LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 23.-19 OCTOBER, 1844. 26. PUNCH.-French Model Farm in Africa-Song of the Sportsman-Letter from Satan Montgomery-Lord Non-content-Name of a Prince-Accident to the Liberator-Early Hours-Love in Reason-To the Genteel-Lovers-Impudence of Steam-Daniel O'Connell 'd no mischief to brew, 699. 27. Late Improvements in Steam Navigation and War, Athenæum, SCRAPS.-Royal Courtesies, 656-Archæological Society, 670-Land Slip, Isle of Wight— CORRESPONDENCE. [From the Correspondent of the National Intelligencer.] 703, political sect that proclaims the possibility of effecting: all great changes by moral means alone, and that there is no human revolution worth the shedding of is not a cement to the public state, it possesses rather a single drop of blood to obtain. No, human blood: a crumbling than a binding property, and it brings. down to the ground any public edifice in the erection of which it has been expended. We proceeded without crime; we shuddered at the shedding of a single drop of human blood." Paris, Sept. 16, 1844. At the moment I write, the cannon of the Hotel des Invalides are celebrating the telegraphic news of yesterday, which appeared officially in the evening journals, viz., that Peace was concluded, on the 10th inst. with Morocco. I enclose the bulletin from the Prince de Joinville. Emotion pervaded the whole capital last night. The interest of the matter consisted The treaty with Morocco effaces and precludes a chiefly in the suppression of an inflammatory topic alarms on the two sides of the channel. It must demultitude of sinister speculations and mischievous between Great Britain and France. In this point of light the Soult-Guizot cabinet and comfort the dynasview-as the confirmation of amity between the two ty; the public would not have been appeasable withcountries-the event disappoints and otherwise an-out some operations against the Moors; and if those noys the war-party, and must be quite distasteful to Young Ireland; I mean the more impetuous and exasperated portion of the repealers, who have not been duly impressed with this passage, the finest of the O'Connell speeches : operations had proved unsuccessful, it might have "made with honor." But the opposition editors ob-known, it is with these commodities that the enorserve: "The main object of the war was the surren- mous importations from England and India must be der of Abd-el-Kader, or the confinement of the re- paid. The opium trade is draining the bullion out of doubtable Emir in the interior of the empire; the the country, and the American bills on London, which news may be good and great, yet nothing is reported have long afforded a safe remittance, are decreasingof him. What would a mere Moorish promise in re- the Americans, finding that their own manufactured lation to him signify? You have evacuated Moga- cottons yield a handsome profit, will send goods to dore, and we may therefore presume that absolute procure their tea charges. That China will, in the guaranties have been obtained; otherwise, the evac-course of time, be an outlet for a very large quantity uation could not be too severely blamed; the peace of the staples of British manufacture, is undoubted. would be a delusion-a mere armistice for the Moors, by which they gain time for preparation as vindictive foes. Do we owe Muley's compliance to British mediation? Are we sunk to the level of Spain, whose disputes abroad England settles at will? Has this arrogant power imposed the peace on her humble servant M. Guizot? Until we see the terms, we may doubt the glory and security of the conclusion." You have here my abstract of the opposition perplexities and cavils this morning. The Debats of the 14th instant employed a strain which affords color for their doubt and hesitation : us. But the question now is, how is she to pay for them? With the enormous drain upon her in the shape of compensation money, and the heavy annual burthen of some twenty millions of dollars for opium, all paid in specie-unless there are mines in the interior of which Europeans are in ignorance-a few years will drain the greater part of the silver out of the country, and raise what remains to a factitious value." The London Sun lays awful stress on "the coincident appearance in the Yellow (Chinese) Seas of an American man-of-war with the considerable French force." We might have expected better "We require from the Emperor of Morocco that he sense and feeling from the London Spectator than should remove from our frontiers and from his em- the following paragraph of the 14th: "China is pire an enemy at least as dangerous for him as for threatened with more intrusive negotiations, AmeriIt is possible that he may not be able to comply can and French. Like boys who have seen one of with this demand; it is possible that Abd-el-Kader their number rob an orchard, the American and may have become too powerful-may have gained French must noisily step in, too, and even at the too great an influence over the Mussulman popula-risk of spoiling the sport for all." Our opposition tion of Morocco, to allow the emperor to get rid of his presence. It is a misfortune; but if the Emperor of Morocco is not master in his own states, we are not obliged to bear the penalty of his weakness; if he cannot carry into execution the police regula-rious: tions of his own kingdom, we shall evidently be obliged to do it for him. France has no other aim than to assure the security of her possessions of Algeria; but it is a necessity which she cannot withdraw from, and of which she will accept all the consequences. Meanwhile, France ought to do all she can to establish sound right on her side, because right cannot but add to her strength." press is compensated, in a degree, for the loss of the Morocco question as a casus belli with Great Britain, by the annexed disclosure of the London Morning Herald, of which the last sentence is not a little cu "ENGLAND AND EGYPT.