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THE METROPOLITAN.

DECEMBER, 1831.

LITERATURE.

NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.

At Home and Abroad; or, Memoirs of Emily de Cardonnel. 3 Vols.

Murray.

There is one great merit in Mr. Murray as a publisher, he never has recourse to trick or chicane in getting rid of any class of his publications-he never descends to low cunning in transacting business. He may now and then publish a bad work in a literary sense, which is not his fault; but the undertakings with which he connects himself are respectable and gentlemanly. He neither tries to outvie Macassar Rowland or Dr. Eady in the exuberance of puffing; nor, for the sake of lucre, have we ever found him dabbling in works of vulgar scandal in the shape of novels, concocted on the especial calculation of profit in proportion to the degree they are supposed to intermeddle with private character.

Here is a novel of Mr. Murray's-a novel of considerable merit, which has lain some time before us, and which we ought to have noticed before. It is issued in a handsome form as to size and printing; and the three volumes, the publisher not having to pay as much for puffing and advertising as for printing, are sold at 1l. 4s., instead of the enormous guinea-and-half demanded for works vastly inferior in merit, which are got off by what merchants would call a "forced sale," or by the sinister arts to which we have just made allusion. This work is by the author of "Rome in the Nineteenth Century." In a well-written Preface, the writer touches upon the disgraceful mode of getting up what are called "fashionable novels," and, very much to her credit, disclaims the slightest ambition for her work to be ranked under that disgusting title. "At Home and Abroad" was written before the author had reached mature age; but the publication did not take place on its completion, because Miss Edgeworth's "Patronage" appearing just at that time, the author feared her work might be dragged into comparison with that of this accomplished writer to her own disadvantage. This she stated in a letter to the Editor of the Monthly Magazine, in 1814. It has now had the advantage of the corrections of the author's maturer years, and we do not hesitate to pronounce it an excellent novel, full of incident: it never tires nor fatigues the reader with tedious and unmeaning dialogues. There are moral lessons to be learnt in its pages, which are obvious to the reader. The characters are varied, yet they stand well out on the canvass. Waldemar, a Danish nobleman of high spirit and honour, and the hero of the tale, is as distinct from Lord Borodale, as from Mr. Wentworth or Mr. Thomas the clergy

1 In the Courier of November 8, lying before us while we are writing this, is the following exquisite puff: of course the character alluded to has no existence in real life, but the knowledge that the supposition of such a thing will help the sale of the book, is enough.

"BOROUGHMONGERS.-Great interest has been excited among the members of the Lower House respecting the original of the character of Lesley, in the new novel of Pin Money ;" and various individuals are pointed out as having sat for the portrait of this cheapener of boroughs and retailer of votes !!!"

Are any dowagers and maiden ladies weak enough to be hooked into purchasing the book by such a trap as this?

December, 1831.-VOL. II. NO. VIII.

man, in the filling up of the character. Colonel Ormond and Perceval are very antipodes, the latter a sort of Mercutio; they are admirably drawn: and Trevelyan, though following the same pleasures as Ormond, and his bottle and gamingtable companion, is in every trait, save the fondness for similar pleasures, a different and clearly defined character, which the reader cannot easily confound with the foppish libertine Colonel. In the delineation of the female characters there is not so much variety, but there is equal clearness of drawing. Emily is a character with whom one imagines it impossible not to fall in love. Louisa is a fashionable young lady, like most fashionable young ladies of the present day, without a heart,--a lover of show, flirtation, and routs; and her end is strictly in accordance with her bias and love of admiration. Elizabeth Wentworth is a somewhat tame personage; while the lesser actors in the drama are equally well defined, and all exhibit no mean power in sketching nature in the artificial society of "civilized life," as it is called.

