LORD DACES OF GILSLAND.
THE scene of this historical romance is laid in England, during the reign of Elizabeth : its general subject is the series of conspiracies to which the persecution of the Roman Catholics and Mary Queen of Scots gave rise ; but the particular event selected as the nucleus of the story is the rising in the North, with which, in defiance of chronology, the conspiracy of Babington is united. Lord Dacre of Gilsland is made the hero of this plot ; and connected with him, at first in politics and afterwards in love, is Gertrude Har- ding, the daughter of a Roman Catholic citizen. On the adven- tures of this pair the interest of the romance principally depends. Lord Dacre is in danger from the Government ; Gertrude both from the Government and the lustful passion of Leicester, assisted by Leicester's female instrument, who has some mysterious wrongs to avenge upon the Hardings. There is also an under-plot ; Lucy Fenton, a cousin of Gertrude, being violently abducted by a courtier. As an historical romance, Lord Dacre of Gasland may be pronounced clever. The authoress has studied the times, and caught their external features. The self-will, violence, and when thwarted the cruelty of Elizabeth — the unscrupulous arts of Burleigh and Walsingharn, with the reckless libertinism of Leicester, and the darker practices of which he has been accused— are all exhibited ; but in too hard and strained a way. The concomitants of manners and natural character are wanting. So that the scenes are about as true representatives of reality as the grotesque carvings of a Gothic building : we see what the design is intended to represent ; we may even recognize a particular likeness; but truth and life are not there. The 'same irk be said of the general characteristics of the times: the persons, their conversation and costumes, are Elizabethan, doubtless ; but it is rather the corpse than the body of Elizabeth's age. The de- scription of scenery, pageants, and customs, is better, because easier, and because the writer's genius is more descriptive than either narrative or dramatic. In telling an incident, and still more in exhibiting a scene, the art of the writer is too obvious and imitative. Her persons cannot move without adventures, and often adventures that lead to nothing or very little : Gertrude is continually plunged into distress only to be rescued from it ; and the authoress pushes to an extreme extent the circulating library rule of making a volume break off at an interesting part. The sections in Lord Dacre seem throughout constructed on this principle. We are alternated from the difficulties of Lucy to those of Gertrude, and again to those of Dacre ; each case being left, not at a natural pause in the action, but just in the very middle of a
distress. The narrative, however, is better than the drama. Despite the encumbrance of literal description too often recurring, and of scenes that end in themselves, Lord Dacre of Gayland has the interest of a story, not merely in its end but in its progress.
It may sound uncritical to notice that the writer seems a Roman Catholic ; but her religion perverts her views of history, as her history certainly vitiates her romance. We do not mean the incongruity of bringing together the events of 1569 and 1587, with other violations of fact. They have little effect upon the fiction, though they may mislead the uninformed reader. The evil spoken of is more pervading. The conspiracy is not formed to redress grievances that are made very perceptible ; nor does the reader feel that it originates in any chivalrous spirit of self- devoted loyalty, such as prompted the Scotch risings in favour of the Stuarts. The object is to place Mary on the throne as the "legitimate" Queen (alluding to the Papal brand on Anne Bo- leyn s marriage) ; and the whole of the plotting has too much of a business air to excite the sympathy of the reader—the conspirators make their play and run their chance with a full knowledge of the game. It is to be suspected, too, that the writer's pictures of the times are exaggerated by presenting the exception as the rule. Tested by our ideas, much evil might exist, and much tyranny might be exercised upon hated individuals ; but the rule of Eliza- beth was popular in her own day, and was long embalmed in the popular memory,—a result not obtainable had great lawlessness existed. Elizabeth's prosecution and execution of Mary were forced upon her by Parliament and the popular voice and the con- demnation was celebrated by ringing of bells and bonfires through- out the country. From a deficiency of imagination, coupled ap- parently with her religious prejudices, the authoress cannot realize these things so as to present a real and vivid picture of the age. The forms, it is true, are of the sixteenth century, but the mind is of the nineteenth.
Many passages of distinct and powerful description are scattered through the book, but not always introduced viith judgment, and by their frequent recurrence and minute character rather balking the impatience of the reader. The most striking scene in the ro- mance is the last ; where, by means of the figure called anticipation, the reader is introduced to the deathbed of Queen Elizabeth, who has summoned Lucy Fenton, changed into a matron, to wait upon her. The Queen's remorse is attributed to a wrong cause, and the scene is melodramatic, but there is power in it.
DEATH oF QUEEN ELIZABETH.
