Monthly Review of Literature, 



[JAN. 



is lost ; he flies to the water by another 

 way; plunges in to rescue her; and, at 

 the same moment, on the opposite bank, 

 the lover springs in. Together they bring 

 her to the bank, in agony, in despair all 

 too late. 



Roman Tablets; containing Facts, Anec- 

 dotes, and Observations, on the Manners, 

 Customs, Ceremonies, and Government of 

 Nome, byM. da Santo Domingo ; 1826. Pub- 

 lished by T. F. Hunt, Burlington Arcade. 

 Though very tar, upon the whole, from 

 being ill-written, the book has disappointed 

 us. It was suppressed by an act of autho- 

 rity in Paris, and the author fined and "im- 

 prisoned. A translation, unusually well 

 executed, has just been published, under 

 the notion that a suppressed work every 

 body must be eager to read. The writer 

 has made very free with the Jesuits, and 

 their influence just now being paramount 

 at court, they have employed it in attempt- 

 ing to crush the writer. Cunning, past 

 finding out, as this society is supposed to 

 be, it is fast over-reaching itself. Persecu- 

 tion will not do. It is almost proverbial to 

 say, it defeats its own object. It is natural 

 for a sufferer to wish to silence the man 

 who exposes him to ridicule, by exercising 

 the power which nature or station fur- 

 nishes him ; and naturally are all of us dis- 

 posed to go what seems the shortest way 

 to work ; but in this matter experience has 

 long been sufficiently ample to teach all 

 but the wilfully blind. If men will not 

 learn, let them take the consequence. 



For our own parts, the perusal of the 

 book has added very little to our impression 

 of the wiles of the Jesuits, or the corrup- 

 tions of the court of Rome ; nor have we, 

 with the translator, risen from it with any 

 particular, at least any new disgust against 

 the Catholic religion. The strongest im- 

 pression upon our minds, at this moment 

 that we lay aside the book, is, that the 

 writer's first object has been to produce 

 effect. Through the volume there is con- 

 spicuously an air, not of " pungent irony," 

 as he is pleased to call it, but of elaborate 

 caricature. He is for ever on the hunt for 

 smart things, searching for contrasts, and 

 arranging antitheses efforts, that almost of 

 necessity involve a straining of facts. He 

 is perpetually tasking his memory for an- 

 cient remembrances to parallel and embel- 

 lish his, we must think them, insidious re- 

 presentations. The priests, from the car- 

 dinal to the capuchin, are ignorant, glut- 

 tonous, profligate ; the women, married 

 and single, calculating voluptuaries, or 

 burning sensualists ; wives universally un- 

 faithful, and husbands universally accom- 

 modating ; the government, through thick 

 and thin, enriching the treasury, ruining 

 the country, pillaging foreigners, and pro- 

 tecting the brigands, Nothing of this is 

 new, but we do not the more believe it. 

 It has been reported, till we had almost 

 said, for that very reason we are com- 



pelled to distrust. That the principles 

 of civil government are ill understood ; 

 that the hold of the government upon the 

 respect of the people is feeble; that the 

 standard of private morals is low ; that 

 there are hypocrites among the intelligent, 

 and dupes among the ignorant, we are 

 little inclined to doubt; but these sweeping 

 averments of the Roman Tablets are little 

 entitled to secure our confidence particu- 

 larly where the writer, notwithstanding all 

 disguises, and notwithstanding his own pro- 

 fession of Catholicism, is obviously predis- *'>* 

 posed to ridicule more than the forms of 

 religion, and where his manifest love of 

 the prurient and voluptuous, makes his own 

 respect for the sanctions of morals more than 

 questionable. 



The most striking passages of the book, 

 after all, regard not the Jesuits, nor the 

 court of Rome, but the women. His ima- 

 gination riots in " chambering and wanton- 

 ness." His reflections on the old Romans, 

 wherever they occur, are very agreeable ; 

 but the most agreeable are his descriptions 

 of works of art always, however, more or 

 less fantastical always labouring for effect. 

 He is in Canova's studio 



By a natural transition, we passed from the horses 

 to the Centaur vanquished by Theseus. Canova put 

 a fine horse to a lingering death, that he might re- 

 present all the gradations of agony, and take death 

 in the fact. Theseus has his knee firmly fixed on 

 his rival's chest ; he is seizing him by the throat 

 with his left hand, with the other he is lifting his 

 formidable club. The Centaur is on his haunches ; 

 his belly touches the ground ; from the trembling of 

 his nerves, and the tension of his muscles, it is easy 

 to imagine his painful efforts, and we participate in 

 his anguish. What torment that marble is suffering ! 

 Like the Laocoon, it is in agony from head to foot. 

 I touched it, to convince myself that it wus not pal- 

 pitating : it was not the cold from the marble, but 

 the chill of death which I felt, and which had already 

 seized the unfortunate Centaur. Hold, Theseus ! 

 suspend that mortal blow ; do not destroy that su- 

 perb creature, which does so much honour to its 

 author. I have some hope that the hero will listen 

 to my prayer, for his arm is not lifted high enough ; 

 he is not in the act of striking the blow, but of rais- 

 ing his club : this perhaps is a defect. It would be 

 better also if Theseus had a little more animation, 

 and the efforts he has made in this terrible conflict 

 were more perceptible. Theseus was only a demi- 

 god : it was the exclusive privilege of the gods to be 

 calm in the midst of victory. The countenance, ac- 

 tion, and attitude in general of the hero, are not 

 sufficiently heroic ; Theseus is not quite disengaged 

 from the marble. But the Centaur has struggled 

 dreadfully before being thrown to the ground, and 

 insults his conqueror even in his last moments. 



The Young Rifleman's Comrade : a Nar- 

 rative of his Military Adventures, Captivity, 

 and Shipwreck,- 1828. The value of me-* 

 rr.oirs depends, of course, entirely upon 

 their genuineness. If the individual be 

 conspicuous in the ranks of life, or eminent 

 for respectability of character, we have a 

 guarantee to be depended upon to a cer- 

 tain extent. Such a person, we are sure, 

 will riot write a romance and pass it off for 