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We now turn to faults. Waldemar is too much involved, in respect to the incidents of his life, to be strictly in accordance with the natural chain of events, and is drawn a little too faultless. This, however, is an error leaning to the right side. It is the mode now to make almost all the heroes of modern novels, characters the .very reverse of virtuous or honourable. Nothing is more revolting that walks on two legs than the gentleman" of a modern novel. He is generally taken from that class of beings who smoke segars, drive cabriolets, labour to annoy the wiser and better part of society with their own follies, who are depraved without spirit, and debauched, not from the over-swelling of strong natural passions, but because it is the fashion in their opinion to be so. In short, there cannot be any more disgusting object in social life than a "gentleman" of the new school. Men in the proper sense of the term-gentlemen in the old accepted sense of the word, have an instinctive horror of the biped. Women of minds the lowest in the intellectual and moral scale, alone are their admirers. The hero of this novel is not one of those models of stupidity and impudence. Brave, generous, honourable, and feeling, he may be admired and imitated in all his actions, (a rare thing to say of the hero of a novel of 1831,) as much as Colonel Ormond is an object of the reader's detestation. No vices are gilded in this work to make, as some one has it, “damnation gay." It may be read by the most fastidious reader of works of amusement. There is another fault in the author which we have not noticed. She makes the lovers fall into jealousies of each other too often. Such circumstances as produce the distances between Waldemar and Emily might naturally enough occur once, or perhaps twice; but the experience of the error in one or two instances would, even in lovers, with all their tendency to make "trifles light as air" of importance, "mountains of mole-hills," in the progress of their courtship, have prevented their frequent recurrence. They would have taken care, to use the words of a great duke, that there should "be no mistake." These, however, are but trivial blemishes. As a whole, we pronounce this to be an excellent work of fiction to beguile an idle hour; and if some of our cotemporaries, who give notices of new works without reading them, would take time to submit it to that process before giving an opinion of it, we boldly say they would agree with us.

The Daughter of Herodias; a Tragedy. By HENRY RICH, Esq. Andrews.

This Tragedy is founded on the marriage of Herod Antipas with his brother's wife, his reproval by John the Baptist, and the death of the latter at the request of Herodias the wife of Herod. The character of Salome the daughter of Herodias, by Philip, and her tragical end, is that which furnishes the greatest interest to the reader, and that in which the author has displayed the greatest power. The piece opens in a dialogue between Agrippa and Marsyas, the latter a sort of Iago in character; though, in the conduct of the tragedy, there is little or nothing in common between the traitor of Shakspeare and the betrayer of Herodias, which can give the idea that Maray as was taken from the wily enemy of Othello. Agrippa is bro

ther, and Salome daughter, of Herodias. The opening scene is an ante-room in Herod's palace, and Marsyas and Agrippa are in dialogue respecting the threatened attack of Aretas,-the father of Adah, Herod's repudiated wife,-an Arab king. Agrippa wishes to recall his mother to a sense of her duty. An Essene and Salome now enter; the latter, a character new and highly-interesting, ever wavering between her religious duty as a follower of the Baptist and her affection for her mother, is marked by much tragic power in the delineation. Salome pleads for her mother with the Essene, who informs her she is sent by Heaven to work out from Herod the release of the Baptist. Herodias and Marsyas are then brought together, and a dialogue full of maternal and filial affection ensues, which is interrupted by the denunciations of the Essene, at whom Marsyas sneers. The second Act opens with a scene in Herod's court, where the King, Vitellius, Marsyas, Agrippa, and others, are present. Herod is accounting to Vitellius for the threatened attack of Aretas, whose envoys, in the second scene, are introduced into the Tetrarch's presence. Vitellius stays their threatenings, and pledges the word of Rome for the safety of John, about which they are also solicitous, and the Arabs are sent dissatisfied away. Scene 3. Act II. opens with a demand of Agrippa for redress. Herod refers him to his sister. Herod leaves Agrippa; and Herodias and Salome enter. Agrippa remonstrates, and is joined by his niece Salome, in vain. The Essene enters, whom Herodias haughtily repulses; even Herod seems to urge Herodias to listen to her brother, but in vain. Act III. Scene 1. displays a councilchamber; present, Herod, Marsyas, and the Essene. Herod refuses to abandon Herodias against her own consent. Marsyas urges the King not to heed the Essene, and thus prompts him to his ruin, and also endeavours to persuade him that the Romans will overawe the Arabs. The second scene is John's prison in Machærus; John and Salome are alone. The Baptist persuades her to fly to the Desert; and their dialogue-John urging her to fly from the ruin that hangs over Herod's house, and Salome dwelling on her hope to influence her mother and to save John's life-is well sustained. Herodias and Marsyas next meet; the former bitterly the foe of the Baptist, because he is the rebuker of Herod for his incest. Marsyas informs her, Herod wishes to spare John, from fear that if he does not, the Jews will join the Arabs. Marsyas thus playing on the vengeful temper of the Queen, the Essene again urges her to repentance. She replies :

Away! Can I repent? Can I, vain man!

