Of merry life,-what wondrous fun Thy Christmas tales will cause! Then what a name What dread accounts of cold long nights! Of window-curtain folds thou scal'dst, to sleep, When too the evening hastened on, And mimic summer cheer'd thy little frame; Thou visited'st us all in happy game- When thus thou'lt talk of Christmas sweets, There pine-apples in luscious perspicuity! Engage each subtle, disputatious fly: LONDON:-Published by HENRY L. HUNT, 38, Tavistock-street, Covent-garden, and 22, Old THE LITERARY EXAMINER. No. XXV. SATURDAY, DEC. 20, 1823. REVIEW OF BOOKS. Percy Mallory. By the Author of Pen Owen. AMONG the various other blessings for which we are indebted to Scottish sagacity, must be ranked a new and highly improved mode of literary announcement. The eclat produced by the Waverley Novels, aided by the locality of Publisher and Printer, has, no doubt, led to this improvement, which announces the shipment of a bale of invention, like a cargo of oatmeal. To this sort of notice of the genuine Scottish commodity, we have possibly little objection, but we cannot extend the indulgence to articles of English manufacture which only find their way to Edinburgh to be printed and published. Although the author of PERCY MALLORY is at once the Editor de facto of the John Bull, and the intimate friend of Mr. Croker, we cannot pass over the quackery of a formal intimation that the mighty production of his genius are shipped at Leith, and will shortly reach London. The hopes of a second treat, like PEN OWEN, has never disturbed the quietude of the most inveterate Novel reader, and it is too much to be alarmed this way without occasion. Moreover, as friends to the Metropolitan booksellers, we foresee infinite mischief in the necessity of transmitting manuscripts for publication to Edinburgh, in order to ensure the benefit of the announcement of the work as a piece of port news. The Underwriters, to be sure, may be correspondently benefited, but still we object, at least, to the extension of the practice. That Mr. Blackwood should be the publisher, in the present instance, is perfectly in the nature of things; and that the primum mobile of the John Bull should be led by sympathy to a business-like connection with the proprietor of a tissue of somewhat more able blackguardism of the same class, is anything at all but extraordinary. But enough in the way of passing allusion, and to the merits of the important production which has so happily reached the desired haven. To the readers of Pen Owen, therefore, we will observe that Percy Mallory is indisputably a happier effort, but still retaining so much of the raw, flippant, and flighty manner of that production, as to prove that the forte of its parent is certainly not Novel writing. There appears to us to be two leading species of fiction-mongers in the formal story-telling line the one of which deals most with manners, costume, and what the logician might call, the accidents of human nature-the other, with the universal movements and principles which regulate VOL. I. 25 the heads and h hearts of all men. The talent of the first of these, however exquisitely displayed, is essentially descriptive, while the latter, being drawn principally from internal study, is involuntarily egoistical. The first of all Novelists is undoubtedly he, who most felicitously blends the two manners; but, with the exception of Shakespear, we cannot mention either dramatist, or story-teller, in whom they are so so duly amalgamated as not to leave the one or the other completely predominant. The author of the Waverley novels is another fine example, but he clearly takes his highest rank as a descriptionist the painter of effects and appearances rather than of facts and of causes. Henry Fielding, again, is a writer who mixes the two qualities, but he was as evidently the student and delineator of the latter. We might carry the explanation and parallel much further, but it is quite sufficient to observe, that if a writer succeeds in neither of these departments, he has nothing to do with the composition of fictitious adventure; and this, without detracting from its emerits, or or affecting to regard it as a production exhibiting a total want of talent, is the case with the author of Percy Mallory. That work may bprove the possession of certain respectable powers and attainments on his part, but it will equally prove that he cannot write a Novel that is to say, a Novel, which is to be insured at Lloyd's, shipped at Leith, and to have its reaching port made an affair of as much importance as the