style. There is a want of spontaneity, and a sense of effort. It has been happily said that Plato's words must have grown into their places. No one would say so of Milton or even of Wordsworth. About both of them there is a taint of duty; a vicious sense of the good man's task. Things seem right where they are, but they seem to be put where they are. Flexibility is essential to the consummate perfection of the pure style because the sensation of the poet's efforts carries away our thoughts from his achievements. We are admiring his labors when we should be enjoying his words. But this is a defect in those two writers, not a defect in pure art. Of course it is more difficult to write in few words than to write in many; to take the best adjuncts, and those only, for what you have to say, instead of using all which comes to hand; it is an additional labor if you write verses in a morning, to spend the rest of the day in choosing, or making those verses fewer. But a perfect artist in the pure style is as effortless and as natural as in any style, perhaps is more so. Take the well known lines: "There was a little lawny islet By anemone and violet, Like mosaic, paven: And its roof was flowers and leaves Each a gem engraven. Girt by many an azure wave Saturday Review. HISTORICAL NOVELS. THE influence of novels upon morality has afforded texts to a good many sermons. As a natural consequence, its importance has been absurdly exaggerated. A preacher generally is, and always ought to be, a temporary victim to the delusion which attributes every evil in the world to some one cause-whether that cause be drinking, defective drainage, or the awful extension of sensation novels. Every iconoclast thinks his own Mumbo-Jumbo the worst of all possible idols. Novels, we might have hoped, would be too small game to afford much zest to persecutors; at any rate, like tobacco and other essential elements of civilization, they will doubtless rise superior to the misguided zeal of over-delicate moralists. From the feeble assaults that have been made upon their art, authors of novels may, however, learn one lesson; namely, to keep as shy as possible of all An attack moral tendency whatever. upon the Ten Commandments is doubtless the worst crime of a novelist, as well as of any other writer; but the crime of next magnitude of which he can be guilty is to take the Ten Commandments under his patronage. The evils of such advocacy both to morality and to the novel have to be occasionally exposed on new outbreaks of the tendency to run sermons into the mould of romances. The deadly dulness which overspreads both the With which the clouds and mountains pave story and the good advice is a sufficient A lake's blue chasm." Shelley had many merits and many defects. This is not the place for a complete or indeed for any estimate of him. But one excellence is most evident. His words are as flexible as any words; the rhythm of some modulating air seems to move them into their place without a struggle by the poet and almost without his knowledge. This is the perfection of pure art, to embody typical conceptions in the choicest, the fewest accidents, to embody them so that each of these accidents may produce its full ef fect, and so to embody them withont effort. [CONCLUDED IN THE NEXT NUMBER.] penalty; and the certainty of suffering for that one unpardonable sin is, we will hope, beginning to be understood. There is another disease to which novels are liable, the evils of which are less generally recognized. To confound a novel with a theological treatise is perhaps the worst blunder, but it is one which has few temptations for any writer of artistic perceptions. To confound novels with history is, as a rule, almost equally fatal, and it is specially annoying, because its apparent ease often entices the ablest writers to undertake an impossible task. We do not venture to assert that in all cases an historical novel is a monstrosity in literature, for such an assertion would be to invite contradictions from every one who had a favorite writer to defend; but, begging every reader to make such exceptions as he chooses, we believe the general rule to be that a good historical novel, like a good translation, is amongst the rarest of literary products. Innumerable failures have only increased the number of candidates for success in translating Homer. The result has hitherto been (we here pronounce no judgment on the latest aspirant) that out of ten given translators, any nine always say that the tenth is execrable. One is sometimes driven by the multitude of requirements to the conclusion that a good translation is a sheer impossibility. The problem, until solved by success, remains, like the attempt to find perpetual motion or to square the circle, a charming employment for youthful aspirants too rash or too ignorant to be warned by the fate of predecessors. The conditions to be satisfied by the historical novelist are almost equally numerous and incompatible. Both writers have to put new wine into old bottles. The translator has to resuscitate antique and alien modes of thought, and to produce with them, when clothed in an English dress, the same effects to which they originally gave rise. The historical novelist has equally to revive pictures long since faded, and to appeal to our sympathy by extinct passions and perplexities. If he is not confined to such narrow limits as the translator, he has less to guide him. The temptation