LITERATURE.

THE LITERATURE AND ROMANCE OF NORTHERN EUROPE. By William and Mary Howitt.

We have more than once had occasion to record the sense we enter. tain of the graceful genius of the Howitts, as it has been displayed in a variety of ways in many popular works. Not the least service that Mary Howitt has rendered to literature is her admirable translation of Andersen's "Improvisatore," of several of Miss Bremer's tales, and Madame Knorring's "Peasant and his Landlord." And now a further claim is made upon our gratitude by the production of the present work. We are willing to pay what we conceive to be a just debt; but the amount we tender will, perhaps, hardly be considered as a sufficient return for the labour and research this well-matched pair have undergone, and for the literary results they have brought before us. The truth is, we suspect, that the Howitts are enthusiasts. They have discovered and have made known to us what they believe to be a mine of countless wealth, and they fall into such raptures about the Sagas and Eddas of the Scandinavians, and the more modern authors of Denmark and Sweden, that we are lost in wonder that two sober and serious people can muster such contributions of admiration ready to hand. There were "giants in those days," the days of the Sagas and Eddas; but there are giants in these days in Denmark and in Sweden; in fact, a race of literary people of such intellectual stature as those countries can boast, if we are to take the word of the Howitts, never perhaps lifted their colossal foreheads to the sky.

Willing, as we are, to admit that Denmark and Sweden may point with pride to many authors of considerable genius, yet each of those countries has produced only one really great poet, Oehlenschläger the Dane, Tegnér the Swede. Now, we have read with interest and pleasure the specimens, excellently translated, which Mr. and Mrs. Howitt have set before us, and we really cannot find in the Danish and Swedish authors of the eighteenth century, or at any other period, later or earlier, anything that should make us ashamed of our Addison, Swift, Pope, Johnson, Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, Young, Beattie, Goldsmith, Collins, Gray, and many other men scarce less illustrious. Hol berg is the great comic author of Denmark. We are introduced to his acquaintance, and, undoubtedly, the man had a sense of humour; but is this "heavy lightness," this "serious vanity," to be put in comparison with our Colmans, our Sheridan, or even our Cumberland? Great as is the admiration expressed by Mr. Howitt of the genius of the authors with whose works he has recently made himself familiar, we cannot but believe that it will be evanescent, not because there is not much to be admired in them, but that he who shows little or no sense of the wit, the worldly wisdom, the poignant satire, the dexterous art of Pope, is not likely to retain a lasting admiration of any work of genius.

Yet, whilst we differ in some measure from the opinion of Mr. Howitt, we may be, and we are, thankful to him for the many specimens he has selected for us from the Literature and Romance of Northern Europe. Many of the poems are admirably rendered, and the book, taken as a whole, is in the highest degree interesting and instructive.

THE HEIR OF ARDENNAN. By the Author of "Anne Dysart." We are almost afraid to express the opinion that an author who sits down to write a story of domestic life, whether in England or Scotland, with a strenuous determination to paint life as it is in its exact proportions, neither more nor less,-must hardly expect a sudden, widelyextended popularity. We have in the present day many admirable writers of fiction, but several amongst them (and those who enjoy the most esteem) either have created a taste, or are constrained to minister to it, for the grotesque and the extravagant.

"Who peppers the highest is surest to please;"

Monstrous caricatures frequently pass for originals; and he is sometimes called a genius who, utterly unable to draw a character from life, or who conceives that it is no part of his business to do so, presents us with monsters such as the world ne'er saw.

The chief merit, and a great one it is, of "the Heir of Ardennan," is that we find a genuine, a true thing; nothing is introduced for effect, which violates nature or probability. We find in this work, not only a singularly interesting story, but characters drawn with such a rare felicity, that it is hard to believe but that they are portraits from life. Caroline Irvine, and her sister Agnes, are remarkable examples of faithful and studious delineation, and the Purves family are inimitable. It demands genius to elevate common-place people into characters. We have a very high opinion of this work, and we heartily commend it to the reader.