arrival l of o one of King Solomon's galleons from Ophirst ap eds The first thing which strikes us when we get thoroughly into the story, is the deficiency of the author of "Percy y Mallory," in healthy invention. Every incident and character may be traced to recently preceding publications, and more especially to the Waverley Novels. The laird of Ellangowan and his lost heir, Meg Merrilies, Glossin, and others, recur to us eternally; not to mention the minor accompaniments of smugglers, gipsies, et hoc genus omne, without the felicity of vivid or original painting. A most laboured piece of aerial deliverance from the shelf of a precipice which in itself shows some power, is nothing in the world but an elaboration of the escape of Lovell and Isabella Wardour in the Antiquary. The fact is, the author ought not to belong to the corps who declaim against cocknies, for he is evidently at home in London only, and in a delineation of the factitious Corinthianism of a certain order of fashionables. This is altogether natural, and what might be expected from a practitioner of mimickry, 2a wit on the establishment of the John Bull, and a lively but extravagant farce-writer. A few of the scenes of this class are amusing enough, but strangely abstracted from all interest in the story, and consequently not quite so good in their way as those in the Winter in London." bas There is a certain exuberant vivacity congenial enough with a quickness of parts, and often sufficiently entertaining in itself, but with which we cannot possibly associate the notion of power or profundity. Voltaire possibly was an example to the contrary; but if so, he was only one of that kind, the rarity of which proves the strength of the general rule. The author of Percy Mallory is certainly not a Voltaire, and attached to so religious a journal as the Bull, is doubtless piously thankful on that account; but neither is he a novelist, and both ola lennot to sq A 1998q of beristeach and rode lovil de the incident and character of Percy Mallory" prove our assertion. Suppose we endeavour to give a general notion of the story. The novel opens with the recovery of the infant son and heir of a gentleman of the North, who had been stolen away, with the aid of a half Meg Merrilies and her accomplices, for some purpose which does not immediately appear. A degree of suspicious confusion, which takes place in consequence of the substitution of this child for another, produces a distrust in the mind of the reader from the beginning, that the honest country gentleman has recovered the wrong calf; and so it apparently proves, until the close of the novel, when a second discovery takes place, and everything is made straight again. All this confusion arises from the anxiety of a Lord, who has an infant daughter only, to substitute a fictitious son and heir; to effect which, the aforesaid daughter is placed in a mysterious retirement, where she accidentally becomes acquainted with the hero, and a love business follows, neither of them knowing that the one is daughter to an Earl and the heiress of his personals, and the other his nephew and son to the heir-at-law of his titles and estates. This is quite enough to show that the story of "Percy Mallory" is the merest common-place of Leadenhall-street; and we can say little more for the characters. Wand The principal personage in this novel which has any marking at all, is a humourous old country gentleman, who can find no better reason for turning testy and misanthropical, than having hastily married a pretty and insipid woman of a family inferior to his own. We e forget the maiden name of Mrs. Shandy, but it might have been a tw a twin gister; just as, both in "Pen Owen" and the present production, n. the humourists have all, more or less, a resemblance to her systematising husband. But we scarcely deem oddities characters,—at least out of farces. Nothing in the world is more easy than to imagine a hypochondriacal, and Land consequently eccentric, old man or woman, and to give h him or peculiar phrases, singular gesticulation, and the habit of saying anything that could not be expected. This was the art of comedy-writing in the lofty days of Reynolds, Dibdin, and Cherry; and it finally died of inanition. Besides the honest oddity of this class, there is not a single passable sketch throughout the whole of the novel, unless we except a wily lawyer, and a sprig of exquisite fashion, both of which approximate to the representation of something. With respect to the nominal hero and heroine, they are allowed to be dull ex