-We are assured that a treaty, the origin of which may be referred to 1840, is on the eve of being concluded, by which England will obtain possession of the port of Suez, free passage from Alexandria to that port, and other advantages of importance in Egypt and Syria. This treaty, to which France is said to be no party, is guarantied by Russia, Austria, and Prussia. We know not by what intrigue the king of the French has been prevented from participating in it, but have reason to believe that England has had nothing to do with her exclusion." Inasmuch as an intermission of hostilities on the coast and in the interior of the Morocco empire was indispensable until the next spring, the French seem to me to act judiciously in concluding a peace on the faith of adequate engagements by the emperor; if he should not fulfil them, the war may be renewed on As the Herald is believed to receive "inspirahim, with the semblance at least of double right, tions" from both the London and Paris cabinets, our and an argument against all British interference or alarm belwethers ring all the changes about the any limitation of enterprise and object. The evacu- honor and interests of France, and accept the inforation of the island of Mogadore (now Joinville) is mation implicitly and literally. They are a little rethe only real concession, if not a temporary convelieved, indeed, for the untoward effect of the Monience. Muley Abd-er-Rhaman would deserve the rocco and Tahiti adjustments, in rendering the manexecration of all his race and religion were he to de-agement of the Irish question less difficult for the liver up the noble and indomitable champion of their . common cause. The Bombay Times of 19th July relates a serious affray between the mob at Canton, on the 17th May, and the Americans. The latter repulsed the assail. ants from their factory; the Times adds: "A Chinaman, who turned out to be an innocent and unconcerned shopkeeper, was shot. At 10 P. M. the Chinese soldiers made their appearance and cleared the square. The populace continued in a great state of excitement, and Canton was placarded with threatening notices that the factories would be : attacked and burned." This was from private letters of the 19th, received at Bombay. We may suppose that nothing grave ensued, as the intelligence from Macao extends to the 28th May. The Commercial Retrospect takes some views worth noting: "The increased consumption of goods in China must be met by a corresponding export; hitherto, with the exception of tea and silk, China has been unable to furnish other articles to any amount, suitabe to the English market; and so far as is now British government, by the intelligence that disaf- oratory. The weather in the middle and south of France has continued auspicious for the Vintage: the best quality of wine is anticipated at Bordeaux. It is supposed, owing to the removal of all specks or clouds of war, that the next winter of Paris will be more crowded, brilliant, and prosperous than any antecedent. The Polytechnic school, when reörganized, is likely to be translated to the neighborhood of Saint Germaine-five leagues from the capital. Assassinations, poisonings by arsenic, suicides, criminal trials, and cases of hydrophobia, almost surfeit the public appetite, usually strong at this season. From the Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review. 1. The French Governess; or the Embroidered and society amusing to its possessor: Harriet and Sophia Lee, who perfected the romance of passion and intrigue, with a mastery over construction and suspense, to which few, if any, of their successors have attained the Porters, whose historical pictures, though drawn with the flattering mannerism of Westall's pencil, colored with the flower-garden tints of a fan-painter, are nevertheless noticeable, as among the first essays of the kind ventured: Anne Radcliffe, that consummate mistress of the pleasures of Fear, whose artistical power has been 3. A New Purchase; or Seven Years and a Half in the Far West. By ROBERT CARLTON, Esq. 2 vols. London: Wiley and Putnam. 1843. 4. Twice Told Tales. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 1 vol. Boston: American Station-only denied its due praise, by those unable to ers' Company. 