WARLEIGH, OR THE FATAL OAK.
MRS. BRAY'S " Legend of Devon" has scarcely fulfilled the ex- pectations which were formed from its introduction : yet the general reader, who has sympathized with the fair writer's ac- count of her love of natural scenery,—who has wished that he himself' could set off in a boat from Devonport with a pleasant party " on a beautiful day towards the close of summer," to pass up the Ilamoaze, that, expansive estuary formed by the united waters of many rivers, and gaze upon the lovely or animated scenes which the water and the shores successively present,—and who in spirit has enjoyed the " Tamerton festival for the benefit of the village school," and fancied the pleasures of the hospitality of Warleigh House,—will wonder what is the cause of his disap- pointment. He will see the ease and elegance of a lady practised in the use of her pen ; he will not meet with stranger incidents than be has been accustomed to in some of the novels of Scow, and of otherauthors, whose volumes may yet have kept him from his bed; and he will find variety given to the story after the most approved fashion, by the introduction of public events and of historical or traditionary characters. Yet withal the book will not enchain him: he will not frown at an interrupter, and look on him as if con- scious only of the interruption but not of its cause: if called away from the volume, lie can go without regret and wait without restlessness for leisure to return. Why is this? Let us, in the exercise of our vocation, try to discover, by an examination of the writer's powers. Mrs. BRAY has many qualifications for an historical novelist. She is skilled in antiquities and popular legends ; she is for the most part well acquainted with the scenery and localities of the districts where her scenes are laid ; her taste for the arts has led her to acquire a knowledge of architecture and costumes ; and her research and reading have not only rendered her conversant with the style of conversation prevalent in other times, but almost imbued her with the modes of thought. But the essential quality, the one thing needful, is wanting : she has no creative powers. Art and study have done their best, but they cannot supply the deficiency of nature. Her skill enables her to fashion figures and to dress them in their wonted garments, but she cannot breathe into them the breath of life. They are images of clay, not creatures of flesh and blood. Her automatons discourse cleverly ; but we feel that it is mechanical talk which they utter—not the unbidden outwellings of sportive and serious thought, or the native outpourings of passion. Sometimes, indeed, her characters are animated; but their animation is short-lived, and seems more like the distortion of galvanism than the energy of life. The time of Warleigh takes place towards the close of the Great Rebellion, when the King is confined in Carisbrook Castle. The scene, as the title implies, is confined to Devonshire. The legend upon which the story is founded, is the murder of a ward by his guardian and godfather, near the Oak of Warleigh. The object of the crime is of course the secure possession of his godson's estate, which he had fraudulently obtained. In the legend, the murderer is found guilty, but saved through his connexion with the powers that be; in the novel—and perhaps in the tradition also—another person is tried, and all but doomed, when his innocence is proved, and the really guilty discovered. Upon this foundation Mrs. BRAY has built up an extended' structure; connecting the mur- derer, Sir John Copplestone, with the public events of the period; introducing as actors many gentlemen and some ladies of the county, the officers of the Commonwealth, who have acquired a district reputation, a sort of spiritual Doll Tearsheet, and a Devon- shire Ailsie Gourlay, who figure in county gossip at least, with some banditti whose names and deeds were fearfully known in their day. There are of course lovers and love tales, which end in weddings ; the untimely death of Amias Radcliffe, the godson, leaving no damsel destitute, he having declined one heroine, and being himself declined by another.
We shall give an extract ; a night-piece, where a description of scenery is interwoven with an incident. Sir Marmaduke Elford is a proscribed Royalist, upon whose head a price is set. His place of concealment is discovered; but he is enabled to evade his pur- suers by the assistance of Gertrude Copplestone, who is conveying him to a place of safety.
Gertrude and Sir 3Iarraaduke had for some time continued their way down by-roads and unfrequented paths, till at length they came into a more open country: a wild heath was before them, towering heights in the distance, and gently-swelling hills on either side. At the extremity of this heath they had to pus into a deep ravine, overhung with rocks, that led the way into a yet wilder part of the country, where there was a thick wood with many outlets, one of the latter being near the place appointed for die rendezvous by Sly William Bastard.
The scene which lay before them was well calculated to fill the mind with serious impressions at such a time. The moonlight slept sweetly on the
surrounding hills; but through the misty veil of night, the extent of the wild heath was indefinable, and assumed, therefore, a character of importance and even of grandeur which invariably belongs to objects whose lxiunds are unli- mited, and whose outline is obscure. A brook that rushed down from one of the neighbouring hills and skirted the road, as it brawled on amid fragments of rock and stones, sparkled and flashed in the moonlight, forming a lively contralt
to the quiet and reposing moorland scene around. The stars shone in u bd ued
splendour to that of the bright and full lustre of the moon, as she rode high and unclouded through a sea of azure light. In the extreme distance arose the heights of Dartmoor, partly obscured in shadow, but their summitsglittering and white, as they caught and reflected many a silvery beam. The whole scene was beautiful, yet softened and subdued by distance and the solemn shades
of night, even as time and a calm spirit soften and harmonize the past and distant events of human life, whose intensity either of joy or of sorrow has been once felt strong and clear as the fervid suns of the noon-day.
