invent the new, but can only reproduce the old in fresh combination, exactly in the same way that no material element can be called into being in the visible world, and science knows that it can but accomplish yet unattained results; so fiction can only reproduce, in unexpected aspects, what memory has been storing in her secret chambers; and thus it is that she often wanders distraught, like a maniac, through her wide and varied realms. But when the mind marshals the events of fiction under the banners of truth; when some great principle is illustrated by the development of actions fairly deducible from it, displaying causality and effect to the world's convinced heart; then this intellectual anatomy becomes a higher triumph of mental science than the keenest investigator of that which is corporeal may dare to contemplate. The development of the pampered passions of the body may be both powerful and beneficial; but that of the sins of the spirit, approaching those of the fallen archangel, approximate to the sublime. Sir E. B. Lytton has in this work taken a new, but most important, position. He has armed himself with the weapons of his genius against the sin of the day. That sin is impatience; a name which scarcely bespeaks its heinousness. Impatience is the sin of the age. Men are impatient for fancied good; impatient for that good, if good it be,-money,-which commands all those other minor goods dear to the comfort-loving heart of man. Divinity, overflowing with that mercy and goodness, of which, if we may presume the expression, it could not divest itself, converted the curse which it pronounced upon man's fallen nature into a blessing. He ordained labour as a punishment: labour which, instead of making us groaning slaves, turned us into useful members of society; and which became the purchasemoney of every benefit, both corporeal and intellectual. Man's sin is the impatience by which he endeavours to escape this doom, seeks to throw off the blessing in disguise. Hence all the gambling of society-the juggling spirit of the age; hence its thousand short-cuts to learning-its railroads to wealth. Our forefathers toiled patiently, and they tasted the blessings of toil. We, their children, escaping the toil, escape also its blessing. Throughout the whole of this work, Sir E. B. Lytton has set himself to the task of correcting this fiery spirit of impatience. He has unveiled it in its multiform aspects. We might almost say, that not a single character, not a single incident, but teaches the same lesson, and preaches the same moral. Who can tell where the overdue impatience to possess ourselves of some coveted desire may lead us? Not in vain was the tenth commandment given; the only one in the Decalogue explicitly addressed to the thoughts, rather than to the actions. Our own day needs the preaching of this divine injunction more than any preceding one. "Thou shalt not covet," is set against this sin of impatience, this impatience which, at the present moment, characterizes us, both nationally and individually; and, consequently, they who enforce its spirit ought to be ranked amongst our highest moral teachers. But there is a charge sometimes brought against genius, not always unfairly founded, that, even when arming itself against some dominant sin, its own pencil is so dipped in brilliant hues that it paints even the monster, whom it compels to sit to its canvas, in rainbow colourings which attract rather than repel, which fascinate rather than disgust; that even when the narrative leads on to a catastrophe in which the judgment is rendered terrible by its due severity, the imagery, the sentiment, the power, the passion which have accompanied the narration of the crime, leave its memory invested with temptation of which not even the final retribution can divest it; that the guilty actors in life's dark tragedy are arrayed with so many charms, that the reader is taught to pity, to envy, or even, perhaps, finds himself seduced into a fatal sympathy. We, at once, agree with the severest moralist in his utter condemnation of this treacherous pretence of zeal in the interests of virtue, this infamous inculcation of wrong under the mask of right, this disguise of the hypocrite under the hood of the saint. But we would challenge the world to find this fatal error in Sir E. B. Lytton's present work. From the first page to the last his "Lucretia" is personally as unloveable as she is criminal. We find her unable to inspire a single sentiment of affection. Her very beauty is charmless. We say her beauty: but even that should be taken in a limited sense, for Sir E. B. Lytton has given us a description of her person, not drawn from the rich redundancy of his own fancy, but full of the accurate minutiae of fact, and bearing the stamp of truth. There are touches in this delineation that attest the painter's accuracy: homelinesses, and even blemishes, admitted into the portrait, that leave nature and identity indisputable. Not all Sir E. B. Lytton's grace of diction and charms of expression can create a heart-interest in his heroine. We cannot, indeed, withdraw our gaze, for we are intently fixed on watching the coilings of the glittering serpent, but our feelings revolt from her even while we are fixed in fascination. We do not pity her temptations; in truth, she has no temptation but impatience. Sympathy never attends her path; the heart is all in arms against her; and, rather than wishing it averted, desires to see that fearful justice overtake her which at last consummates her doom. The murderess is, as she ought to be, separated from all the tender reciprocities of human affections, and her intellect is of that cold and calculating nature, possessing that sort of acute but perverted casuistry, which so foils itself, that it neither persuades nor convinces. In this woman, unlovely, unloveable, and unloved, we can but gaze upon an exhibition of the power