1843. distinguish poetical superstition from ignorant credulity. WE should fear that the dotage of the world was past doubt, were it to be proved that Fiction, or a desire thereof, was really becoming extinct. With us, partial pauses from invention cannot be mistaken for total cessation or complete exhaustion. Our stock of wares is not yet used up, nor is the last slide of Fancy's magic lantern exhibited. Let us not then complain. Were it so, men could not but say that we have had the crown! Then we are not to forget Maria Edgeworth, the liveliest, shrewdest, most sensible teacher in fiction that ever kept school for Absentees,* Procrastinators, Ennuyés, and men afflicted with inability to say "no"-who became positively fascinating, however, as often as she could forget the ferule and the catechism and the sampler, to paint such Irishmen as the Rackrents, or such Englishwomen as Lady Delacour. Nor yet Lady MorIt is true that we have put forth no Don Quixote, gan, who turned her philosophy and politics into no Gil Blas, no Werter to penetrate and leaven prose Irish melodies-half, reckless farce, half, society from one end of Europe to the other. No deep pathos-whether right or wrong: among the single prose imaginative work, in short, wherein most brilliant writers of her time, and maintaining are contained philosophies so original and startling, half-a-dozen stories, which built up a reputation as those which give life to those remarkable pro- on one single improbable invention, by the force ductions. Till of late we were a people too tem- and vivacity of style, breadth of humor, and fearperate, and, with all our Swifts and Churchills-lessness of speculation. Still less must we omit too little sarcastic,-to entrust to the utterance of to honor the greatest of all female novelists, Miss Fancy our persuasion or our scorn,-in short, our deepest opinions and feelings. Defoe's homely sincerity of narration was but a dramatic form of utterance. Richardson's minute moral analyses, however earnestly meant, were too local in color, and too delicate in scale, to influence mankind, as strongly as the chivalric, or roguish, or passionate romance just cited. Nor was Fielding's "Tom Jones," with all its wondrous humor, and artistic completeness, a manifesto of such wide scope, and serious purpose, as the above. But on the other hand, what a display of invention, character, and descriptive power, have we indicated, by those three names, even before we mention Goldsinith and Smollett, and Horace Walpole-all inventors in their way,-not forgetting the smooth Eastern tale by Johnson, which, of its academical kind, is hardly less remarkable! Were we to stop short with the Boanerges of Lichfield, we might challenge Europe to produce a series of works, from any one country, representing Imaginative Power, in such fulness and variety! Austen; great in her absence of affectation, in her wonderful knowledge of the secrets of the heart, in her power of investing common-place with interest, and of constructing works which should have the completeness demanded by art, and the unexpected turns which surprise and disappoint in daily life. These and many others little less excellent, will be found in the interregnum between the classical and the romantic dynasties of our literature, opening new veirs of thought and observation, and enlarging the sphere of intellectual enjoyment, with an ingenuity none the less welcome because all its productions are stamped with the individuality of sex. We have nothing of contemporary masculine invention to produce equally sterling, except the "St. Leon," and "Caleb Williams," of Mr. Godwin-stern and eloquent and wonderful books, in which the vigor of invention they contain is overlaid by the vigor of doubt they so seriously and passionately develop; the incidental thoughts, by their boldness, and the language, by its fervid solemnity, too largely withBut with the days of Johnson, the summer of drawing attention from the characters and events our novel writers, but set in. To recapitulate of the tale. The "Zeluco" and "Edward" of those who labored in the field is puzzling, so great Dr. Moore, which may perhaps be cited as in their is their number. In the foremost rank will be day yet more famous, are now deservedly forfound many women: Fanny Burney, with a gotten. They had the hardness of Voltaire's terrible humility, cloaking a secret avidity for philosophical romances, without the "brilliant praise, behind whose shyness lurked as quick a See her "Absentee," "To-morrow," "Helen," consciousness of the ridiculous, as ever made life" Vivian." Frenchman's" wit, or charm of style, or keen, | higher classes were rendered disproportionately though cynical sincerity. objects of curiosity by their social position. A Need we dwell for even a paragraph upon the court hermetically sealed from the vulgar eye, had next manifestation made in English fiction? which succeeded to a regency, whose doings were in carried the name of the discoverer "from China every one's mouth, and the exclusivism, by which to Peru," and made the dingles and brooks, and a few unoccupied personages of fashion endeavcottages, and nameless ruins of an obscure corner ored to compensate for the absence of the splenof Great Britain, so many Meccas and Medinas to dors among which they loved to figure, shone out romantic pilgrims from all ends of the earth? If in piquant contrast to the unrestrained and somewe do not take the name and