The French Poets and Novelists. 529 



ancient Job. Distress and sorrow on the part of Eugene, late Eugene 

 Montounet, now Dupont, are the consequences of the marriage ; and 

 she dreams of nothing but Adolphe, whom poverty had rendered un- 

 successful in his suit. She moreover bars her doors against Dupont, 

 and the disconsolate husband in vain wishes for an heir to his wealth. 

 Circumstances oblige Dupont to undertake a journey to a distant 

 town; in the meantime Eugene has proofs of Adolphe's infidelity ; 

 she sees him with a mistress, and repents of her conduct towards her 

 lawful husband. She therefore writes to Dupont, and tells him of 

 her change of disposition in his favour. The enraptured Dupont 

 hastens to return to his wife ; his speed gives ocasion for many plea- 

 sant remarks and t 'many laughable occurrences on the road ; and the pub- 

 licity he gave to the object of his journey afforded much amusement 

 to the innkeepers and servants whom he encountered at the various 

 hotels. But, alas! Dupont never reached his home ! By means of 

 a power which authors have at their control, and which they can 

 use at discretion to disembarrass themselves of troublesome charac- 

 ters in their works, even as the immortal Shakspeare was fain to do 

 with Mercutio in " Romeo and Juliet;" by means of death, for an 

 author's agency in such dilemmas is no other, Paul de Kock gets rid 

 of Dupont, and concludes his tale with the happy reconciliation of 

 Eugene and Adolphe (who is now a rich man through the decease of 

 an uncle), and their speedy union. From this narrative parents may 

 learn how useless and dangerous it is to thwart the inclinations of 

 their children ; and old men will see the folly of making young girls 

 miserable by entangling them in a matrimonial web, which the un- 

 fortunate victims of hoary lust or paternal avarice regard as the fly 

 does the dwelling of the spider, while the old husband is as obnoxious 

 as the spider itself. 



Having expended a considerable portion of his venom on Paul de 

 Kock, the critic in the " Quarterly" proceeds to attack Victor Hugo, 

 and asserts without advancing one iota of any kind of proofj without 

 even quoting one passage from the book, that u ' Notre Dame de Paris' 

 is an imitation of Walter Scott, whom it resembles as much as Goose 

 Gibbie in his helmet and buff coat might resemble the noble chivalry 

 of Lord Evandale."* We are therefore to suppose, first, that be- 

 cause the scenes of" Quentin Durward" and " Notre Dame de Paris" 

 are laid in the time of Louis the Eleventh of France, and that 

 " Quentin Durward" was written prior to the other work, " Notre 

 Dame de Paris" is consequently an imitation of" Quentin Durward;" 

 and secondly, because the critic declares the romance of Victor Hugo 

 to be despicable when compared with the novel of Walter Scott, that 

 we must believe him and allow his opinion to be infallible. But he 

 has no right to make an assertion which illiberal prejudices occa- 

 sioned, without advancing some argument to support it ; for if he 

 think that the mere fact of his article being in the " Quarterly" will 

 consecrate misrepresentation, he is essentially mistaken. 



The romantic genius of Victor Hugo is appalled by no literary 

 undertaking, and shrinks from no labour, however difficult, however 



* Old Mortality. 



MAY, 1837. 2 M 



