'Journal d'Enregistrement,' &c., treat of matters especially connected with a single branch of the administration. 25. Recueil General des Lois et Arrets (monthly). 27. Spectateur des Tribunaux (do.) 28. Journal Judiciare (do.). The Recueil des Lois et Arrets,' is edited by M. F. B. Sirey, avocat a la Cour de Cassation; and is, with respect to jurisprudence, what the Bulletin Universel of M. Ferrusac is with regard to science, and what the Revue Encyclopedique,' so ably edited by M. Jullien, is with respect to science and literature in general. The publication of M. Sirey unfolds the jurisprudence of the Court of Cassation, the Royal Court, and the Council of State, respecting all the matters which these courts embrace within their jurisdiction. This journal, which made its first appearance in 1800, has gone through several editions, and is circulated to a great extent in France. The editor does not only give the text of the decrees, but generally accompanies it with critical observations, and even with consultations, so that it possesses a superiority over all other repositories on the same subject. The 'Gazette,' and theSpectateur des Tribunaux,' are drawn up on the same plan; its object is to give the greatest possible publicity to the proceedings of the courts, in order that jurisprudence may cease to be a science of mystery, and the peculiar property of the gentlemen of the long robe. The Spectateur' is superior in point of talent to the Gazette;' both of them furnish abundant materials for the French murders and robberies, which are of late frequently to be found in the columns of the "Morning Herald." The Journal Judiciare,' nearly resembles our "Law Chronicle," and "Law Advertiser," published in London; it contains advertisements, and other information respecting judicial affairs. Further investigation would no doubt enable us to swell the list of the periodical publications of France, very considerably. But we have already carried our inquiries on this subject, beyond the extent to which we had originally intended. Our purpose is sufficiently answered, if we have succeeded in directing the attention of our readers to the literary industry of our neighbours, which is, unquestionably, much more active in the diffusion of sound and useful information, than most persons on this side of the Channel are inclined to believe. 420 ART. XII. 1. Vivian Grey. Vols. 3-5. 8vo. 11. 8s. 6d. London: Colburn. 1827. 2. The Prairie, a Tale. By the author of " The Spy," &c. 3 vols. 12mo. 11. 4s. London: Colburn. 1827. 3. Karmath, an Arabian Tale. By the author of "Rameses," an Egyptian Tale, &c. 1 vol. 8vo. pp. 341. 8s. boards. London: F. Cock. 1827. 4. The Busy Bodies, a Tale. By the authors of "The Odd Volume." 3 vols. 8vo. 17. 4s. London: Longman & Co. 1827. NOVELS of every description have of late crowded so fast upon us, that we are obliged to review them in groups, without reference to the classes of fiction to which they aspire to belong. If some of them deserve notice for the talents which they display; others, and we regret to say, the greater number of those which have been lately ushered into the world, call loudly for the severest castigation which fair and temperate criticism can inflict. Of the first part of Vivian Grey we spoke* rather in mercy than justice. We must now balance the scales; and we may do so the more easily, as between the former tale and this, its declared sequel, there is not the slightest connection of events, except in the presence of the same hero. The story, if story it can be called, is held together only by the single thread of his identity. In the general strain and tone of the work, however, it must be confessed, that its parts are abundantly consistent. We have here a repetition of all the cant of mannerism and affectation of sentiment, all the false glare and hollow philosophy, all the arrogant pretension and real vulgarity, with which the former volumes so largely overflowed. In the conduct of his narrative, too, the author has shewn, in this sequel, even less originality and inventive resource than in the earlier volumes of his work: his serious incidents are altogether improbable, and destitute of rational interest; and the few scenes in which he has designed to be humorous, are full only of laboured burlesque, and outrageous extravagance. And yet with all this, and with a great deal more of bad taste and worse feeling, there is a certain air of flippant cleverness and assurance in the author's manner, which often gives to it an epigrammatic attraction, and makes his thoughts pass current for much more than they are really worth. In the creation and developement of fictitious character, he has no power whatever: his invention is poor, and his delineation feeble. But for coarse and broad satire, he possesses considerable talent: he has a lively perception of the ridiculous; and where he succeeds best is, in caricaturing the prominent foibles and eccentricities of living individuals, whom it is evident that he has selected for the originals of his portraits. Thus his only wit is M. R. vol. ii., p. 329. mimicry; and his finest vein of humour, no more than the indulgence of gross personality. In the former portion of the novel, Vivian Grey was represented as a young man of great talents and unrestrained passions, who plunges, early and deep, into public and parliamentary life; is duped in his political intrigues, and kicked by a political associate; challenges the offender, of course, and shoots him through the heart; and finally retires to Germany, stricken with remorse at this catastrophe, and disappointed and disgusted, before his time, with the world, or rather with the consequences of his own precocious vices and follies. The opening of the present three volumes, then, finds this exemplary hero a sojourner in Germany- feeling himself a broken-hearted man, and looking for death, whose delay was no blessing.' But it seems that the feelings of youth, which had misled him in his burning hours of joy, equally deceived him in his days of sorrow. He lived; and in the course of time found each day of life less burdensome.' 