suffice to save it from that dreadful damnation of "silent contempt," to which editors throughout the country, if we are not much mistaken, will endeavour one and all to consign it.

LIFE AND LITERARY REMAINS OF L. E. L. Br LAMAN BLANCHARD. Two VOLUMES. LEA AND

BLANCHARD.

[Text: Grabam's Magazine, August, 1841.]

THIS work contains the most authentic biography of the lamented L. E. L. yet issued from the press, together with a collection of her posthumous pieces, and several lighter effusions already published. The volumes possess uncommon interest. The detail of her every-day life, the picture of her gaiety and sweetness, and the criticisms on her genius will commend it to all who have loved, in other days, the poetry of this sweet writer. Nor will the details of her melancholy death prove of less interest. After fully examining all the evidence relating to this tragedy, the author arrives at the conclusion that her death was natural, and instigated neither by her own sorrows nor by the jealousy of others. The conduct of her husband seems, in every respect, to have been without censure.

Of the genius of Miss Landon it is almost unnecessary to speak. Without the elegance of Mrs. Hemans, she had considerable grace; with a fine ear, she was often careless in her rhythm; possessing a fancy exuberant and glowing, she showered her metaphors too indiscriminately around her. But few equalled her if we may so speak-in the passionate purity of her

verse.

wrote.

Affection breathed through every line she

Perhaps there was a mannerism, certainly an affectation, in her constant reference to love, and blighted love especially; but even this error was made seductive by the never ceasing variety which she contrived to throw around her theme, and the sweetness, richness, and enthusiasm of her song. Her great

faults were a want of method, and a careless, rapid habit of composition. From first to last, she was emphatically an improvisatrice." She wrote from whim rather than from plan, and consequently was often trite, and always careless. These observations will apply, we think, equally to her prose. Her" Ethell Churchill" may be taken as a specimen, and the best specimen, of her style in romance writing. It would be almost invidious to name any one of her long poems as the finest. In her shorter pieces she is often more successful than in more extended flights; and some of her most carelessly written stanzas glitter most with the dew of Castaly. Without fear of contradiction, we may say that she has left no living female poet to compete with her in fame, unless Mrs. Norton may be said to be her rival; and even with Mrs. Norton, so different are the two writers, no parallel can be drawn. Let us be contented with placing. Hemans, Landon, and Norton together in one glorious trio the sweetest, brightest, loftiest of the female poets of the present generation.

JOSEPH RUSHBROOK, OR THE POacher. BY CAPTAIN Marryatt, Author of “ Peter Simple," "JaCOB FAITHFUL, ETC., ETC. Two VOLUMES. PHILADELPHIA, CAREY AND HARt.

[Text: Graham's Magazine, September, 1841.]

IT has been well said that the success of certain works may be traced to sympathy between the author's mediocrity of ideas, and mediocrity of ideas on the part of the public." In commenting on this passage, Mrs. Gove, herself a shrewd philosopher, observes that, whether as regards men or books, there exists an excellence too excellent for general favour. To "make a hit to captivate the public eye, ear, or understanding without a certain degree of meritis impossible; but the "hardest hit" is seldom made, indeed we may say never made, by the highest merit. When we wrote the word seldom we were thinking of Dickens and The Curiosity Shop," a work unquestionably of "the highest merit," and which at a first glance appears to have made the most unequivocal of "hits" ; but we suddenly remembered that the compositions called "Harry Lorrequer" and "Charles O'Malley " had borne the palm from "The Curiosity Shop" in point of what is properly termed popularity.

There can be no question, we think, that the philosophy of all this is to be found in the apothegm with which we began. Marryat is a singular instance of its truth. He has always been a very popular

His

writer in the most rigorous sense of the word. books are essentially mediocre." His ideas are the

common property of the mob, and

have been their

common property time out of mind. We look throughout his writings in vain for the slightest indication of originality; for the faintest incentive to thought. His plots, his language, his opinions, are neither adapted nor intended for scrutiny. We must be contented with them as sentiments, rather than as ideas; and properly to estimate them, even in this view, we must bring ourselves into a sort of identification with the sentiment of the mass. Works composed in this spirit are sometimes purposely so composed by men of superior intelligence, and here we call to mind the Chansons of Béranger. But usually they are the natural exponent of the vulgar thought in the person of a vulgar thinker. In either case they claim for themselves that which, for want of a more definite expression, has been called by critics nationality. Whether this nationality in letters is a fit object for high-minded ambition, we cannot here pause to inquire. If it is, then Captain Marryat occupies a more desirable position than, in our heart, we are willing to award him.

"Joseph Rushbrook " is not a book with which the critic should occupy many paragraphs. It is not very

dissimilar to

Poor Jack," which latter is, perhaps, the best specimen of its author's cast of thought and national manner, although inferior in interest to Peter Simple.'

The plot can only please those who swallow the probabilities of "Sinbad the Sailor," or "Jack and the Bean-Stalk" or we should have said, more strictly, the incidents; for of plot, properly speaking, there is none at all.

Joseph Rushbrook is an English soldier, who, having long served his country and received a wound in

the head, is pensioned and discharged.

He becomes

a poacher, and educates his son (the hero of the tale, and also named Joseph) to the same profession. A pedlar, named Byres, is about to betray the father, who avenges himself by shooting him. The son takes the burden of the crime upon himself, and flees the country. A reward is offered for his apprehension a reward which one Furness, a schoolmaster, is very anxious to obtain. This Furness dogs the footsteps of our hero, much as Fagin, the Jew, dogs those of Oliver Twist, forcing him to quit place after place, just as he begins to get comfortably settled. In thus roaming about, little Joseph meets with all kinds of outrageously improbable adventures; and not only this, but the reader is bored to death with the outrageously improbable adventures of every one with whom little Joseph comes in contact. Good fortune absolutely besets him. Money falls at his feet wherever he goes, and he has only to stoop and pick it up. At length he arrives at the height of prosperity, and thinks he is entirely rid of Furness, when Furness reappears. That Joseph should, in the end, be brought to trial for the pedlar's murder is so clearly the author's design, that he who runs may read it, and we naturally suppose that his persecutor, Furness, is to be the instrument of this evil. We suppose also, of course, that in bringing this misfortune upon our hero, the schoolmaster will involve himself in ruin, in accordance with the common ideas of poetical justice. But no; Furness, being found in the way, is killed off, accidentally, having lived and plotted to no ostensible purpose, through the better half of the book. Circumstances that have nothing to do with the story involve Joseph in his trial. He refuses to divulge the real secret of the murder, and is