FRENCH AND ENGLISH AUTHORSHIP.

OUR national prejudices are so far dissipated, that one or two English Reviews have at length reluctantly conceded to modern literature the inscription of a few French names among those of the sons of the true faith: Thierry, the historian; Béranger, the poet, politician, philosopher : Victor Hugo, the dramatist and novelist; Mérimée De Vigny, Raymond, and Balzac, the champions of satire and romance. But so scanty an array provokes considerable indignation among the litterateurs of Paris,— of Paris, where every fifth-rate contributor to a sixth-rate journal inscribes his name and surname in the muster-roll of fame, as religiously as the parents of every new-born infant are compelled to enregister them in the archives of the Mairie of their arrondissement. Scarcely has the curtain fallen upon some flimsy one-act vaudeville, (imitated from an imitation of the scribage of the Théatre de Madame,) when the patronymics of the four authors who have ministered to its tawdry patchwork, are proclaimed amid the plaudits of the audience; and not a melodrama-not a pamphlet-not an article in a periodical-not even a column of criticism on the same, but bears, in well-cut capitals, the names and titles of the author. The French appear to glory in the mere authorism of authorship,-to take pride in their infirmity-to triumph in wearing the label of misfortune round their necks, like some "Pauvre aveugle," or "Sourd-muet de naissance." It is not enough that the name of "Victor Hugo," or "Béranger," should roll from lip to lip among the idolators of genius; the world must familiarize itself with the lesser glories of "Jal," "Gozlan," "Foa," and " Janin.” It is not enough that Paul de Koch and Jouy have enriched with their sketches of Parisian manners the literature of various continental countries: every dauber of portraits in "La Mode," or the "Courrier des Dames," is resolved to claim his share in the tittle-tattle of fame.

How different the literary character of our own country! Although a few editors of fashionable periodicals, or lordly wire-weavers of genteel octavos may sell their names to the speculative publishers of the day, scarcely a writer of reputation in England but has shrunk from thrusting his name into a title-page. "The Author of Hajji Baba,” “The Author of Tremaine," "The Author of Vivian Grey,' "The Author of Adam Blair," "The Author of Anastasius," "THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY;" such is the shadowy existence of our best writers! "But this is the mere coquetry of authorship," it may be urged. "The names of Morier, Plumer Ward, D'Israeli, Lockhart, HOPE, and SCOTT, are, at the present moment at least, as well known as their works." But would any French scribbler, from Arras to Marseilles, have consented to the eight or ten years of preceding mystery? to the doubts thrown upon their paternity?-to the spurious claims exercised over their foundlings? Would they have borne, like Professor Wilson, to be whispered of in a circle; like Gifford, to live and die without authenticating their right to more than a few maudlin stanzas ; like Jeffrey, like Palgrave, like Brougham, like Talfourd, to content themselves with a sprig or two of professional yew, when they had claims upon the laurel? Would they have been satisfied with the esteem of a handful of literary friends, and, at the utmost, those vague and grudging honours, available only within the limits of the

VOL, III, NO. XVIII,

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world of letters? No!-In Paris, the name of Fonblanque,* of the pithiest and wittiest of political philosophers, would long ago have figured in the lists of the booksellers, and the hands of the typefounders of the great page of immortality. That of Maginn, whose humorous verve not even Conservatism can extinguish, would have become known beyond the lion's den of the printing office. Carlyle, the Briareus of Anglo-Saxon prosody, would have taken his share in the worship of the world; and Praed become renowned as the most polished of modern "Calico Praed," a essayists and lyrists, instead of being laughed at as broken-down member of the Unreformed Parliament. Charles Lamb has at length ceased to be "Elia," and the " late physician" appears in Mr. Warren, (in spite of his Galenic name, no Doctor.) But who wrote “Godolphin ?”—who “ The Marriage in High Life?"—who the Financial Articles of our own Magazine ?—who the "Noctes" of Blackwood? -who the criticisms of the Spectator ?-who the classicalities of the But in France Edinburgh? "Everybody knows," everybody tells. that knowledge would be no triumph, nor the tale worth communication. The authors would put their mark upon their property, as naturally as upon their flock of sheep; and strut about in the eyes of all the Boulevards, arrayed in the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious authorship for evermore !

SONNET.

BY ROBERT CHAMBERS.

Like precious caskets in the deep sea casten,
On which the clustering shell-fish straightway fasten,
Till closed they seem in chink less panoplie ;
So do our hearts, into this world's moil thrown,
Become with self's vile crust quick overgrown,
Of which there scarce may any breaking be.

So be not mine, though compassed all around

With worldlings' cares; still for the young departed,
And more for the surviving broken-hearted,

For all who sink beneath affliction's wound,

Let me at least some grief or pity feel;

Still may religion's mild and tender flame,

Still may my country's and my kindred's name,
Have power to move! I would not all be steel.