The Queen lay in her bed: she had ordered her attendants not to draw tlte curtains over her windows, and she watched the leafless trees waving to and fro before them, and the ruddy flame of her fire, dancing upon the tapestry. Elizabeth had sunk into that partial torpor in which, though the mind has not altogether yielded to the influence of sleep, the memories, the visions that pass over it, have the indistinctness of a dream. A long train of shadows flitted before the mental eye of Elizabeth: there was the fair face of Gertrude Harding, and another face as fair; the features too of the ill-fated Essex rose to blight her in her sleep ; but ever were those female faces present, even when the others bad passed away. Suddenly Elizabeth started up—she was aide awake, but an unutterable horror had seized upon her soul—any thing to escape from that hed and when her dismal shriek had summoned her attendants to her apart- ment, they found her standing in her night-dress on the floor, her hands clenched, her eyes fixed as in a convulsion, and specks of foam upon her parted lips. It was a frightful spectacle, the strongly marked but withered features and stony blue eyes of the miserable Queen. But what needs it to prolong the description of scenes so horrible ; the struggles of a soul which had used its greatness only to destroy; and which, summoned to quit that world it had too much loved, shrunk from the contem- plation of its past career. No entreaties could prevail upon the wretched Queen to return to her bed : she raved, screamed, and wept at the proposal. Cushions were brought, and upon them she was extended; bitterly bemoaning her miserable fate, and re- fusing all refreshment and consolation. Who does not know that for ten days the unhappy Queen thus remained, still refusing to enter her bed. The Bishops, and the Lords of the Council, alike in vaia entreated her to alter this resolution. To Lucy Willoughton, whom she still detained in attendance, she expressed strong indignation against Secretary Cecil, the son of her old favourite Burleigh. "He telleth the people, Mistress Willoughton," said Elizabeth, 'that I am mad : but I am not mad ; oh, would to God that r were!" "Gracious madam, be comforted !" said Lucy, who was moved by the pitiable condition of the Queen. "Do not thou mock me, fair dame, with such empty words," replied Eliza- beth : "had thy poor cousin seen me thus, she had known me better than to talk of comfort. Alas alas, shy does her face still pursue me ? God knows how bitterly I mourned her fate : but it corneth, it cometh for ever, and still accompanied by another, which my soul sickeneth to behold."
While Elizabeth spoke, entered Sir Robert Cecil, with the Lord Admiral, a relation of the Queen: they came to entreat that she would suffer herself to be conveyed to bed.
Elizabeth looked round, shuddering at her costly couch. "Oh, never, never ! " she exclaimed. "oh, Cecil, it thou 'moist seen there what I have seen, thou anauldst not drive thy mistress to that couch of horrors!" " What has your Grace there beheld ?" said Cecil ; "base you seen the dwellers of another world ?"
" Nay !" answered Elizabeth, "assuredly that is an idle question, and be- neath our notice."
"In Booth your Grace must retire to bed," persisted Cecil, "if it be but to satisfy the affection of your people!" At these words, the embers of an almost extinguished fire again blazed in the heart of Elizabeth, and lighted up tier worn features with something of the dignity of old : she raised herself on her cushions.
" Must !" she exclaimed; "is must a word to be addressed to princes ? Little man, little man, thy father, if he had been alive, durst not have used that word. But, alas ! alas! "continued the Queen, wringing her hands, and speaking in a tone of deep dejection, "thou art grown presumptuous, because thou knowest that I shall die!'
"Good madam, be comforted," said the Lord Admiral, again approaching the Queen.
She again raised herself with Lucy's assistance, and, grasping him by the hand, she looked piteously in his face ; then bursting into tears, she exclaimed— "My Lord, my Lord, I am tied with an iron collar about my neck ; I am tied fast, and the case is altered with me!"
From this time the Queen gradually sunk, falling into a lethargy which re- leased her from those mental torments which it had wrung the compassionate heart of Lucy to behold : dating this lethargy she was placed in her bed. As her end was now evidently fast approaching, the Lord Keeper, the Admiral, and the Secretary Cecil, were deputed by the Council to learn Elizabeth's will with regard to her successor. Lucy Willoughton, whom the Queen during her intervals of consciousness had commanded to remain near her, stood by the side of the royal couch. The Queen took no notice when the Kings of Scot- land and France were mentioned by those lords ; then they spoke ot the heir of the house of Suffolk, the Lord Beauchamp, the son of Lady Catherine Grey and the Earl of Hertford, to whom Elizabeth had always borne a strong antipathy. At this name she started, and the dulness of death seemed to vanish for a mo- ment from her wild blue eyes; while she fiercely exclaimed—" I will have no rascal's son in my seat ; none but a king shall sit upon the throne of Eliza- beth! and who should that be but our cousin, the King of Scots !" She never spoke again.
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