triumphs of Walter what dishevelled freedom of manners, which the Scott for granted, and therefore, pass them by, it million had been in the habit of contemplating, till is because we would point to the vast amount of familiarity, according to the proverb, had bred secondary talent which clustered round him as a contempt. Thus, though a Theodore Hook might centre-to the Scottish novels of Galt, in which begin in the sheer playfulness of a wit, too little the citizen life of the people is so quaintly pic-guided, alas! by principle, to hang up fancy intetured; and one of whose creatures, Micah Bal- riors of Park-lane and Russell-square drawingwhidder, almost deserves for his "Annals of the rooms-the irritated curiosity of the reader was too Parish," to be styled the Dr. Primrose of the ready to fancy that his characters, and sketches, North Countrie―to the animated and powerful and allusions, "meant mischief;" and to demand, tales of Mr. Lockhart, who too early seceded from supply inevitably ensued. The novelist became among the novelists, to become a terror to all such the scandal-monger-was encouraged to draw less as did not write under tory colors-to the me- and less upon his powers of combination, and more chanically clever imitations of Mr. Horace Smith and more upon his personal experience. A Mrs. and Mr. Ainsworth, (before Mr. Ainsworth began Gore, while throwing off her half-dozen of novels to deal in thieves' Latin,) and to the host of Irish a-year, would probably, in spite of all her cleverfictions-for Banim, and Carleton, and Griffin, ness, have been found too frequent a claimant on assuredly "walked by the rede" of the Great popular attention; but once let it be fancied, that Unknown, rather than followed the feminine en- this peer's wife, or the other minister's daughter signs of the lesson-giving Miss Edgeworth, or the romantically political Lady Morgan. Were we to allow ourselves a glance at the continental influence of the magician at Abbotsford, this prelude would never close; enough that its span and its electrical power were unconsciously prefigured by the poet himself, when writing of his ancestor, Michael Scott the Wizard "And when in Salamanca's cave The bells would ring in Notre Dame." that a given man about town, or an eminent woman of the world,-was "put into her book," and who so welcome as Mrs. Gore? It was the next best thing, with a large class of readers, to living with peers and ministers, and fashionable personages. The charm of these revelations is now exhausted; circulating libraries are no longer besieged for "keys" and glossaries-English readers have learned that the loudest talk, the most courageous professions of intimacy, belong to hearsay acquaintance; they are weary of the inanities of those who have attempted the trick withTaking Scott and his school as the last expres-out talent to counterfeit experience; but we think sion of the romantic or picturesque, which the no philosophical observer will review the reign of world has seen, we must advert for an instant to the Fashionable Novel, without recognizing as the realists of fiction; -to those, we mean, who beyond mistake, the deleterious influence it has have taken as the basis of their works, the man- exercised upon our imaginative literature. ners and customs of polished society, in place of But the ebb of popularity is sometimes no less the traditions of a by-gone time, or such habits and disastrous than its flow. The "silver fork" speech as by their homely and unlettered original- school was bad: but, in our humble judgment, ity acquire a certain poetical and imaginative the school of the jail and the lazar-house is worse: charm. It is now some twenty-five years since a the former pretended to no particular import or host of clever (we must add) unscrupulous writers, utility; the latter, ostensibly taking the side of perceived that the world was not so monopolized sympathy and benevolence, has, in reality, become by tales of chivalry, but that it was willing to a vehicle of coarse criminal excitement, the taste hear how lords and ladies made love, and alder- for which will not be easily allayed. Doubtless men comported themselves-not so exclusively some of the writers, who have laid bare the hidecharmed by the "Doric" of Jeanie Deans, or the ous secrets of the cheap school, the workhouse, Glaswegian of Leddy Grippy, or the thousand and the condemned cell, and the hospital, have been one brogues of Crohoore of the Bill-hook and his stimulated by imperfect views of employing their following, but that the court jargon of Almack's gifts for good-of quickening the sympathies of could also charm, and the manifold dialects of the prosperous for "the desolate and oppressed" Mark-lane and Threadneedle-street amuse. Un--and shaming, by exposure, selfish cruelty and fortunately, at that time, the movements of the vulgar affectation. But, besides the utter mis judgment of the real calling and exercise of im-ists we have indicated. This is Sir Edward Lytagination herein implied, the course they have ton Bulwer. pursued is convicted as pernicious, by its inevitable sequel. Where they have given medicine, their successors, more unscrupulous, have unblushingly administered poison. Where