426 Monthly Review of Literature. 



" Rookwood," it is true, was a strange book, most strange ; but surely no 

 man out of Bedlam could attribute to its author the high eulogium above re- 

 corded, with such a proof of talent before him. The blinded eyes of friend- 

 ship have, we doubt not, skipped over the pages more unfavourable to the 

 author's reputation and taken a very favourable sample as a fair specimen of 

 the whole. The Quarterly reviewer of "Rookwood" is bound to lai\* 

 " Crichton ;" for the latter shows precisely the same degree of " fresh ^nd 

 stirring fancy/' racy humour, and continuous interest that ao especially 

 distinguish the former work. 



The admirable Crichton, the wonder of the sixteenth century, not only 

 for intellectual endowments, but for bodily vigour and fashionable accom- 

 plishments, is the subject of the story ; and we only do the author justice 

 by saying, that, as respects the incidents of Crichton's life and his general 

 character, he has given a fair portrait of him, and not flattered beyond a 

 limner's license. We have no objection either to a moderate departure from 

 truth in scenery, in order that the various adventures of this renowned 

 charlatan may be brought within the rules of dramatic unity. As an in- 

 stance, for Padua read Paris, and so of the rest. This is endurable : 

 But when we find this stalking-horse of Scotch pedantry stuck up as a kind 

 of peg whereon to hang a goodly quantity of the apocryphal court-history of 

 Catherine of Medicis and Henry of Navarre, with which Crichton had far 

 less to do than the author of" Rookwood" with the review of it in the " Quar- 

 terly," our patience is exhausted, our notions of romance-writing are un- 

 pardonably offended. But no more of that. Turn we now to the execution 

 of the masterpiece of the man of " fresh and stirring fancy/' The perfec- 

 tion of art is to counterfeit nature ; and no one succeeded so admirably in 

 this respect as Sir Walter Scott. Unrivalled as an Antiquarian, he knew 

 precisely what prominence might be given to antiquarian researches in 

 romance. All is fresh, vigorous, and perfectly natural. Still the learned 

 student may be traced not by his obtrusive forwardness, but by incidental 

 traits, and that too far more e'ffectively and reputably to himself than by the 

 laboured effusions of a less skilful, less learned, but more boastful connois- 

 seur. The author of "Crichton" is a very dull, matter-of-fact gentleman 

 after-all, an unsuccessful aspirant for the honours of the historical romance ; 

 and we think that he has adopted as a model Mr. James, a person of whom 

 we think highly as an historian, but who has not imagination sufficient to 

 qualify him for romance. But Mr. James is very superior to the author of 

 "Crichton," " Hyperion to a Satyr." The book before us reminds us of a 

 certain old gentleman that we once knew, who, for many years, had indulged 

 the habit of paying an annual visit of four months to some part of the con- 

 tinent, wherever the best libraries and rarest books were to be found. 

 Copies of illuminations, drawings of costume, plans of beleagured castles 

 filled his portfeuilles ; seals, cameos, chains, buckles, and many other nick- 

 nackeries filled his cabinets, which scarcely contained his gradually increas- 

 ing treasure ; while note-books innumerable were filled with copies verbatim 

 et literatim of legends, romaunts, songs, and twenty other kinds of extracts, 

 all and each of which articles in portfeuille, cabinet, and note-book are 

 now in course of being compressed by a statical process that is expected 

 to enlighten the ingenious Bramah within the moderate compass of three 

 volumes, hot-pressed post octavo dedicated to the learned Dr. Mopstick, 

 F.R.S. & A.S.S. Some such ingenious process of combining the most differ- 

 ent materials gathered with unceasing industry but little talent for selection 

 is apparent in " Crichton." If the writer had contented himself with the bu- 

 siness of an Antiquarian, had stuck to facts, and eschewed invention, we 

 should have been well pleased. In attempting the portraiture of the^human 

 character, he has done what he can never hope to succeed in. The very 

 dark lines of Catherine's character, the easiest, because the most strongly 

 marked, are very feebly drawn ; and Ruggieri, her tool, who in 