officio; a license, indeed, not unfrequently assumed in relation to those mere p props * of his story even by Sir Walter Scott. It is no mean art to be able to keep up an interest for merely handsome good kind of young people; a difficulty which we frequently detected in our early reading in this line. Heaven help us! but we know not whether we did not prefer the gay Sir Clement Willoughby to the sentimental Lord Orville;' and heartily wished that Cecilia would choose the spirited and sprightly Belfield instead of the sombre and stately Delville. As to Richardson, we were so graceless, as to prefer Lovelace to Sir Charles Grandison all to nothing. SIE Is there then nothing to amuse in "Percy Mallory?" We have not Psaid so the story is infinitely too long; but there is occasionally the relief of much spirited whimsicality and his ey for the lively author has transferred to paper. As part of a formal story, nothing can be more outré than to introduce a descendant of the Gran disons who is made to assume all the manners of his greatuncle Sir Charles, and to carry the imitation throughout his family and household; but as a humourous piece of imitation, it is exceedingly diverting. We are to suppose this formal, graceful, and orderly group at dinner; Percy, the hero of the novel, a sprightly young man of twenty, being a relative and guests of beeoqqua eaw ofw edge tia 344. Percy led forward the hostess in all the pomp of Mecklin lappets-point ruffles and damask drapery, that moved without the rumple of a fold, like a Dutch toy, on wheels. He would have made his peace during the journey across a hall that traversed the whole depth of the mansion-and through a suite of papered and bagged apartments which led to the salon a diner but a very short observation of her 87ergsm on to begin and Jant lostnoo Ladyship's checked his first attempt. 19 There were few points,' she remarked, in which good Sir Hugh was so particular as punctuality in all engagements." Percy said no more-Her Ladyship on their arrival took her seat at the head of the table-Sir Hugh seated himself at the bottom Miss Gertrude and Percy vis-avis made up the partie carrée. Even t sion in his favour-as heristics, pe chaplain was ano, though partak she felt little disposed to take a share ins any conversation likely to occur ai Ji excted:9100 29/11 Good Dr. Patterson is obliged to absent himself on account of some urgent business at Kendal, observed Lady Rodolpha, as a sort of implied apology to Perey for Sir Hugh taking upon himself the duty of saying grace sims you er "Indeed!'-sighed Percy-viewing around him, as if presenting a new barrier aga mida e array of domestics planted which seemed to engage his speculations to the exclusion of every thing else. After a long panse, "Tell Mrs. Knowles, said Sir Hugh, looking benevolently towards the butler whilst his Was somewhat heightened, 4 that she has been rather too bountiful with her seasoning in the soup "Certainly, Sir Hugh-but I had informed Mrs. Knowles, Sir Hugh, that her Ladyship, on Tuesday last, ***Excellent Roland, interrupted ther e vership, you recoflect my most trifling "They are our law, my law, my Lady—and at the signal, all the amenn token of their sympathy. aga the grey-headed liveryobserved Sir Hugh, with a smile, are generally pernicious-and Rodolpha, I have been a martyr in your cause your Ladyship so, my good Lady returned the gracious lady, that I should ever be the occasion of torment to my ever-indulgent Sir Hugh---but I flatter myself if your present sufferings can be so easily relieved, they have not been very excruciating---Am I not a saucy creature, Sir Hugh?' You are all excellence, and are never more endeared to me than when your Ladyship suffers your little playfulness of fancy to animate our happy domestic circle Good Roland---a glass of old Madeira to your excellent lady. You have forgiven good Mrs. Knowles, my best of friends'--said Lady Rodolpha, with one of her most winning smiles--- for her bountiful extreme." Sweetly engaging Lady Rodolpha !---had I really cause of offence, your Ladyship's happy mode of intercession would make me forget it, in the admiration of a of gaungoms talent so peculiarly your own." Kind Sir Hugh!---you will make me vain." "No one has more reason---no or one is less likely to Iv to become so pha de Lacy. so than Lady Rodolтірет y of us all to be so---tell her, good Roland, that her soup is admirable---but add, as from yourself, that perhaps it would suit the taste of Lady Rodolpha and myself better, were it, in future, less highly seasoned.* |