to do for us now what our ancestors have thoughtlessly left undone is so great that many novelists have overlooked both the slenderness of their information and the difficulty of complying with the necessary conditions. They have manufactured dreary articles by the well-known process of combining the information derived from a dictionary of antiquities with recollections of former romances. Sometimes, as in those dismal productions, Gallus and Charicles, the story is felt to be a mere thread for stringing together detached pieces of useful information; or, more fortunately, you feel that the characters are real English men and women walking about, in contempt of anachronism, say, in the last days of Pompeii, sadly hampered in their movements by an irrelevant masquerade. It seems to be scarcely possible for any genius satisfactorily to fuse the two elements. Sir Walter Scott may be sup posed to have set the fashion. He is generally held to have written some good historical novels. We do not class amongst them those which, like Waverley, refer to a state of society scarcely removed from his own experience. But we must confess, however much it may make against our theory, that Ivanhoe is an undeniably good novel, if the test of a good novel is the impossibility of closing it before reaching the last page. Nevertheless, on prying profanely even into Ivanhoe, and shutting our eyes resolutely to the irrepressible vigor and spirit of the style, it is easy to find fault. The characters are, for the most part, mere lay-figures, carrying about assortments of medieval implements of doubtful authenticity. They talk a strange gibberish of stilted twaddle mixed with strange oaths, such as we presume no human beings ever talked; they act on motives so strangely removed from all ordinary canons of criticism that, when the Templar dies promiscuously out of sheer regard for the exigencies of the story, we scarcely feel surprised. In that unaccountable world, "strong men may have been in the habit of suddenly "dying in their agony," without any assignable cause. Even Rebecca-for whom Mr. Thackeray so characteristically expressed his affection-is ostentatiously and unpleasantly impossible. In fact, Ivanhoe is a book which boys of any sense delight to read, and which men look at again with pleasure because they liked it when boys; but it supposes a world so unreal that the passions by which it is moved can hardly affect our sympathy. This becomes more strikingly true when we contrast these unrealities with the exquisite pictures of Scotch life in the Antiquary or Guy Mannering. Ivanhoe occupies to them the same relation as the carpenter's Gothic of sixty years ago to the best modern architecture. It may be that a more thorough scholarship would have enabled Scott to people the middle ages with characters as real and living as Dandie Dinmont or Edie Ochiltree. But equally ill success has attended most efforts made with more elaborate precautions. Mr. Thackeray's Esmond is a miracle of imitative art. The costumes and scenery are perfect. It is scarcely possible for the keenestscented critic to unearth an anachronism. The age, moreover, to which it applies is one not too far removed from us to allow us to sympathize with the motives and the fortunes of the actors. And yet it seems to us that the success was obtained at the expense of smothering the vitality of the book. Though in many respects exquisitely written, it is the work of a man working under restraint; he excites our wonder, like the Messrs. Davenport performing on the banjo. It is not that their performance is by any means a miracle of musical art, but it is strange that they should be able to play at all when they are tied hand and foot. Thus no man, woman, or child in Esmond ever says anything that he or she might not have said in the reign of Queen Anne. But, after all, they are modern characters in more or less disguise, and afraid of their disguise slipping off; they have to step carefully, lest it should appear that they are mere impostors, sneaking about a century and a half before their birth. Esmond is a Pendennis of the eighteenth century, but in the transition all the little roughnesses and angularities which are the best indications of his character seem to have been rubbed off or concealed by his disguise. The difficulty is enormous of finding modes of displaying character when they must not involve anachronisms, and when, if they are not anachronisms, your readers will probably miss their point. But upon the use made of the smaller indications of character all the delicacy of novel-writing depends. The extreme difficulty of writing an historical novel which shall be at once correct in all the little points of keeping, and vigorous in its description of character, is obvious. The mind of the writer must be thoroughly saturated with a severe course of antiquarian knowledge as the first preliminary. He must afterwards execute a series of tours de force, to keep himself in the correct attitude through every consecutive sentence of his book. If this is not enough to quench his ardor, he will have the pleasant reflection that the truer he is to his model the more remote he will become from the sympathies of his readers. The temptation to introduce some touch of modern, and therefore inappropriate, sentiment is almost irresistible. The dif The ficulty becomes still more obvious on considering the cause of success of most of the eminently