ADVENTURES OF A BEAUTY. By Mrs. Crowe.

The

This is one of those works of fiction which nobody will contentedly lay down till he shall have arrived at the end of the third volume. adventures of the "Beauty," Agnes Crawford, and the consequences to which her clandestine marriage with Lionel Grosvenor lead, are full of a highly-wrought and most powerful interest, and are diversified with extraordinary skill, and remarkable affluence of invention. There are few writers who possess an equal ability with Mrs. Crowe, of throwing her characters into complications, and dexterously disentangling them. That this curious felicity is sometimes pushed to a perilous extent, nay, even to the deterioration of the story, has been the complaint of more than one critic, but they will find no adherent in us. Surely, we have enough and to spare of wire-drawn literature in the present day; and it will not do to object to an authoress because she puts forth all the resources of a very rare faculty. The "Adventures of a Beauty" will fully sustain Mrs. Crowe's reputation.

THE PERILS OF FASHION.

If we must perforce bestow a word of praise upon the authoress for her laudable endeavour to enforce a moral purpose, we must express our disappointment at the manner in which it has been worked out. Mary D'Arc, the heroine, is a character so constituted by the authoress, that her career and its results supply no particular or even general moral. Jilt, jilt-jilting, and being jilted-what are the "perils of fashion" to a young lady who appears only to be too well formed by a vicious nature, heightened by a mischievous education, to mix in the

scenes depicted, and to add, by her example, to the "perils" that might be encountered by more amiable and inexperienced girls? Before we have done with this young lady we are thoroughly weary of her; and what adds not a little to our repugnance, is to be told that she really did love the Rev. Mr. Leigh. Impossible! the authoress is under a mistake; Mary D'Arc had not a heart to bestow or to be broken. The scene in which she, a mother, and on the shady side of fifty, dies in the arms of the reverend gentleman, now become an archdeacon, and of serious threescore (as nearly as we can guess) is positively ludicrous. Yet, there are many animated scenes, some well-drawn characters, and much good writing in the "Perils of Fashion." The authoress may do far better things.

LENA; OR, THE SILENT WOMAN. By the Author of "King's Cope."

THIS is a piquant novel, discovering originality of thought, discrimi nation of character, and a certain freshness which is not to be found in the more fashionable novels of the day. We had just read through a book which has made a great sensation in Paris, called "La Dame aux Camélias," and it was both instructive and amusing to note the different tastes of the rival capitals, as displayed in these two totally different fictions. Fiction, the French work can scarcely he called, for it is, if not founded wholly upon fact, largely indebted for its interest to its being the history of a celebrated woman, Marie Duplessis. Suffice it to say once and for all of this French work, that powerful and painfully interesting as it undoubtedly is, it would never be tolerated in this country.

It was emancipation from an unpleasant thraldom to get hold of "Lena," which though far inferior in power, yet possesses so much that is piquant and delicate, such little subtle distinctions of character, and is written with a refinement that charms, and a playful light sarcasm that puts one in a good humour at once. The title of the novel should have been "Cecil Fleming," for Lena though she is by no means "a Silent Woman," yet plays a secondary part in the story. Cecil is a fine highspirited girl, and we were early relieved from our fears that she was about to turn out a rude hoyden; frank, with perhaps a dash too much of hauteur, beautiful, and tolerably gifted, she makes a gay dashing heroine, and keeps everybody around her alive.

As a foil there is "Lena," the extra-amiable, noiseless, Madonna style of young lady, who seems early in the story to have been the most successful of the numerous marriageable young ladies that are found in this novel; she is engaged to Edgar Rothmond, who would have been a scamp, only nature had not given him wit enough, and so had done the state good service. He breaks his engagement, wishes to renew it, but the "Madonna," though a sweet-tempered girl, has her fair allotment of pride and refuses to see him any more. Lord Morland is a good-natured man, shining by contrast with his worldly-minded, manoeuvring wife, and needing a bad foil to make him appear a tolerable Christian. Their two daughters flirt with any one and every one, and the usual punishment awaits the elder; whilst the younger, uglier, but possessing a rough vulgar frankness, is happy enough to secure a husband in the most inoffensive of mortals who had surely never done anything wrong enough to deserve such a wife.