• This mention of Mr. Fonblanque, by our Paris contributor who has supplied the above article, induces us to tell our Scottish readers who Mr. Fonblanque is. Many of them have never heard the name before; and to many of them even his truly admirable weekly newspaper is only known by report, and by the extracts from it which appear in other newspapers. It is time the name of Albany Fonblanque were familiar to every Scotsman, Englishman, and Irishman who wishes that effectual reform to be accomplished which can alone prevent revolution. Mr. Fonblanque is Editor of THE EXAMINER. It is scarcely necessary to add, that he is the ablest political writer in Britain, and leader of The Movement, or party of the people. The influence exercised by The Examiner over the public mind is very great. Its leading articles are extracted by most of the provincial newspapers. Even the Tory jour nals copy The Examiner's articles for the point and brilliancy which distinguish them, and that their readers may see what the liberal party contends for. The number of readers on whom The Examiner's leading articles or witty paragraphs are brought to bear, in addition to its own numerous subscribers, is thus immense. And this influence could not be in better hands. The Examiner is distinguished for undeviating integrity, and ardent love of truth, no less than for the most penetrating sagacity, the most unhesitating boldness, and talent of the very highest order. Whenever we are disgusted with the tergiversation of our great Whig politicians which is not seldom-we turn to the contemplation of the characters of Albany Fonblanque, John Mill, John Roebuck, and a few other Radicals of the highest grade in knowledge, talents, and honesty; and our trust that we shall yet see the greatest happiness of the greatest number, the governing principle of a British Administration, is restored.-E, T. M.

FASHIONABLE NOVELISM.

THERE is no one branch, spurious or legitimate, of modern literature on which so vast a portion of Balaam has been expended, as that of the "Fashionable Novel." The minor critics of the press have always some established butt on which to try the arrows of their budding wit; while the majors are careful to keep by them a vessel of verjuice, (duly excised and sanctioned by the literary powers that be,) into which they dip their pens, whenever it is necessary to produce a pungent article, to neutralize the effect of the praises daubed in molasses, with which it is their habit to reward the prophets of their narrow sect.

"The world," says the caustic De Vigny, "is governed just now by a couple of passions, pride and envy; the pride of the aristocracy; the envy of the democracy." The democrats of the critical press, to whom, for the most part, little is known of lords and ladies, except the sight of their splendid equipages parading to courts, the tumult with which their nightly festivities encumber the streets, or the splendours dispensed by their jewels and tinsel from a box at the opera,-mistake the surface for the thing;-and, overflowing with the bile generated by mingled envy and contempt, fall upon the first fashionable novel that courts the notice of their pen; exclaiming that "they are sick of such people and such details; that they wish to hear of men and women, and the common sympathies of nature; and not of the wiles of intrigantes, or the impertinence of dandies."

Wo to such narrow views of the use and purposes of fiction! Wo to the shortsightedness that cannot detect the importance of the selfportraits the autobiographical libels, which the higher classes of Great Britain have been active, during the last ten years, in bestowing upon themselves and their fraternity;-that wants nous to discern how many copies of the Examiner, the Westminster, and Cobbett's Register to boot, would be wanting to make up the amount of scorn contained in one bitter page of these satires upon the nobility of the realm; that wants energy to applaud the infatuation with which the Priests of Baal have introduced us to the idols of the sanctuary, and made us acquainted with the vents and issues of their gross impostures! That much of the lesson has been unconsciously afforded, we sincerely believe. But there is miching malicho in more than one of these gaudy pantomimes of fashion. Like the highest order of caricature, there lurks a moral in their parodies; and if Messrs. Jerdan, Lockhart, Ritchie, Redding, and Co. can see no further than the rouge and patches, the gilt coach and Flanders mares, we are heartily sorry for them.

But when we admit that a few among these gaudy weeds of modern literature possess medicinal properties, it must be acknowledged that many are poisonous. Some have evidently been written to expose the fashionable classes to contempt; while some affect the nobler aim of their amendment ;- -a few have preached like Swift,-a few like Bossuet ;-a few like the popular bishop of some modern see. Hook is fond of rendering his lordly heroes, the Tommy Goodchilds of his stories; Mrs. Gore delights to show them up as the Sir Andrew Aguecheeks, or Master Slenders of her dramas; and Lister, who writes conscientiously, and wishes to preserve a juste milieu, paints them as they really are, "neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red-herring." The portraits in

his novels are as exquisitely true to nature, as those of Gerard Duow who was occupied a fortnight in painting a birch-broom. The verisimilitude of the thing was wonderful; but, after all, it was only a birch. broom. It is absurd to confound such sketches of life and manners as are to be found in the tales of Miss Edgeworth, in Lady Morgan's O'Donnell, in Bulwer, Ferrier, Plumer Ward, Lister, Hook, Mulgrave, Sullivan, Gore, and the still anonymous authors of "The Marriage in High Life," and "Godolphin," with those inundations of trash, with names "too tedious to mention," as the advertisements say, which the copiousness and facility of these writers have called forth in emulation upon the lower grounds of literature, where nothing is enthroned, and nothing to be learned, but vulgarity and meaness ;-which display lay-figures, attired in fashionable costumes, without soul, or sense, or motion; which degrade the class in which they inscribe themselves, by pretensions they render absurd.

