FALGAR PARK, in commemoration of the splendid victory in which that great officer lost his life; and it was also intended to erect a splendid mansion at the public expense; but the present Earl Nelson and his Countess are reported to have such an invincible dislike to any establishment of a splendid or expensive nature, that there is not the least probability of any palace being erected here, as the legislature intended, during their lives. It is amusing and curious to reflect on the speedy transition of public feeling, from zeal and enthusiasm, to indifference and apathy. The glorious achievements by the heroes of the Nile and Waterloo excited more than common interest and admiration in the public mind, and the whole kingdom was eager to honour and reward them, by erecting national palaces, or rather mansions, for their descendants. The history of Blenheim, in Oxfordshire, holds out a warning against, rather than an encouragement for, such works. Besides, the philosopher very properly remarks, that the business of war has been too much honoured and rewarded; whilst the real benefactors of mankind are either entirely neglected, or very inadequately remunerated.' The topographical part of the volume concludes with a notice of the village of Milston, near Amesbury, which is only remarkable as having been the birth-place of Addison. Then follow a list of the provincial words peculiar to Wiltshire; an enumeration of the monasteries, with the date of their foundation, and value; descriptions of the seats of seve ral noblemen and gentlemen, biographical sketches of eminent persons, and remarks on the geology of the county. The book gives proof of extended and patient research, the narrative is plain and sensible, and some of the anecdotes are curious and altogether new. ART. V. Ballantyne's Novelist's Library, 10 Vols. Edinburgh. John Ballantyne. 1821-1824. IT T is a remarkable circumstance attending the literary career of the Great Unknown," that those publications which, without being acknowledged by him, are reputed to be his, obtain much more celebrity than those which he openly avows. The whole reading world is acquainted with the Waverley tales, while, perhaps, not a tenth part of it is aware that, within the three or four last years, a very interesting collection of the best English novels and romances, from the time of Richardson to that of Mrs. Radcliffe, inclusively, has been printed by Ballantyne, under the editorial superintendence of Sir Walter Scott. We gather from the preface that it was originally intended to include in this undertaking selections from the best German, French, and Italian novelists: this portion of the plan would seem for the present to be suspended; pended; but we trust that it will ultimately be completed, as it would form a valuable addition to the productions of our own authors. Indeed the execution of the whole plan is the more necessary, as we have no collection of foreign works of fiction, combining those of the three most civilised countries of the Continent. Those of Spain should also be added; for, though they are comparatively few in number, they are important for their merit. Among the latter we should like to see a good translation of "Fray Gerundio de Campazas, written by the famous Padre Isla, which, in the Peninsula, is ranked next to the immortal work of Cervantes. We are aware of the peculiar difficulties attending the translation of this witty satire, on account of the many verbal criticisms which it contains. But all these passages, and such others as are not closely intertwined with the thread of the story, might be very safely omitted. The contributions which Sir Walter Scott has given to the present collection consist of memoirs of the author's lives, and criticisms on their writings, which, after the manner of Johnson's Lives of the Poets, are prefixed to the works of each writer. The memoirs, we are bound to say, are by no means comparable to those of the admirable biographer of Savage. In truth, they are, for the most part, loosely compiled from scanty materials, and the editor has seldom been able to elucidate them, or to augment their interest, by supplyHis Criticisms,' however, are of a very ing any thing new. different character. They are distinguished by sound taste, formed not so much on any given model, as on a deep insight into the construction of those feelings by which men are soothed or inflamed. These commentaries exhibit the results of a great deal of thought, long bestowed on a favourite subject, and matured by experience, to a degree of standard perfection. If any doubts were entertained as to the real author of the Waverley novels, we think that we might easily dissipate them by references to these criticisms. It is worth remarking, that they make no mention whatever of those celebrated novels, although the latter are uniformly framed on the principles which Sir Walter Scott, in his critical capacity, recommends; and, indeed, the subject would have led him to appeal to those works as the best illustrations of his canons of romance, had he not personal motives for avoiding every allusion of the kind. In his prefatory memoir to the novels of Mackenzie, the editor repeatedly bestows on him the title of the northern Addison. The author of Waverley dedicates his work to Mackenzie under a similar title. There are many coincidences S 3 coincidences of thought, feeling, and expression between the Scottish novels and the criticisms in the collection before us, which we might point out, if we conceived the inquiry to be worth pursuing; but, in truth, it would be superfluous. It is not our intention to take the reader through the whole of the memoirs and commentaries contained in these ten volumes. A few specimens will be sufficient to show the style in which they are executed. The life of Fielding, which is the first, is also the best of the series. It is written, throughout, in a vein of affectionate veneration for the father of the English novel,' as Sir Walter repeatedly styles him. We much regret, however, to find in this memoir a vindication of that sort of censorship which is exercised by one of His Majesty's officers of state over the productions offered to the theatres for representation. The passage is as follows: "During his theatrical career, Fielding, like most authors of the time, found it impossible to interest the public sufficiently in the various attempts which he made to gain popular favour, without condescending to flatter their political animosities. Two of his dramatic pieces, Pasquin, and the Historical Register, display great acrimony against Sir Robert Walpole, from whom, in the year 1730, he had in vain sought for patronage. The freedom of his satire is said to have operated considerably in producing a measure which was thought necessary to arrest the license of the stage, and put an end to that proneness to personal and political satire which had been fostered by the success of Gay's Beggars' Opera. This measure was the discretionary power vested in the Lord Chamberlain, of refusing a license to any piece of which he should disapprove. The regulation was the cause of much clamour at the time; but