The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 402, Supplementary Number (1829)
TextTHE KEEPSAKE
Without going into a dreamy discussion on the literature of this work, we venture to say it has rather retrograded from, than improved upon the volume of last year. Great and titled names only furnish the gilt: and this fact is now so generally understood, that readers are no longer deceived by them, in the quality of the gingerbread. Mr. Watts is so convinced of this fact, that he has given the cut direct to many titled authors; and, for aught we know, he has produced as good a volume this year as on any former occasion. The proprietor of the Keepsake appears to think otherwise; and his editor has accordingly produced a book of very meagre interest, though of mightier pretensions than his rivals. Months ago we were told by announcement, paragraph and advertisement, of a tragedy, The House of Aspen, by Sir Walter Scott, which now turns out to be as dull an affair as any known in these days of dramatic poverty and theatrical ups and downs. Sir Walter, in an advertisement of great modesty, dated April 1, says, that "being of too small a size of consequence for a separate publication, the piece is sent as a contribution to the Keepsake, where its demerits may be hidden amid the beauties of more valuable articles." The piece has been adapted to a minor stage with some effect, but nothing higher than a melodrama. We have neither room nor inclination to extract a scene, but one of the metrical pieces has tempted us:—
Sweet shone the sun on the fair Lake of Toro,
Weak were the whispers that waved the dark wood,
As a fair maiden bewilder'd in sorrow,
Sigh'd to the breezes and wept to the flood.
"Saints from the mansion of bliss lowly bending,
Virgin, that hear'st the poor suppliant's cry,
Grant my petition, in anguish ascending.
My Frederick restore, or let Eleanor die."
Distant and faint were the sounds of the battle,
With the breezes they rise, with the breezes they fail,
Till the shout, and the groan, and the conflict's dread rattle,
And the chase's wild clamour came loading the gale.
Breathless she gaz'd through the woodland so dreary,
Slowly approaching, a warrior was seen;
Life's ebbing tide mark'd his footstep so weary,
Cleft was his helmet, and woe was his mien.
"Save thee, fair maid, for our armies are flying;
Save thee, fair maid, for thy guardian is low;
Cold on yon heath thy bold Frederick is lying,
Fast through the woodland approaches the foe."
Two of the best stories are The Bride, by Theodore Hook, and the Shooting Star, an Irish tale, by Lord Nugent; and a Dialogue for the year 2310, by the author of Granby, has considerable smartness. The scene is in London, where one of the speakers has just arrived "from out of Scotland; breakfasted this morning at Edinburgh, and have not been in town above a couple of hours. The roads are dreadfully heavy now: conceive my having been seven hours and a half coming from Edinburgh to London." Killing between four and five thousand head of game in one day is shooting ill; and one of the party has a gun which would give twenty-seven discharges in a minute, and mine would give only twenty-five. I really must change my maker. Have you seen the last new invention, the hydro-potassian lock?" Hunting machines, that would fly like balloons over a ten-foot wall—A candidate for the Circumnavigation Club, who has been four times round the world in his own, yacht—A point of bad taste to make a morning call by daylight—Dining at twelve P.M.—A spring-door with a self-acting knocker, which gives a treble knock, and is opened by a steam porter in livery—A chair mounting from the hall, through the ceiling, into the drawing room—Talking to a lady two miles off through a telescope, till one's fingers ache—A callisthenic academy for the children of pauper operatives—An automaton note-writer—A lady professing ignorance of Almack's, "a club where Swift and Johnson used to meet, but I don't profess to be an antiquarian"—"Love and Algebra," one of the common scientific novels thumbed by coal-heavers and orange-women, very well for the common people—Every thing is taught them now by means of scientific novels: such as "Geological Atoms, or the Adventures of a Dustman"—Doubted very much whether English wheat is fit for any thing but the brute creation—Dark times of the 19th century—Six-hourly and half-daily newspapers—"apropos, as the hackney-coachmen say"—Turkey, one of the southern provinces of Russia—His Majesty Jonathan III. of Washington—The Emperor of India—The Burmese Republic—English the language of three-fourths of Asia, nine-tenths of North America, half Africa, and all the insular states in the South Seas—and England, that little kingdom, with a population of not more than forty millions, has had the honour of colonizing half the globe; but "these countries are our colonies no longer." Such are a few of the wonders of 2130! In the Dialogue is an admirable joke with a scientific street-sweeper and a learned beggar, who pleads necessitas non habet legem, and "embraces the profession of an operative mendicant." But here is a morceau:
Lady D.—Ah! Lord A.! Mr. C.! most unexpected persons both! I heard only yesterday that one of you was in Greenland, and the other in Africa. What false reports they circulate!
