352 Monthly Review of Literature. [MABCH, 



he has before him a mere phantasmagoria of unsubstantial monsters and not the 

 beautiful transcripts of nature. 



As a violation of verisimilitude appears to us to be the besetting sin of modern 

 fictions, we are the more gratified in coming to the perusal of a work which is 

 altogether free from this prevailing defect, and this is the case with the work 

 before us. Its great merit lies in the aptitude with which it identifies natu- 

 ral objects and events, and in the easy skill with which those objects and events 

 are blended and harmonized. The extreme correctness of the delineations, the 

 picturesque combination of the incidents, which are all so niely adjusted and 

 tpned down as always to graduate, as it were, into their most appropriate posi- 

 tion in the narrative, are excellencies which the author of " Chantilly" has 

 exhibited with no common power. Her characters are not mere clumsy sketches 

 from lifeless portraits, but vigorous originals, which live and breathe before us. 

 They are not the puppets of a fantoccini which are jerked into fantastic motion 

 by twitching a thread, but substantial and noble forms, into which the glorious 

 God of the universe has "breathed a living soul." We are carried back into 

 remote periods ; but we look down the long vista of the past upon scenes which 

 seem to start into vivid reality before us. The icteal merges, as it were, in the 

 real, and we appear to hold communion with generations long since numbered 

 with the things beyond the flood. There is, moreover, a compactness of com- 

 bination, and rapidity of transition in this author's narrative, which not only 

 quickens the reader's interest, but keeps it vigorously alive to the very close ; 

 an excellence rarely to be met with in those works of a similar class, with which 

 the craving ambition of literary distinction has absolutely gorged the press of the 

 nineteenth century. In addition to all this, there is a unity of design and ex- 

 ecution which strongly marks the nice discernment of the author's mind. Every 

 subordinate object is kept in such natural subserviency and union, as to amal- 

 gamate into one congruous whole ; which would be incomplete if any of the 

 minute accessories were removed, which constitute that totality so remarkable 

 in a perfect picture. 



We have awarded high praise to the author of this work, which the dedica- 

 tion shews us to be a lady ; and she well deserves it. If this is her first pro- 

 duction, it is one of excellent promise. It exhibits the elements of vigorous 

 and fertile intellect ; while the absence of all pretension is not one of its least 

 agreeable features. The style of these volumes is simple, but correct, fervid 

 rather than ornate, though occasionally flowered by the subdued ebullitions of 

 a glowing fancy, and sunned by the charming development of those feelings, 

 which strike upon the chords of human sympathy, and awake an instant echo in 

 the heart. 



THE OPERA. BY THE AUTHORESS OF " MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS." 



FASHIONABLE novels, or works of fiction which pretend to pourtray the man- 

 ners of exclusive society, will always find readers, either among the class they 

 describe, or with a humbler race of mortals who are anxious to learn what is 

 going forward in those circles from which they are shut out ; but although some 

 of them may possess considerable merit, their greatest recommendation is their 

 novelty. A season is generally the period of their existence. Occasionally 

 some expose of the frivolities of high life, creates for a time what the advertise- 

 ments are pleased to call a " prodigious sensation ;" the next year it is forgotten 

 for something of a similar nature. A person of haut ton would as soon think of 

 committing the enormity of eating fish with his knife, or any thing else equally 

 odd and horrible, as of asking for a fashionable novel of last season. Among 

 the most distinguished of these writers, is the authoress of the work under re- 

 view. Her work is as good as any thing of the same kind that we have read. 

 No doubt it will have its run, and be as popular as the rest ; and doubtless it 

 will be as speedily forgotten. There are passages in it which disclose a talent of 

 no ordinary nature, and some clever sketches of character are scattered over it^ 

 three volumes ; but it wants compression, and a more skilful arrangement of the 