It has been the task of most of our unbiassed critical journals,— the Spectator-Examiner-Westminster Review, as well as of our own Magazine, to separate the pure ore from this infinite quantity of dross; to distinguish the aqua-fortis engraving from the shallow and paltry lithograph; the full-toned and sensitive finger-organ from the mechanical barrel-grinder: it has been their task to explain that, at a period when the institutions of civilized society, and the principles of national government are passing under the scrutinizing review of modern enlightenment, it is indispensable that the tree should be made known by its fruits; that the abuses and follies generated by existing privileges should be appreciated in their utmost circumstantiality; that the heaven-born order should be viewed in its night-gown and slippers; nay, even without them. But, while the "greatest number" are clamouring aloud for the happiness denied them, it is but just that the minority should be heard in their own defence. The bar is still open; -let them speak,-let them write.-Not even the Duke of Newcastle will question the diploma of the Earl of Mulgrave, Lord Morpeth, Lord and Lady Nugent, Mr. Lister of Ribblesdale,-Mrs. Sullivan of the Hoo, Lady Isabella St. John, Lady Charlotte Bury, as advocates of the defamed aristocracy. Let us hear all these novelists have said, all they are likely to say, in reply to the accusing voice of the nation.

A few months ago, the establishment of the "Library of Romance" was supposed to afford a proof that the taste of the circulating libraries had undergone a revolution; while the editor, by throwing down the gauntlet to the much vituperated authors of all the fashionable novels extant, and to their publishers, took high grounds of offence and defence; and incurred a perilous responsibility, from which, at present, he has failed to extricate himself. With the exception of Banim's clever story, "The Ghost Hunter," by which the series was opened, and the editor's "Bondsman," the "Library of Romance" exhibits not a single work superior in execution to the novels of modern manners it was intended to supersede; and, in spite of all its prefaces, "The Chaperon," and "Godolphin," have borne away the bell. "Schinderhannes" is a vulgar, schoolboy melodrama, of hairbreadth 'scapes and hanging, without colour, without character, without sentiment. "The Stolen Child," is Galt's least " canny" performance. "Waltham" is unreadable; and "Bug Jargal" a woolly translation of one of Victor Hugo's most brilliant rhapsodies. Mr. Ritchie must produce something better before we give

his miscellany the palm over such books as "Pelham," " Devereux, "Tremaine," " Marriage," or "Ellen Wareham.”*

In truth, it is to the delineation of aristocratic life,—to the sins of the law-makers and law-breakers,-that modern satire must direct its wholesome strictures; those sins which

Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne,

Are touched and shamed by ridicule alone.

The poor have Moses and the Prophets to wrestle with their frailties,― the rich, like Dives, "hear not these," but they subscribe to the libraries of Ebers and Bull. Even Comedy, that pleasant moralizer, is banished from the stage; poetry has a meretricious sound in the ears of the political economists; and Horace and Juvenal, Boileau and Voltaire, Donne, Pope, Swift, and Young, must endite their lessons in prose, were they born again, to reform the littleness of the great.

On this experience did the fashionable novel originally found itself. It was necessary that the framework of society should be probed to its basis; the rottenness of its timbers laid bare; the flimsiness of its superstructure exposed. In what way could such books as those of Galt, Godwin, James, Scargill, Ritchie, Mrs. Shelley, or Banim avail, in affording a picture of the manners of the nineteenth century, by way of apology to the twentieth, for the reforms we are making; or the privileges we pretend to abrogate? The vices of the Court of Charles II. have been bequeathed to us by Grammont, in a work traced with a golden stylus, upon the choicest vellum. Those of the reign of Louis XIV., the most pompous of royal sensualists, were recorded in the notebook wherein the Duke of St. Simon treasured up his discerning malignity. But these were personal and libellous, and impossible of publication in their own age, or their own country; while the Fashionable Novel, by depicting classes and not individuals; by analyzing the nature of the soil of the great world, and enumerating its productions under their general titles, have afforded an available lesson to their contemporaries. If the levity of such works be held offensive, it is only because the prototype of that levity is known to exist in the very heart of our social institutions. If the meanness and servility held up to blame, be loathsome in our sight, it is because the originals of those cringing parasites are constantly before us. It is fitting, also, that they should be placed under the observation of that more extensive class, whose habits and occupations preserve them from contact with the great world. Why should they worship blindly, and in superstition? If the gods of the temple be true Gods, reverence and submission are their due; but if we can prove them to be idols made with hands, let them be ground into dust, and thrown into the brook Kedron. We will not believe Messrs. Cobbett and Hunt. We will trust to the sketches written by my Lord Mulgrave, and read by my Lord Grey.

The Fashionable Novel, then, to a certain extent, and in a certain point of view, has our full and perfect sanction. There is still much to amend in it. The moral might be made more striking, the purpose more definite. We wish for nothing better than a work from the pen of Bulwer, combining pictures of the political and literary coteries, with those of the triflers of Almacks and Stable Yard.

When this was written we had not seen Mr. Baillie Fraser's "Khan's Tale," which only required to be written by a secretary of the late Lord Castlereagh, to obtain equal praise with "Zohrab," in certain quarters.