Lord A.—The reports were true not long ago, and I believe we returned about the same time. You, Lady D., have been also travelling, I believe.
Lady D.—Yes, we were out of England in the winter. Our physician commanded a warmer climate for Lord D. so we took a villa on the Niger, and afterwards spent a short time at Sackatoo.
Mr. C.—I suppose you found it full of English?
Lady D.—Oh, quite full—and such a set! We knew hardly any of them. In fact, we did not go there for society. We met a few pleasant people, Australians; the Abershaws, the Hardy Vauxes, and Sir William and Lady Soames.
Mr. C.—Did you go by the new Tangier and Timbuctoo road?
Lady D.—Yes, we did, and we found it excellent. By the bye, Lord A., to digress to a different latitude, how did you succeed in your last excursion to the North Pole?
Lord A.—To tell you the truth, extremely ill; we had most improvidently taken with us scarcely enough of the solvent to work our way through the ice, and our concentrated essence of caloric was found to be of a very inferior quality. I shall try again next summer.
Lady D.—I believe we shall go to Spitzbergen ourselves.
Lord A.—I am happy to think that, in that case, I may perhaps have the pleasure of meeting you there on my return. I must go to the Pole, by the way of North Georgia: I am engaged to visit an Eskimaux friend.
Still more ludicrous are the following historical blunders:—One of the party asks how Napoleon is introduced in an historical novel of 1830? The reply is—"He and the Emperor Alexander of Russia are introduced dining with the King at Brighton. Napoleon quarrels with the two sovereigns, and challenges them to a personal encounter. Each claims the right of fighting by deputy. The King of England appoints his prime minister, the Duke of Wellington; the Emperor Alexander appoints Prince Kutusoff. The Duke of Wellington is to go out first, and is to meet Napoleon at Battersea Fields. There were open fields at Battersea: then: only think! open fields! I don't know how the duel ends—I am just in the midst of it—it is so interesting."
The author of Anastasius (Mr. Thos. Hope) has contributed five or six pages on Self-love, Sympathy, and Selfishness—which are deep enough for any Lady D. of this or the next century. We expected a powerful and picturesque tale of the East, and not such sententious matter as this:—"Every sentient entity, from the lowest of brutes to the highest of human beings, desires self-gratification:" we may add, a principle as well understood in Covent-garden as in Portland-place. Mr. Banim has written The Hall of the Castle, an interesting Irish story; and Lord Normanby, The Prophet of St. Paul's, of the date of 1514—which concludes the volume.
Among the Poetry are some pretty verses by Lord Porchester; but it is well that metrical pieces do not predominate, for some of the writers are sadly unmusical sonneteers.
The "Letters from Lord Byron to several Friends" are not of interest enough for the space they occupy.
The Plates are beyond praise. The Frontispiece Portrait of Lady Georgiana Agar Ellis, by Charles Heath, is one of the most exquisite ever engraved; and two plates illustrating Sir Walter Scott's House of Aspen have the effect of beautiful pictures on a blank wall. Two views of Virginia Water are, perhaps, questionable in the same volume; but they are admirably engraved. Wilkie's "beautiful, though," as Lord Normanby says, "somewhat slight cabinet picture of the Princess Doria and the Pilgrims1" has been finely executed by Heath; and a View of Venice, from a drawing by Prout, is a masterpiece of Freebairne. Equal to either of these is The Faithful Servant, engraved by Goodyear, after Cooper, and Dorothea, the title-page plate. Of The Bride, engraved by Charles Heath, from a picture by Leslie, it is impossible to speak in terms of sufficient praise, as it is, without exception, one of the loveliest prints ever beheld. We have had our laugh at The Portrait, a scene from Foote, painted by Smirke, and engraved by Portbury. Its whim and humour is describable only by the British Aristophanes. We can only add, that it is Lady Pentweazle sitting to Carmine for her portrait—the look that he despairs of imitating, as we do Foote's account of her family:—
"All my family, by the mother's side, are famous for their eyes. I have a great aunt amongst the beauties at Windsor; she has a sister at Hampton Court, a perdegeous fine woman! she had but one eye, but that was a piercer: that one eye got her three husbands."
The painter appears to us to be a portrait of Foote. We ought not to forget to mention, at least, Francis I. and his Sister, splendidly engraved by C. Heath, from a picture by Bonington.