of the delineator's master mind. The morality is unimpeachable, and it must have exercised the compulsion of a stern necessity upon Sir E. B. Lytton's mind to have imposed such restraint upon his fancy, that not one melting charm, not one touch of native, unextinguished feeling should have escaped a pen from which they usually are showered, and dropped, like a sunbeam, on his guilty heroine. It is not so; and again we say, that the morality of the tale is unimpeachable. The character of Lucretia's accomplice in crime must involve the thinking reader in deep reflections. We are apt to say that recklessness and levity argue the absence of all grave criminality, since the effort, which is necessary to conceal some hidden sin, brings with it an anxiety of expression totally destructive of all light-heartedness. But Varney is a villain of a new school. Not one by temptation, but by nature. Not one who has overcome scruples and stifled conscience, but one who never heard their reproaches or their pleadings. And here we are met by a startling question. Do children, indeed, inherit their parents' sins? We know that Sir E. B. Lytton puts forth no trivial theories, but that even his touches are truths. But we will leave the painful speculation, and return to him from whom it originated. Varney is an original. We never met before with a gay villain who was a cruel one. Cheerfulness is not only received by the world as a redeeming quality, but it is admitted as positive proof that bloodthirstiness cannot exist in its companionship. It is a false deduction; for where the conscience has never been aroused, a man may act the assassin with a smile upon his lip. Varney is an artist; but Sir E. B. Lytton, with a wise discrimination, has marked the possession of talent without genius, which, in such association, must have suffered profanation. The reader of "Lucretia" will turn from the masterly, the lofty, the triumphant exhibition of the author's power in the darker actors of this drama, to refresh himself with the exquisitely touching and tender characters with which he has relieved his picture. On Helen and Percival Sir Edward has pressed the charms of purity, guilelessness, gentleness, and generosity. Perhaps it may be said that the interest of the intellect rests upon Lucretia and Varney, but the interest of the heart is fastened on this unworldly pair. Speaking generally of the works of imagination which are continually being introduced to the world, we are accustomed to pronounce upon them that they amuse or they fatigue, that they please or they offend, and so they pass away from a short-lived memory. But this cannot be the case with "Lucretia." who have read cannot forget it. The work will be engraven on They their minds; re-produced in their thoughts. It will open before them vast fields of contemplation. It will lead them into the deepest metaphysical speculations. It will make them inquire into their own nature. It will teach them to investigate themselves. The impressions it must produce cannot speedily fade from the memory. The scenes are so realized before them that they must, perforce, walk through them; the lineaments of the actors are so depictured that they must feel themselves surrounded by them. The readers of "Lucretia" cannot choose but feel as if her eye still glittered over them, as if her voice still sounded in their ears; they will fancy they have known the boy Gabriel from the childhood of his velvet vest, to his moustached manhood. They will scarcely be convinced that they have not wandered through the groves of Laughton and tasted the hospitality of the true old English gentleman Sir Miles. They will fancy that they see the sleek, smooth scholar Dalibert first pouring the poison into the heart of the heiress, then whispering treachery into the ear of the first consul at Paris; then they will follow him into his sealed cabinet, and contemplate intellect studying murder-craft, and then perforce hear the groan, the gasp, the struggle of his own death-agony beneath the grasp of a provoked assassin. But we stop our pen. The work is one that must be read, and, when read, cannot be forgotten. Jullien's Album for 1847. THIS is a new idea, and it is one which is carried out in a manner worthy of the subject and of the reputation of Jullien. It is one of the most handsome works we have ever seen. The collection of music is at once extensive and well-selected. Among the distinguished names whose contributions appear in its pages are those of Balfe, Rubini, Rossini, Donizetti, &c. The illustrations have never been surpassed; and, altogether, a more splendid book has never graced the drawing-room table. The World's Complaint, and other Poems. By CHARLOTTE YOUNG. London: Grant and Griffith. THIS is, we believe, Miss Young's first appearance in the world of literature. She has made an auspicious début. The first and longest piece in the volume indicates not only the possession of poetic feeling, but a lively perception of the morally and intel lectually beautiful. We quote, as a specimen of the writing, a few stanzas from the opening piece, entitled :— "THE WORLD'S COMPLAINT. 'Ungrateful mortal! canst thou look around, Of joy and gladness filling ev'ry scene? Oh! haste at once thy stubborn will to bow. "And let thy reason take a loftier flight, And, leaving sunny hill or dale, attend A charm to manhood, rising far above "There's nothing true but heaven,' the poet said, E'en in the words he utter'd in his scorn; So much that comes directly from above,- Such proof of blessed truthfulness and love,- "Come, now, and look upon my laughing face: In the glad sunlight of the morning hour; See, if thy gloomy visions dare to lower Where e'en the insect in his gladness sings. That should be called by man the vale of tears.'" It is impossible for any one to read, without admiration both of Miss Young's mental acquirements and moral feelings, her piece headed |