They soon reached the steep descent where the road wound through a deep ravine. Here all was enveloped in darkness, since from the height of the over- hanging rocks, and the trees that grew, starting from their interstices or bend- ing over their summits, the light was wholly shut out, and the wanderers were left to make their way as well as they could through a tough, uneven road, full of stones, that required the greatest care to pass it in safety. Under such circumstances, it was best to leave the horses that were accustomed to such roads to pick their own way; and Gertrude therefore slackened her rein, and recommended her uncle to follow her example. At length they gained the extremity of the defile, and turned into one of those thickly-wooded, rocky vallies, so picturesque and so peculiarly beautiful in the matchless county of Devon. Here again was deep obscurity; for though, at intervals, a stream of light shot through some open space in the woods, and glittered on the boughs and foliage wet with dew, or reposed on some grassy batik in coldness and in silence, yet these cheering eiteumstances were but par. tinily found ; for the height of the forest trees, and their thick canopy of leaves, rendered the path, for the greater part, one of darkness or of gloom. The low murmur and the sullen rush of the wind (fur it was now somewhat risen), as it lingered among the woods, had, at the hour of night, a voice in it snore than its own : to the fugitive and the wanderer it spoke things of terror. Gertrude felt this, though not so much for herself, as she listened, fearing lest she might mistake its soundaa for once she fancied she heard a human voice, that mingled hoarsely with that of the breeze; and again she thought she was deceived, and that her own apprehensions had given her an alarm wholly unfounded in reason.
Yet her alarms were not diminished, when the moon suddenly became ob- scured, as a mountain mass of circling clouds, before white and silvered by her lustre, passed over her disk, showing themselves dark, and rendering equally so the gorgeous planet ; even as those stormy and lowering spirits of the time 'dis- played their own dark character, as they cast into their shadows the majesty of England's King. They were now in the very heart of the wood ; black rocks startled wildly up in every direction ; the winds moaned amid them, and the rush of a struggling and foaming stream broke the silence of night in a voice cf tumult and of anger. The path still lay before them, but the eye could not penetrate its obscurity : the heart of Gertrude beat with apprehension, for her ear could now alone watch for any just cause of alarm.
Alarm was, indeed, at hand, and became visible even to the eye ; for, on the road turning abruptly round the base of one of those giant masses of rock before noticed, the whole of its interior side was distinctly seen, illumined by the red glare of a bright and burning torch. Before Gertrude could speak, before she could even turn to Sir Marmaduke, the broken fragments of rock and some old trees that lay around seemed suddenly to live and wove ; for each gave up a ruffian, who, starting on his feet, sprung upon the travellers, as if eager to make them a prey.
Though truth is difficult to get at, it might be inferred that there was a love of it in the world, were it only from the impor- tance which both authors and readers seem to attach to tales founded on facts. Is this choice judicious in the writer? does it add to the pleasure of the reader? does it render the work more true ? The answer to these questions must be in the negative. By choosing a story whose course and catastrophe are settled, the
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author s " cabinet], cribbed, confined," in those parts which must give continuous interest to his work ; or if he deviates from his authority, he shocks the mind by an appearance of false- hood. But the writer's limitation from reality, and the reader's in- credulity from change, are second to the difficulty of expanding the truth and supemdding the fiction. "An ower true tale" is singular, or it would not have been preserved ; the events are strange, and the leading characters distinguished for a kind of moral madness. To connect such doings and doers with the com- mon affairs of life, and to mingle them properly in the working world, is an attempt which generally fails unless in the hands of a mighty master. Scow indeed may be adduced; but he was a mighty master; and be it remembered, that his subjects and cha- racters were altered to suit his convenience, and that the conduct of a story is not his forte. In one instance, it is true, he was emi- nently successful; but the Two Drovers, whilst it remains an ex- ample of skilful and happy success, remains also as a canon of criticism to tell us what must be done when a true event is selected and rigidly adhered to. We must be brief, we must be concen- trated. The attention must be fixed, the interest must be limited to one point. Landscapes may be described in passing ; as Sem sketches the wild Lowland moors through which the Drovers wend their way, and quietly contrasts them with the rich and enclosed plains of the English Border. Characters may be introduced ad libitum ; but they should pass, as the Highlanders do in the open- ing of the tale, like phantasmagoria ; or if actors be necessary to bring about the catastrophe, they should mingle as real actors, by the by, like the English squire and the topers at the alehouse. Even the victim should be in a measure subordinate to the hero. The development, like the interest, should be single. Whether Mrs. BRAY is equal even to this task, is perhaps a matter of question ; for the quality necessary here is similar to that required in a more extensive work. At all events, we had rather she should follow the hint we took the liberty of throwing out on a former occasion—" that we should prefer from her pen a
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