Monthly Review of Literature. 107 



We have intimated, that the tales themselves have less to do with religious 

 interests than the writer's introduction to them led us to suppose. In fact, the 

 most profane novel-reader will not, we suspect, find their piety any particular draw- 

 back upon his pleasure. They are written, doubtless, with the best feelings, and 

 with an earnest and elevated purpose, steadily but not too ostentatiously kept in 

 view. Hence they have very much the air of the general romance and tale of fic- 

 tion, but studded here and there with moral and religious truths, not forced vio- 

 lently into a vacant niche in the dialogue, or filling up a pious parenthesis ; but 

 made to grow naturally out of the occasion, and to seem a part of the decoration, 

 while they are, in fact, the very germ and mainspring of the design. The tales are 

 full of interest, historical and domestic ; and the style in which they are related is 

 sufficiently bold, animated, and picturesque, to give grace and vigour to far less 

 attractive personages and stirring events, than those that engage our sympathies in 

 these volumes. If there is any fault in the author's pictures, whether of men or 

 manners, it is in a profusion now and then of colour, and a mistrust of the natural 

 and never- failing effect of simplicity. The characters, allowing for the " effects of 

 this defect" in one or two instances, are admirably sketched and wrought out ; they 

 are, at all events, far above common places, either of reality or romance. 



We have no space to enter into the details of the plots, or to describe the several 

 finely-written scenes that are scattered through these tales. We should have no 

 difficulty in selecting two or three, remarkable for a rare degree of boldness and 

 discrimination. Of the two, perhaps, we prefer the Democrat, with its pathetic 

 and political interest, its pleasant contrast of feminine character, its pictures of 

 Sicilian society and morals, and its delineation of Sicilian patriotism in the person 

 of its hero, the Principe de Francaviglia. There is a little Tory sentiment peeping 

 from beneath this portraiture, as if the writer would fain have us believe that most 

 patriots are not much better than the Democrat here delineated ; but we must own 

 the cleverness, and, to a certain extent, the accuracy of the sketch. The following 

 extract will afford a glimpse of this renowned personage, in one of his ambitious 

 fits of musing : 



" A certain little Corsican, erecting his own greatness on the ruins which anarchy had 

 spread wildly around him, perpetually arose before the mind's eye of the Sicilian dema- 

 gogue. The conviction that a reconciliation with his own government was now impossible, 

 while it shut out every hope from one quarter, only gave it additional force in another, by 

 driving its energies into the only field where they could be exercised. 



" ' If I but succeed in repulsing these dastardly Neapolitans,' he said, ' 1 shall find 

 myself at the head of the half-organised troops of my country. I it is, who can bring them 

 to that state of discipline which will enable me to triumph, not only over my sovereign, but 

 over all civil power. The army the army, that is the tool. Let me lead it on to victory. 

 Let triumph follow triumph. Let sea-girt Sicily be separated from her land-joined sister, 

 and then let us see whether the brow of Ferdinand or of Giustino shall wear her diadem. 



" ' And yet 'twere pity to dissolve the fair-sounding tide, " King of the Two Sicilies." 

 Custom speaks in its favour. Ay, ay, I have rated long and loud on the necessity of a 

 national division, but if continent and island were united under a vigorous monarch Well, 

 well, secure we the portion first, the whole leave we to time and keen foresight. Yet how 

 pitiful were even the government of both the countries, over which righteous Ferdinand 

 now holds his tottering sceptre ; how poor the sway of two petty nations, while yon old 

 mummer, tricked out with keys and triple diadem, could, with the breath of a dotard, fix 

 the northern boundaries of my circumscribed dominions. Weil, well Pius, Heaven help 

 him, has been a traveller before now. Let him go visit the curiosities of Naples on the 

 same terms on which he once examined those of Paris. But then, there is the imperial 

 Grand Duke, forsooth, who will be for pouring in his troops to the aid of his dearly-beloved 

 and well despised spiritual head. And what, a Virgin's name ! is the Grand Duke, but 

 petty chief of a pettier state? Curse on you Austrians! There hangs the leaden pon- 

 derous power, that can alone trample down the bold adventurers of the south. Phlegmatic, 

 stagnant beasts, who crush not by their energy, but by their dead weight ! Yet Austria, 

 methinks, has not of late been famous for conquest. To make her bite the dust ! Oh, that 

 were rapture,'' &c. &c. Such were the speculations of Don Giustino ; so strangely, the 

 impetus once given, does the enthusiasm of ambition bound over the barriers, not only of 

 caution and crafty foresight, but even of common sense. Had Francaviglia succeeded, his 

 bold schemes would have been deemed master-pieces of cool, calculating ambition; he 

 failed, and they are regarded as the wild speculations of a visionary.' " 