licentious satire has since found so many convenient modes of access to the public, that its exclusion from the stage is no longer a matter of interest or regret; nor is it now deemed a violent aggression on liberty, that contending political parties cannot be brought into collision within the walls of the theatres, intended, as they are, for places of public amusement, not for scenes of party-struggle.' The answer to this is, that the power vested in the Lord Chamberlain is in the first place an anomaly in our constitution. It is the birthright of an Englishman to give free expression to his thoughts, through every channel which he thinks fit to use, he being responsible to the laws if he should violate them. The authority vested in an officer of His Majesty's household, of preventing a play from being acted, if he should deem it expedient so to do, supposes the freedom of the subject to emanate from the will of the sovereign, whereas it really emanates from a compact made on equal terms between both, in which this particular liberty was not, nor ever in tended tended to be, surrendered. A peculiarly odious part of this authority it is, that there is no appeal from it, and that the officer who exercises it, is not bound to assign his reasons for rejecting a play; nor is he responsible for his conduct to any tribunal whatever. It is a complete literary despotism in all its parts, and were it not that its abuses are rarely felt, it would and ought to have been long since suppressed. As to the supposition of Sir Walter that this power prevents the collision of political parties within the walls of the theatres, it is a mere theoretic assumption. It does no such thing. The plays which are every night performed afford abundant opportunities for that collision, if the public were at all disposed for it. In point of fact, there is no audience in the world so little inclined to convert the theatre into an arena of politics as a British audience. The reason is, that they go to a theatre to laugh or to weep, not to deliberate: they have enough of politics in their newspapers, their public meetings, and their unrestricted intercourse; and they might, with perfect safety, be left by the Lord Chamberlain to judge for themselves of the merits or demerits of a new tragedy. Even if they wished for a political one, we know not by what legitimate authority that wish should be resisted. In the memoir prefixed to Smollett's novels there is a comparison instituted between his genius and that of Fielding, which exhibits, in every touch of it, the hand of a master. Fielding and Smollett were both born in the highest rank of society, both educated to learned professions, yet both obliged to follow miscellaneous literature as the means of subsistence. Both were confined, during their lives, by the narrowness of their circumstances, both united a humorous cynicism with generosity and good nature, both died of the diseases incident to a sedentary life, and to literary labour,—and both drew their last breath in a foreign land, to which they retreated under the adverse circumstances of a decayed constitution, and an exhausted fortune. • Their studies were no less similar than their lives. They both wrote for the stage, and neither of them successfully. They both meddled in politics; they both wrote travels, in which they shewed that their good humour was wasted under the sufferings of their disease; and, to conclude, they were both so eminently successful as novelists, that no other English author of that class has a right to be mentioned in the same breath with Fielding and Smollett. If we compare the works of these two great masters yet more closely, we may assign to Fielding, with little hesitation, the praise of a higher and a purer taste than was shewn by his rival; more elegance of composition and expression; a nearer approach to the grave irony of Swift and Cervantes; a great deal more address or felicity in the conduct of his story; and, finally, a power of describing amiable and virtuous characters, and of placing before us S 4 heroes, heroes, and especially heroines, of a much higher as well as a more pleasing character than Smollett was able to present.' Every successful novelist must be more or less a poet, even although he may never have written a line of verse. The quality of imagination is absolutely indispensable to him: his accurate power of examining and embodying human character and human passion, as well as the external face of nature, is not less essential; and the talent of describing well what he feels with acuteness, added to the above requisites, goes far to complete the poetic character. Smollett was, even in the ordinary sense, which limits the name to those who write verses, a poet of distinction; and, in this particular, superior to Fielding, who seldom aims at more than a slight translation from the classics. It is, however, chiefly in his profusion, which amounts almost to prodigality, that we recognize the superior richness of Smollett's fancy. He never shews the least desire to make the most either of a character, or a situation, or an adventure, but throws them together with a carelessness which argues unlimited confidence in his own powers. Fielding pauses to explain the principles of his art, and to congratulate himself and his readers on the felicity with which he constructs his narrative, or makes his characters evolve themselves in the progress. These appeals to the reader's judgment, admirable as they are, have sometimes the fault of being diffuse, and always the great disadvantage, that they remind us we are perusing a work of fiction; and that the beings with whom we have been conversant during the perusal are but a set of evanescent phantoms, conjured up by a magician for our amusement. Smollett seldom holds communication with his readers in his own person. He manages his delightful puppet-show without thrusting his head beyond the curtain, like Gines de Passamonte, to explain what he is doing; and hence, besides that our attention to the story remains unbroken, we are sure that the author, fully confident in the abundance of his materials, has no occasion to eke them out with extrinsic matter.' Upon the whole, the genius of Smollett may be said to resemble that of Rubens. His pictures are often deficient in grace; sometimes coarse, and even vulgar in conception; deficient, too, in keeping, and in the due subordination of parts to each other; and intimating too much carelessness on the part of the artist. But these faults are redeemed by such richness and brilliancy of colours; such a profusion of imagination - now bodying forth the grand and terrible - now the natural, the easy, and the ludicrous; there is so much of life, action, and bustle, in every groupe he has painted; so much force and individuality of character, that we readily grant to Smollett an equal rank with his great rival Fielding, while we place both far above any of their successors in the same line of fictitious composition.' The novels of Le Sage have been so long naturalised among us, that Sir Walter Scott felt no difficulty in admitting into this collection Gil Blas, the Devil on Two Sticks, |