Tear Herod from my heart, because he spurns me?

Fond hermit! thou know'st not-how shouldst thou know

A woman's love? How, when she once hath bow'd

Her soul to man's idolatry, and sacrificed

Her all to him, oh how she loves him then!

And how rejoices in her fall! believing

The more she loves, still the more he'll love

And cherish her; and as the world recedes,

As his last friends do one by one fall off,

When all looks cold, condemning, scornful, desolate,

Oh how she joys to cling, to hang around,

To live but in him and for him!"

The obstinate affection of Herodias is displayed towards Herod as far as the fourth Act, in which Marsyas works upon her feelings by representing Herod as having an affection for Salome; and thus she rushes more rashly to the destruction of the Baptist, and the ruin of herself and the King. The latter, warmed with wine, promises Salome whatever she demands; and the daughter consults her mother as to what the boon shall be. Herodias persuades her daughter she has poisoned the Baptist, and reserved a second draught for herself. Salome doubts. Marsyas enters, and confirms the falsehood of Herodias. Salome, in obedience to her mother, asks the Baptist's head, which Herod unwillingly concedes. The fifth Act opens with a scene between Herod and Herodias in Herod's apartment, full of mutual upbraidings. Marsyas breaks in upon them with intelligence that the people are in arms, enraged at the death of John. Herod leaves Herodias and Marsyas alone. Marsyas unmasks himself and his objects, and bids Herodias trust

in him and his influence with the Romans, and declares his love to the Queen, who indignantly repels him, and attempts to stab him. He departs unhurt, and urges Agrippa to ascend the throne. A scene of great interest follows. The Queen being alone, with the head of John on a charger, she soliloquizes in a powerful delineation of her feelings before the head; and falls, overcome, to the ground. An attendant enters and announces the Essene, who recommends repentance to Herodias, and touches her feelings respecting her daughter. Salome is now led in supported, and declares that she was herself John's murderer-that he was not poisoned and dead, as she had supposed. The dialogue here is powerfully sustained. Herod joins the group. Salome discovers John's head, and falls-revives-sinks again. Vitellius proclaims Herod false to Rome, Agrippa king, and Salome queen. The latter Herod commands the guards to seize. Herodias intercedes; Salome dies; and the Essene, standing over her body, anathematizes the guilty King and Queen; the curtain falls.

This Tragedy is one of considerable interest, and has passages of high poetic power. The character of Herodias is well sustained, and does not flag to the last. If we have any thing to censure in the plot, it is the circumstance of Salome's demanding the head of John for her mother, on the supposition of his being already dead. This hardly seems natural; for had John perished in prison, the news would probably have reached Salome first, from another quarter; and if we are to take it as a deception practised by the Queen, which seems the author's intention, it does not seem a stratagem of a dignity sufficiently sustained. To ask a dead man's head as a boon, at the moment Salome first hears of his death-a death so likely to afflict her-we repeat, is hardly in the natural chain of events. With this exception, the Tragedy is in every respect a good one. It is that of a scholar, and a writer who has no little insight into the springs of human feeling, and knows how to exhibit them strongly. It is not an acting tragedy, but it will afford high pleasure in the closet, and is not unworthy the pen of the author of "Fazio."

A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerages of England, Ireland, and Scotland, extinct, dormant, and in abeyance. By JOHN BURKE, Esq. Author of "A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage." 1 Vol. 8vo. Colburn and Co.

Mr. Burke, the author of the present book, is well known as the compiler of the best Peerage and Baronetage which has ever appeared. He seems to possess a genius for research into hereditary parchments, antique rolls, and the dusty repositories of ancestral genealogies. Though we are ourselves perfectly content with being, as Matt Prior has it, the sons of "Adam and of Eve," rather than carry the stigma of nothingness and a title to disgrace the bones of some distinguished ancestor ennobled for high achievement and deed of bold emprise, whose blood, since his own glorious time, may have literally "crept through scoundrels "--though we may, and do, honestly view the circumstance of birth, abstractedly from personal merit, not only without envy, but with something very like pity—though we think that the toil and glory of Marlborough, the patriotism of Chatham, or the learning of Bacon, may be monstrously caricatured in the stupidity of a descendant, who may be the very bathos to his title the present owner may still view it in a different light; and if it serve him as a toy does a child, as a plaything, and nothing better, (and this is the case with hundreds in England really of noted birth, or fancifully so,) why, it has the merit of being harmless. It has imitators in the French loyalists, who draw upon Henry IV. when they ask honour for the modern Bourbons, contending they are the best of all possible princes for governing France, because they descend from him, despite cross-breedings and faux pas, in both cases to the “contrary notwithstanding." Mr. Burke, we imagine, is not quite so philosophical as ourselves on these points. We can fancy him imbued with the true spirit of his study; and, if he were not, we would not give a straw for him :we can fancy the contempt with which he views a Smithson carrying the brave title of a Percy; a Greville (notwithstanding Fulke and Lord Brooke) hailed by