successful modern novels. The great charm of them is that they convey pleasantly the results of personal observation and sometimes of personal experience. They are, for the most part, thinly disguised memoirs by contemporaries or autobiographies. Miss Austen is a remarkable instance of effect produced by merely noting down the commonest sights with an eye guided by delicate powers of observation. daily gossip of the most uninteresting class of society in the dreariest villages, in one of the most prosaic periods of history, is strangely converted into a work of exquisite art. Miss Brontë may be taken to represent the autobiographical novelist. The life of a governess at Brussels, or of a girl in an orphan school in Yorkshire, does not suggest a very exciting programme; yet the extraordinary keenness with which she had felt the position herself enabled her to make all England follow breathlessly the adventures of Jane Eyre or Lucy Snow. If Miss Brontë had written about any other subject than herself, her books would probably have never got to a second edition. It would be easy to trace, in the best novels of the day, how many pieces owe their merit to the fact that they describe the novelist himself in masquerade; they have something of the interest of confessions, without disgusting us by obviously morbid sentiment. If we subtracted all the descriptions which are in fact veiled accounts of the writer's own experience and observation, we should reduce the best novels to an empty husk. The story might remain, but the characters would become blank lay-figures. And this is what historical novelists for the most part undertake to do. The whole of the scenery, in the widest sense, must be supplied from the memory, not of things, but of books. In other words, the writer must reproduce for us, not living impressions, but cram. We cannot but feel this even in reading that remarkable book Romola. It is admirably written, and the conception of many of the characters is really poetical. But it is given to no one to move quite freely in such fetters. We often feel painful that the necessity of a wary avoidance of anach ners and customs out of histories, and leave novels to pursue their only legiti mate aim of causing the maximum amount of pleasure. ronisms acts as a heavy constraint | rather trust to illustrating bygone manupon the writer. It is especially in the humorous parts, which require the most spontaneous effort, that this burden makes itself felt. There is a heavy fall from the natural wit of Mrs. Poyser to the elaborate facetiousness which stands for practical joking in Florence in the middle ages. In short, in writing novels, the work should come from a full mind, not from one diligently furnished with information for the purpose; and every artificial impediment to action should be thrown to the winds. It is rare, indeed, to find any one whose knowledge is equal to the task of writing an historical novel, and who prefers it to writing a history. Thus far we have spoken of the evils which this unnatural combination of arts produces upon the novelist. The evil of spoiling a few novels may not perhaps be a very great one, when we consider what bountiful provision nature has made for keeping up the species. It is, however, always annoying to see great powers thrown away-to see an artist endeavoring to paint with a broom instead of a brush, or a musician elaborately performing upon the marrowbones and cleaver. If historical novels, except in rare circumstances, are an illegitimate form of art, it is desirable to warn off from the path any one who could do well in the more direct way. The evil, however, does not end in its effect upon romance; it is perhaps, felt more strongly in its reäction upon history. If, as we have said, an historical novel is per se a bad thing, it does not require much argument to show that it can at least do no good as a history. If it is dull as a novel, it is certainly stupid as a means of conveying information. In the good books by which our infant minds were occasionally instructed, the story might be inferior to that of Robinson Crusoe or the Arabian Nights, the morality of which excellent works is simply nonexistent. But they were considered in the light of a sweetener to secure the reception of a nauseous moral, otherwise liable to total and decided rejection. Still the artistic superiority of the Arabian Nights remained incontestable, and we always wished that we might be allowed to keep the medicine and the lump of sugar separate. We would The positive evil which novels inflict. upon history is too obvious to require illustration. We might deduce examples enough from modern historians to show an occasional confusion in their minds between two provinces which they should be anxious to keep distinct. The historical style approximates only too often to the novelist's. A novelist is bound to be omniscient. He can account for the secret strings that pull all his puppets. Historians think themselves bound to construct a theory of the character of every noted man, as an anatomist infers a bird from its shin bone. A novelist throws in pretty little touches of scenery at every available corner of his work. Some historians are equally fond of drawing hypothetical pictures of what probably happened if the winds and the waves behaved with a due sense of propriety. But to pursue this subject into any detail would be to review certain modern writers who have shown such skill