1828.) bcd. al 
DON ALONSO.* 
Tue example of Sir Walter Scott, in works of fiction, has exercised 
as powerful an influence in France as in England. If that great man 
has consigned to everlasting slumber, on the shelves of our circulating 
libraries, the Smiths, the Lewis’s, the Radcliffes, the Roches, and the 
other innumerable caterers for the public taste, and has stimulated writers 
of higher powers to follow him—sed non awquis passibus—in the splendid 
career on which he was the first to enter, he has also cast, into a tempo- 
rary oblivion, at least, the equally numerous host of French novelists. 
With his soporific wand he has touched the Chateaubriands and the Genlis, 
whose mawkish sentimentality had long disgusted their readers ; and he 
has raised the dormant energies of their countrymen to labour for fame 
in an untried field. 
But though France has lately produced authors of respectable talents, 
and justly esteemed for their efforts in other paths of literature, we are 
not aware that one of them has equalled—we do not say Sir Walter, but 
his imitators in this country. Their works, for the most part, are neither 
natural nor probable ; the descriptions they contain are neither animated 
nor just ; they are conversant with art, not nature—with the accidental 
forms of society, not with the everlasting springs of human action ; and 
they are as destitute of strong, vigorous imagination, as of true taste. 
Add to this, that there is something in the national mind not very favour- 
able to the recondite pursuits of the antiquary—that the colouring of 
existing habits and manners is applied to those which prevailed in former 
ages—and we shall cease to be surprised that our neighbours have failed 
in that most difficult path, the historic novel. Yet if such productions, 
considered as a whole, are lamentably deficient in the requisite qualities, 
some portions of them are worthy of all praise: they contain scenes 
which, in graphic truth, are little inferior to the admired ones in the 
author of Waverley, and which, in ease of dialogue and natural simplicity 
anners, are certainly equal. 
e popularity which the work before us enjoys in France, induces us 
e it partially known to our readers. It has already reached a 
edition—a thing very unusual on either side the Channel. Its pro- 
-fessed object is to give us a faithful picture of Spanish manners and 
Spanish politics, from the administration of the infamous Godoy to the 
_ restoration of Ferdinand. The unbridled ambition of the former ; the 
_ means which he adopted to strengthen his party; the open contempt 
_ with which he was regarded by the ancient nobility of the kingdom ; his 
fall; the subsequent domination of Joseph Buonaparte ; the indignation 
_ which the unprincipled aggressions of Napoleon roused in every patriotic 
Spaniard ; the almost supernatural efforts which the nation made to 
ecover its independence ; the ultimate success of the allies ; the return 
of the “ Beloved Ferdinand” to the palace of his ancestors ; and the state 
of parties, both before and after that remarkable event, are described with 
considerable effect, though too minutely—so much so, indeed, as greatly 
to weaken the interest. In this country we have had quite enough of 
the subject: the public appetite is more than satisfied—it is satiated with 
triéme Edition. 4 tom. 12mo. Paris; 1828. 
* Don Alonso, ou l’Espagne, Histoire Contemporaine. Par N. A. Salvandy. Qua- 
: M.M. New Series—Vou.V1. No.31. C 