the glorious address of Warwick, once the property of the Beauchamps and Nevilles, of mighty prowess and immortal name-not to say a word of Guy, who lived before the innovation" of armorial bearings and the era of Mr. Burke's researches; for blood in England does not assume more than 600 years, we believe, and that is not the weight of a feather in historical time. In Wales it is but a very short period-a moment. Our present nobility only modestly aspire to be Normans; or, as a friend of ours used to say, to be descended from corporals and serjeants to William the Bastard. Now, we dare say, the Welsh Wynns, whose names do not appear in the extinct peerage, look with a smile of scorn upon the British nobility and the Roll of Battle Abbey, which Mr. Burke has printed; for they trace their race up to Noah. The Irish nobility too, some of whom used to visit Memphis when Moses was at Pharaoh's court, must laugh the Roll of Battle to scorn. One married a daughter of that Prince, and actually brought her to Ireland, if the historians or heralds of that country are to be credited; and we do not see why they should not, as well as the Welsh, or a goodly proportion of the history of our own youthful noblesse. In truth, the heralds are sad wags, and do wicked things in the manufactory of genealogies. It is amazing how quickly they find out that a man is of distinguished lineage when he gets a title, and wants to prove his claim to bear arms, not having been a gentleman; the case with many of our nobility, at present, we blush to say. Paley says, that, at the importunities of his wife, just as he set up his carriage, he looked for some arms to adorn the pannels. He had never heard that his family had any. To quiet madam, however,-for women, though not in all, are in these cases great sticklers for antiquity, he passed a silver mug in the house, with arms on it, for his own, and had them put on the carriage. Soon afterwards, he recollected purchasing the mug at a sale; the arms were equally efficacious, notwithstanding. But all this, we fear, is sheer blasphemy to Mr. Burke. We fancy every hair on his head to stand on end, "like quills upon the fretful porcupine," at such licentious remarks on matters connected with blood. Lord Londonderry will burst into a rage, greater than he ever was in before, with the press or his nurse, if he reads this seditious attack upon ancestral rolls and the sublimity of genealogy, which so nearly concerns his noble and ancient house! We will, therefore, have done.

All this time, gentle reader, we are forgetting Mr. Burke's Peerage of the extinct nobility. We now come to what is to us a most interesting book, since no men are great till they are dead. It is a work of a vast deal of labour, and, what is more, of very great usefulness. Many of the modern Peers will look small before the men whose titles they bear. In an historical point of view, the book is exceedingly important; for we have there the nobles, their titles and descents, who figure in our national history, and who were, many of them, truly worthies in their day. The incidents of their lives have been concisely enumerated, and their actions are cursorily mentioned, so as to make them readily identified on meeting with them in existing documents, chronicles, or provincial archives. This book is a companion indispensable to every national history, and should be at the reader's side at the time he is perusing it, or aught connected with it. The work affords a fund of information about individuals, respecting whom not one man in ten, versed generally in our history, is correctly informed. Great credit is due to Mr. Burke for his perseverance and research in composing it. It is a work which must meet success, because it merits it. Mr. Burke has appended Magna Charta and the Charter of Forests to the end of his volume.

Poland under the Dominion of Russia; by HARRO HARRING, late Cadet in the Lancer Regiment of the Grand-Duke Constantine's Imperial Russian Body-Guard. 1 vol. 12mo. Cochrane and Co.

This volume made a considerable sensation on the continent at its first appearance, and though its translation and publication here was some considerable time subsequent to its circulation abroad, this has not by any means lessened its interest. From a communication, vid Hamburgh, which we received long before the

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