FREDRIKA BREMER ' S II- FAMILY AND MISCELLA- NEOUS TALES.
THESE volumes are less a completion than a winding-up ; and, like other windings-up, they contain some mixed matter. Having had so many of FREDRIKA BREMER'S fictions, it is well to have the whole; though some in these volumes are trivial, and others look like early or hasty works, the productions of inexperience or exhaustion.
The principal tale is The H— Family ; which does not essen- tially differ from the preceding pictures of Swedish life by this authoress: the romantic parts are equally outre, and, we conceive, improbable; the domestic painting more flat and literal ; the nar- rative more artificial, and obtrusive in its artifice. The subject is the history of a Swedish family, and consists of four sections. About one-third of the tale is occupied with the irrational whimsies of the eldest daughter; who is going to be married—is terrified lest her husband should be unfitted for her—and torments her- self, her family, and the reader, with suspicious misgivings that have not a particle of foundation. However, she is married, and got rid of; when the second daughter, the family beauty, comes upon the scene. Julie is betrothed to a handsome goodnatured fool ; but all goes on well enough till a residence in the country develops his emptiness, and in contrast with the intellect and sentiment of a middle-aged pro- fessor. The result and its dilemmas may be divined ; and they last till nearly the end of the story. They are varied, however, by two romantic sections: one relating to the attachment of Cornet Carl, the eldest son, to the daughter of a mysterious family who live in the woods ; and as this love by no means runs smooth, it produces some estrangement at home, with great distress to the lover. The other section is a sort of episode, and is redeemed from the morally offensive only by excessive absurdity both in idea and execution. Elizabeth is a beautiful girl, blind within a few years from the opening of the tale, and in love with her guardian Colonel H— the head of the "Family." This passion pro- duces madness, and an attempt at poisoning the Colonel; which incidents are told by the figure called retrospection. The elderly gentleman's avowal of his love, which he had concealed by cold- ness, and the subsequent death of Elizabeth, happy, are narrated in regular order. To those whose hearts are steeled against the sor- rows of German romance the developments are rich: they require nothing but a change of form to be ripe for LISTON, could he but have had a female coadjutor in grave burlesque. There is plenty of Swedish household life and character in The H— Family ; but it is poor and insipid : compared with that in The Neighbours, Home, or The President's Daughters, it looks like a " pr entice hand." The didactic remarks are few, and forced in composition. The prose would yield little worth extracting: we take a translation of an introduced song by BoTTIGER.
"All nature lay so glad and still ; Green stood each molehill there ; And every lark sang sweetly shrill, To every floweret's prayer.
The little brooks flowed softly on;
And o'er the lake's calm breast, Through reeds she Rent, the silent swan, So rich in song, in silver vest.
"Up to the sun the eagle flew, Its brightness thence to draw ; From flowers the bees their nectar drew ; And emmets dragged their straw. In the rose's cup the butterfly Its purpled wings conceard ; And the maple green, that grew hard by, Two cooing doves reveard. "A young man there, in joyous mood, Was walking in the shade; The spring-time revell'd in his blood, And love his eye displayed."
The second volume consists of miscellaneous stories, together with a few of what we should here call articles. " Tralinnan," the longest tale, is designed to illustrate ancient Norwegian life and superstitions. Princess Frid is betrothed to King Dag. Her bondmaiden Kumba is discontented with her station, in love with Dag, and•nourishes a morbid revenge for the death of her mother, who was burnt on the pile of the late Queen. Instigated by a witch, she poisons the Princess, repents of her crime, confesses it, and dies with her mistress. These materials are thrown into the dramatic form: but FREDRIKA BREMER has no true dramatic spirit, and wants imagination to recreate the past. The tale is a didactic conception of ancient customs, by a modern mind, ac- quainted with the old superstitions, and able to present them to the reader in an effective style; but the sentiments are con- trived, not natural—they are of our times, not the ancient. This of necessity destroys any sense of reality : but abstracting this ob- jection, the design is neatly planned, the matter clearly presented, the discontent of Kumba ably conceived, and some parts touch- ingly told. Such is Kumba's narrative of her mother's death.
"Fs/Mt.
" Hreimer and I are happy, and yet we are the children of slaves.
KUMBA.
"My mother was among the slaves of Queen Gunnild—she was the most faithful of her servants. Poor and heavy was her lot, yet did she wish to live. My father was a free-born person, who thought little of forsaking the woman who loved him and the child she had born to him. I remember a night ; that night has stretched itself over my whole life. Flames arose from a pile; they ascended high into heaven. It was the corpse of the Queen which was burned. My mother was among those who tended the pile; she, with many others, were cast alive into the flames. The Queen, it was said, needed her attendants in the other world. I stood among the people, still a child, and heard my mother's cry, and saw her burn. Fatherless and motherless, I went thence into the world alone, and wandered in the woods without knowing whither. There came people, who seized me, and carried me back to the court of King Atle. They said that I wished to run away ; and I was conducted to the presence of the King. I answered haughtily to his questions; and he caused me to be whipped till the blood came, in punishment, as be said, of my disobedience. Thou, Feima, then lay on thy mother's bosom ; thou didst not understand what I felt."
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