Laura, Cecil's sister and cousin to the young Morlands, is a heartless coquette, who drives her cousin Basil Morland mad, stands in the way of all the matches by seducing young gentlemen from their allegiance, and then laughing at them. She meets with an untimely fate with her cousin Basil, and thus the characters difficult to deal with her are removed from the stage. Henceforth all the interest centres round Uncle Ned, a really good character, with a shrewd sarcasm about him which though telling is not bitter. He would be thought by some a little heartless perhaps, but it must be remembered he is the centre of a worldly, vain, foolish circle, who are aimless in life, save, to do them justice, as far as concerns the securing of a husband. Lord Hurstmonceaux is not a good specimen of the author's powers; he is a romantic invention, and by no means a happy one. Neither he nor the Duke is drawn from nature. But these are not characters that support the story, and their weakness does not materially affect its interest.

The Author of "Lena" is a clever and improving writer, a shrewd observer of the Austen School, and, we doubt not, will some day produce an enduring fiction.

NATHALIE. By the Author of "Madeleine."

"Nathalie."

The

Ir was but a short time ago that we took up scene is laid in Normandy, and throughout the book are scattered passages of great beauty, descriptive of the scenery of the north of France. Occasionally, too, we are told of sunny Provence, and our cheek warms, and eye brightens, as we almost feel the balmy air, and see the deep blue sky of Provence. One description, too, of an autumn in Normandy, exhibits the strong love of the beautiful in nature, which we have before noticed in the writings of Miss Kavanagh.

The wayward, coquettish, yet by no means heartless Nathalie is of course the heroine of the book. The Provençale girl falls deeply in love with her guardian, who is about twenty years older and colder than herself, and the mysterious character of Mons. de Sainville exercises a fascination over the imaginative Nathalie. The story is full of the lovers' quarrels, though here we have new and strange ones; and these quarrels are the means of exhibiting more piquant dialogue than we have seen for some few years, in any novels, save "Jane Eyre" and "The Initials." The passionate Nathalie is no match for the calm guardian, and the more she discovers this the more she determines that he shall respect as well as love her. But we must not unveil the mysteries of the story, or betray the issue of these amatory battles.

The character of the guardian is not drawn with so much skill as is that of Nathalie. We would suggest that where Mons. de Sainville means to exhibit firmness, he sometimes discovers rudeness, and there is something indelicate in his cool manner of wooing Nathalie, though we are to suppose this is only manner. With this slight drawback the character of the guardian is good. The suffering Rose, whose life is over a rugged path, and who, discarding love, takes duty as her guiding star, is a character rarely to be met with. It is of course

meant as a strong contrast to Nathalie.

The Aunt Radegonde is a capital character, and forms again a contrast to the haughty Madame Marceau. Aunt Radegonde, who, imagining herself reserved, is always gossiping, and who, though waning

VOL. XXXI.

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in life, likes not to be thought deaf, or sleepy. She doses only because she does not like the firelight, and is deaf only because the wind is louder than the voice. We have seen Aunt Radegonde with her par donable little selfishnesses, her good nature and her kind heart.

The other characters are more or less interesting, but Nathalie is the genius of the story. She is a true woman, with her joys and sorrows, her smiles and tears, her sunny and cloudy days—a genuine daughter of Eve, who is always provoking and appeasing, and quarrelling for the pleasure of making friends. Still is she warm-hearted, and, when occa sion calls it forth, exhibits earnestness and depth of character.

we have

The announcement of a new novel by the author of "Nathalie" is welcome indeed. Since the appearance of "Madeleine' become aware that a new and powerful writer is amongst us, and one who need not stand second to any female novelist of the day.

NOTICE.

A PORTRAIT of Miss Mitford, engraved by Freeman, from an original painting by Lucas, which it was hoped would be ready for this month, will be given in our next.