalry, to a middle region' of princes, cardinals, and ambassadors, and an upper tier of artists,- just beneath' the unattainable sky—left her worn out with shiver- ing at the'clidetlesi and smoky fireside by day, and feasting-with our own substance-the raVenons little populace of a Roman bed at night—left her, sick at heart of Italian trickery, which has uprooted whatever faith in man's integrity has endured till now, and sick at stomach of sour bread, sour wine, rancid-butter, andhad cookery; needlessly bestowed on evil meats—left her, disgusted with the pretence of holiness and the reality of nastiness, each equally omnipresent—left her, half lifeless from thelanguid atmosphere, the:vital minciple of which has been used up long ago, or corrupted by myriads of slaughters—left her, crushed down in spirit with the desolation of her ruin, and the, hopelessness of her future—left her, in short, hating her with all our might, and adding our individual curse to the infinite ana- thema.which- her old crimes. have •unraistakably brought down—when we have left Rome in such mood as this, we are astonished by the discovery, by and by, that our heari=strinp have mysteriously attached themselves to the Eternal City, and are drawing us thitherward again, as if it were more familiar, more intimate*. our home, than even the-spot where we were born."
BiitlIcmie has: other contrasts to show than those which the Tiber can tell'of, as Berangar sings :—.
• 3"Ariterrogez le Fibre; ui seul a Men goitte 5ueur d'im peuple libre,
'AU to the comprehension of the characters in the
deformity ; and the result is an ideal landscape, _a u;oodland scene that seems to have been projected out, of the poet's mind. Mlle ancient Faun were other than a mere creation Of old poetry, and could have reappeared anywhere, it must have been in such a scene as this. In the openings of the wood there are fountains plashing into marble basins, the depths of which are shaggy with water-weeds,; or they tumble like natural cascades from rock to rock, sending their murmur afar, to make the quiet and silence more appreciable. Scattered here and there with careless artifice, stand old altars bearing Roman inscriptions. Statues, gray with the, long corrosion of even that soft atmosphere, half hide and half reveal themselves, high on pedestals, or perhaps fallen and broken on the turf. Terminal figures, co- lumns of marble or granite porticoes, arches, are seen in the vistas of the wood-paths, either veritable relies of antiquity, or with so exquisite a touch of artful ruin on them that they are better than if really' antique. At all events, grass grows on the tops of the shattered pillars, and weeds and flowers root themselves in the chinks of the massive arches and fronts of temples, and clamber at large over their pediments, as' if this were the thousandth summer since their winged seeds alighted there. What a strange idea—what a needless labour—to construct artificial ruins in Rome, the native soil of ruin ! But even these sportive imitations, wrought by man in emulation of what time has done to temples and palaces, are per- haps centuries old, and, beginning as illusions, have troiin to be venerable in sober earnest. The result of all is a scene, pensive, lOvely, dream-like, enjoyable, and sad, such as is to be found nowhere save in these princely villa residences in the neighbourhood of Rome ; a scene that must have re- quired generations and ages, during which growth, decay,
ro , and man's in-
telligence wrought kindly together, to render it so rntly wild as we behold it now The final charm is bestowed bv the malaria. There is a piercing, thrilling, delicious kind of regret 'in the idea of so • much beauty thrown away, or only enjoyable at its half-development, in winter and early spring, and never to be dwelt amongst, as the home scenery of any human being. For if you come hither in summer, and stray through these glades in the golden sunset, fever walks arm in arm with you, and death awaits you at the end of the dim vista. Thus the scene is like Eden in its loveliness ; like Eden, too, in the fatal spell that removes it beyond the scope of man's actual possessions."
The faun-like nature of Donatello forms the baths of the story. The legend of his ancient Tuscan family tells that a Faun was one of its earliest progenitors, and Donatello is physically and morally an exact counterpart of his mythical ancestor—a simple, joyous, kindly creature, perfect in all the finer attributes of animal life, reasoning little, and scarcely feeling the need of reason, but capable of being educated through the medium of his emotions. He is capable, also, of the most devoted love, and of being roused into fury in defence of its object. In this way, he is hurried into sudden crime, and then comes remorse, under the tortures of which his nature undergoes " transformation." With a newly awakened conscience he ceases to be a faun, and rises into a higher type of humanity. Mr. Hawthorne has, with consummate skill, worked out the problem of this transformation from the data he has assumed ; but we think it may be questioned whether he might not have obtained the same result by simpler means. Love humanized the loutish Cymon ; why should not the love of a highly-gifted woman have been enough to develope the faculties that were dormant in the Faun ? Love, that is stronger than death, lay deeper in Donatello's heart than his great remorse; what need, then, was there of this passion to supplement the transforming power of the mightiest of all passions ?
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