in fusing the two arts that, if they succeeded, the boundaries might be entirely obliterated. Novelists have done enough in impressing upon us their views of history. Most people's information about the reign of Richard I. is taken as exclusively from Scott as their views about Henry IV. come from Shakspeare. In both cases, the impressions made are so lively that it is hard for any one to form a correct picture of the reality. But historians should remember that to rival the brilliancy of the effect it is necessary to use colors of very doubtful permanence. Bentley's Miscellany. A GROUP OF FRENCH PAINTERS. WITH the death of the Grand Monarch and the regency of Philip of Orleans, a marked change took place in the entire political and social life of France, and the same was the case with art. Hitherto an elevated style had prevailed in the arts, especially in literature and painting, but now the period of the pleasing or beautiful style set in. Affected dignity was dethroned by coquettish grace. The predominant trait in the duke's personal character was at once transferred to the physiognomy of mental production. Philip was a great friend of the Muses, and did not consider himself too exalted to follow the example of King René, and enter the ranks of the followers of Apollo. Just as he liked to have his musical compositions applauded by the pit, although his talent was not very deep, so he found pleasure in occupying his leisure hours at Versailles or Marly with the brush and the palette. But an even greater effect was produced on the arts by the regent's zeal in collecting a large picturegallery. He flattered himself with being an excellent connoisseur, and after a while collected such a number of pictures that his collection rivalled that of the king. From his liberal passion for art the living painters derived no slight advantage, for they managed to work on the duke's weak side. The following anecdote is characteristic of the man: "What do you think of Sainte Magdalene?" Cardinal Dubois asked him, one day. "Which one? the duke remarked; "Corregio's, Guido Reni's, or Lebrun's?" "The Magdalene of Our Lord," the cardinal remarked. "I do not know her. Is it La Vallière?" "The wretched man! "Dubois exclaimed; "he will never know anything of history." "History?" was the duke's answer; "how many truths are there floating about on the ocean of lies?" The liberty of development which was granted to the arts, and, in fact, to the entire mental power of the nation, by the regency, and eventually by Louis XVI., may be regarded as a gift of doubtful value, because it was merely the liberty of enjoyment, the liberty to sin. Still it is indubitable that the sentence of death passed on the academic close borough introduced a large amount of fresh strength, recruited from the ranks of the bourgeoisie, into the arts and sciences, and that the lively rivalry which the national feeling for art commenced with the tradition which had grown in the course of time automatic, developed an entirely new school, which, however, we must confess, has been christened the masterpiece of bad taste. The first, and undeniably the greatest, master who gave an artistic expression to the ideal of his age, idealized sensuality, was Antoine Watteau. Owing his first attempts at drawing to the perform. ance of some strolling players who dis played their grotesque scenes in the open air, he afterwards went to Paris, where he became a scene-painter. Ere long, however, he resolved, instead of working for the theatre, to make the stage, with its masques and scenery, the subject of his brush, and resumed the artistic efforts of his early years. When he exposed for the first time these quickly drawn and sketchy performances, they appeared through their grace and grotesqueness something perfectly new, for in their entire manner they did not stand in the slightest relation with the hollow, pompous style of the Academicians, or with the Dutch comprehension of commonplace existence. But it took a considerable time ere the learned connoisseurs were agreed as to Watteau being a painter. From theatrical farces our artist easily passed on to the farces of reality, which the well-born society of those days performed. With this step he first entered on the ground which rendered his name great. Paris quickly found a fitting appellation for the newly-created style, and Watteau, as peintre des fêtes galantes, was in a short time the man of the fashionable world, which he ruled for many years by painting fans, furniture, and even clothes. The elegant world dressed à la Watteau, it appointed its boudoirs and salons à la Watteau. The enchanter was everywhere visible in his works, but very rarely in person. Strangely enough, the artist, who was ever cheerful and playful in his sketches, was himself a misanthrope, one of those unfortunate creatures who, governed by constant unrest, can never establish his life on a permanent basis. For Watteau, existence was only half living without the theatre, the opera, and a gay variety of men and things. And yet the most painful reminiscence of his life was connected with the stage, if we may believe the story of his love for the celebrated danseuse, La Montagne. While engaged as scene-painter at the Grand Opera, he formed a passionate attachment for the girl with whose portrait he gained his first and happiest triumph in the circle of the theatrical Graces. But his ardent love met with no return, and, wretched |