[ 110 ] [JAN. 



MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



ROMANCE AND REALITY. A NOVEL, IN 3 VOLS., BY L. E. L. 

 THESE three initials stand upon the title-page like the weird-sisters, promising 

 magic and marvels ; but here the resemblance ends, for though they keep it to 

 the ear, or rather to the eye, they have not broken it to the hope. Romance and 

 Reality is not exactly what we had pictured to ourselves upon its first announce- 

 ment ; for we could not have expected, even from the impassioned and deep- 

 thoughted writer, that has filled our magazines and memories with what 

 Fallstaff calls " fancies and good nights," for the last half-dozen years, a work 

 of such stirring and varied power as this which we have just perused. But it is 

 precisely the production which all who are disposed to do justice to her genius, 

 will be most glad to see ; and which those who, having little love for poetry of 

 any kind, have none at all for her's, because they never drank of that deep spring 

 of feeling from which it takes its rise, and can, consequently, relish only that 

 species of verse which is generally tried, not on the feelings, but on the fingers 

 will criticise with ten-fold acrimony. It would, however, task the ingenuity of 

 envy and ill-will in this enlightened age to prove much in disparagement of 

 Romance and Reality, or to shew any convincing" cause why it should not rank 

 as one of the most striking and original works of the day. It may be proved to 

 be in parts very carelessly written that its periods are sometimes ill-turned 

 that there are occasional repetitions of the same sentiment and the same 

 quotation, or even that the sentiment is false, and the quotation inaccurate ; it 

 might be possible to pick out a few passages that look too much like fine 

 writing, and remind us of the poet of whom it is said 



" That not knowing what he was thinking, 

 He wrote a soft song about love." 



But put all these unpardonable violations of the laws of perfection into one 

 scale, and put any two pages either of the romance or the reality of the work 

 the knowledge of the heart or the knowledge of society the moral painting 

 or the sketching of manners, into another, and who will say that the defects 

 weigh much more than a feather against the solid gold of the opposing scale ? 

 We say, solid gold, not for the sake of the metaphor, but for the meaning ; no 

 language can be too direct and expressive, and no praise too earnest and entire, 

 when we consider the character of the best, and by far the largest portion of 

 these volumes. They have all the glow and freshness of youth, with the depth 

 and earnestness of maturity. They are full of thoughts, some casual and 

 random ones, some fanciful, some profound but all poured forth with a pro- 

 fusion that, though it may detract for a moment from their effect, is certainly 

 no argument against their value. Truth is not the less true because the writer 

 utters it sometimes as if she scarcely cared whether it were so or not ; or 

 instead of stopping to analyze or explain an idea, hurries on to the next, and 

 leaves the reader to make what he chooses of it. Many of the best things in 

 " Romance and Reality" seem to have been set down in this careless and unin- 

 quiring spirit. If the writer had thought much about them, there are a few, 

 perhaps, that she would not have written at all ; but there are fifty that no 

 form of words could have conveyed more expressively ; and as many more, that 

 she could not have excelled in any sense, if she had pondered and puzzled for a 

 twelvemonth. These aphorisms are of all shades and colours ; we pass at once 

 from the grave to the gay, without any common-place preface or apology ; the 

 spirit of the scene, whether it be a Spanish solitude or a saloon at St. James's, 

 takes full possession of us ; whatever the subject from the characters or no- 

 characters of common-life, to the gallery of literary likenesses at the Athenaeum, 

 and from these again to the delineation of female nature in all its simplicity, as 

 in Emily and in all its nobleness, as in Beatrice we are alike under the 

 mastery of a spell, and the heart yields itself to a power that can either " call 

 up its sunshine or bring down its showers." Notwithstanding the spirit and 