they have put hearts on the rack, to make the sane wiser by saddening them, another race has endeavored, by the same process, to produce that horrible refinement of pleasure, which those satiated by luxury have found in positive pain. Let us not talk of the convulsionnaire literature of our neighbors the French, without pointing, with contrition, to our own: the effect of which, we verily believe, may be the worse of the two, inasmuch as it is dispensed among a people not so seriously demoralized, and under a faint pretence of liberality and sympathy with human nature. Robert Macaire, we believe, produced less specific effect among the gamins of Paris, than "Jack Sheppard," among the apprentices of London; yet "Jack Sheppard," we as verily believe, would hardly have been written, had not "Oliver Twist" gone before it. But this is a question which can as little be settled in a paragraph, as by a jest or a rhapsody; and the subject we propose treating, is the influence of the English writers on American imagination, not the morality of English fiction. Belonging to none, however, he partakes of the nature of all; as strange a compound of qualities the most antagonistic, as ever puzzled and tempted analyst. If his name go down to posterity, it will be as an experimentalist, rather than as an artist. In the former capacity, the vicacity of his industry is unrivalled. There is hardly a form of literature he has not flown at, hardly a color of thought he has not snatched up, to teaze public attention; like the adroit matador, who waves his harlequin flag before the bull's eyes, when all other means of provoking an encounter fail. If we look over the list of this author's works-amazing in its length, when his age and his occupations are considered-we shall find him one year challenging the fashionable novelist, by his superior knowledge of coat-collars and French dishes-another anticipating the Newgate school, by his animating show of crime and courage, or crime and knowledge passing for virtue ;-one year trespassing upon the manor of the Opies and the Inchbalds, by making natural affections and deep feelings take a turn in the dance-another emulating to the fullest strain of his wits, the satirical insouciance of the French philosophical novelists; now venturing a tale of art (upon a ground of artistic Keeping our purpose steadily in sight, we shall taste and knowledge, divertingly small)—anon, but touch upon one other writer, and who, strictly claiming Scott's vacant throne, by assuming, as speaking, belongs to none of the classes of novel- he thinks, Scott's tools of conjuration;—here, *It is with regret we notice an omission in this place rummaging classic Pompeii-there, Middle-Age on the part of the gentleman who has contributed the Rome, in search of a sensation. Need we, too, paper before us, of the name of the most distinguished recall (now almost out of breath) poetical essays, of English romancers, G. P. R. James. The foreign in the manner of Byron-of Dryden-of Wordscirculation of the works of this gentleman far exceeds that to which those of Sir E. L. Bulwer have attained, worth; philosophical conversations about fate, and the same may be said of the home. On the well futurity, and petit-maître triflings on the nothings known merit of Mr. James, whose skill in history, and powerful development of its very form and life, whose of the hour;-critical essays, and elaborate history wonderful fecundity of imagination is only equalled by writing-dramatic efforts, vibrating between a the exquisite beauty of his imagery, and whose pretensions, in the unequalled possession of the highest rank as a novelist, to high historic excellence also, will, we predict, be further increased by his Henry IV., we think it needless to dilate. Of him alone nearly it may be said, among all that he has written, that he has left "No line, which, dying, he could wish to blot." To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, When Sir W. Scott saw the "Richelieu," he said that "his own mantle would fall on a worthy successor;" flight at the most impracticable character in Britain's annals, none less than Cromwell; and a slight patchwork of translated scenes from French melodramas, borrowed scenes from French novels, to make up a play for the favorite actor, whom he had, but a few years before, so bitterly satirized? Yet all these things exist; and many thereof have been accepted as substantive efforts, abroad as well as at home. The French hate Bulwer, but they read him an offence against English authors, of which they are sparingly guilty ;—the Germans are willing admiringly to follow him, wherever he chooses to direct his busy feet;-and the Americans, we believe, were he to visit their shores, would, by thousands and tens of thousands, act again the same comedy of homage and curiosity and cross-questioning, that they performed for the reception of Mr. Dickens,-even with the chance of Pelham's issue of American Notes, menacing and, in the high Cavalier Loyalty, and stainless faith of dered his resignation of an office which he considered in Such are some among the most important appearances in English Fiction. We have adverted to them, from being convinced that the authority |