'The truth is,' adds the author, 'that if it be the lot of man to suffer, it is also his fortune to forget. Vivian Grey felt that he might yet again mingle in the world, though he must meet mankind with other feelings than those of his youth. His character was changed: he had awoke to conviction of the worthlessness of human fortunes, and to indifference for the future which awaited him. In other words, in short, it suiting the worthy author's and his publisher's speculations, to lead his old hero through a new dance of intricate adventures, he must needs begin by healing and new shaping this man of broken heart, and reconciling him to renewed communion and indifferent converse with mankind. The manner in which this design is prosecuted is unquestionably, if not the most original, at least the most convenient in the world. Vivian Grey wanders through Germany, mixing with society as he meets it: the author therefore dismisses his other characters, and introduces a fresh collection, just whenever it pleases him. Nothing more natural than the entrance and the exits of new persons, with new situations-nothing more easy than the stringing together of a series of unconnected and disjointed scenes, by means of a locomotive hero, who keeps continually on the wing, and who is himself ever before us, whatever may become of his ephemeral interlocutors. Thus, in the third volume, we encounter again not a single person whom we have encountered in the first and second; in the fourth and fifth, we are relieved altogether from the presence of every individual who has appeared either in the first, second, or third; with the exceptions only of the eternal and thrice broken-hearted hero, a most monstrous absurdity of a mountebank valet, and a most dull and bibacious magistrate from the Danube, who is, for an instant, forced in a second time at the end of the book, to serve no earthly purpose that is discoverable. At the opening of the third volume, Vivian Grey enters Frank fort on the Maine, during the great fair of that city; and from thence, after witnessing the humours of its bustling gaiety, he adjourns to the baths at Ems, where the scene is laid throughout the remainder of the volume. The description of this German watering-place of fashionable resort, its localities, its visitors, and its pleasures, forms by far the best part of the whole work; and whatever merit may be found in the continuation of Vivian Grey, is comprised in this single volume. The opening of the fourth volume abruptly discovers Mr. Grey and his mountebank servant benighted in a forest, in the south of Germany; and from this point to the close of the work, we are whirled through a confused series of scenes and adventures, which are at once laboriously coloured, absurdly improbable, and most tamely uninteresting. The action of the novel is, in these two volumes, laid principally at the court of one of the small states of southern Germany; which, under the title of the grand duchy of Reisenburg, can be intended, we presume, from the introduction of some historical circumstances, for no other than that of Baden-or possibly, Darmstadt. The question of the author's intention is, however, most completely immaterial for though he has dwelt upon the pleasures and politics of this petty court with elaborate minuteness, and doubtless purposed to represent particular personages and places under some of his fictitious titles, truth and fiction are confused and blended in such injudicious proportions, as to render it impossible to distinguish which part of the mixture is designed for the delineation of real life, and which for the mere fanciful product of invention. Political details, without the slightest interest, are given with almost interminable prolixity; and, in the story which is founded upon them, we are alternately provoked by extravagance, and wearied with dull dissertation. There is a prime minister of the grand duke of Reisenburg, a Mr. Beckendorff, wkose character, it is plain, is one of the author's most favourite conceptions: this person is represented as, at the same time, a man of exalted genius, and a crack-brained humourist; a profound statesman, and a fiddling charlatan; and a more precious compound of contradictory absurdities, it never entered into the imagination of novel-wright to amalgamate. It had been through the skilful measures of this miracle of a minister, that, during the ascendency of Napoleon, his master and pupil, the former margrave of Reisenburg had been raised to the grand ducal dignity, and received large accessions of territory; and by a well-timed change in his consummate policy, during the rapid decline of Buonaparte's fortunes, he had also secured to the grand duke the favour of the holy alliance and the preservation of all his newly acquired dominions. Though living in retirement, and rarely visiting the court, this Mr. Beckendorff still rules the sovereign and the state of Reisenburg with despotic influence; and Vivian Grey is accidentally introduced to him in his solitude, during a long and petty intrigue, which has for its result, the conversion of a mediatized and despoiled prince of the extinguished German empire, from a proud and disaffected patriot, into the obsequious grand marshal of the palace at Reisenburg. Subsequently, Mr. Grey becomes rather awkwardly involved in an intrigue of another kind, also under circumstances of extreme probability. An Austrian archduchess, the destined bride of the hereditary prince of Reisenburg, is introduced at that court incognito, by Beckendorff, that she may judge for herself of the qualities of her future husband. The result of the imperial lady's observation is unfavourable to the prince, and very flattering to Mr. Grey, for whom she conceives a violent preference. On the good feeling and propriety of introducing by name a princess of a particular house, in the imaginary character of a very wanton young lady, we shall not stop to remark. The Austrian archduchess "tells her love" by no very equivocal expressions; and her passion is as warmly returned by the sorrowing and widowed lover of Violet Fane! A terrible scene, however, ensues, in which Grey is discovered by Mr. Beckendorff on his knees before the unknown princess, and, for his presumption, most unpleasantly collared and shaken by that enraged minister. On the discovery of this indiscreet attachment, the lovers are of course cruelly separated for ever: the lady is removed to her friends, as usual in such cases; and the gentleman, being secretly dismissed from the court of Reisenburg, takes the road to Vienna, overwhelmed with astonishment, indignation and grief, and, for the third time only, most piteously broken hearted. A furious and nondescript kind of tornado, which overtakes him on his road, and kills his mountebank servant, concludes the whole business in a very appropriate and melo-dramatic style. Such is the miserable farrago, of which the business of the two last volumes of this work is worthily compounded. As an exhibition of the characteristics of an author's mind, we seriously believe that there does not exist, in all our language, another such egregious specimen of mingled pretension and ignorance as this continuation of Vivian Grey. Nothing in the world would be a greater mistake, than to suppose that the author is contented to be taken for a mere novelist. He is, on the contrary, oracular on all subjects on matters of metaphysical sentiment, philosophy, science, politics, art, fashion, and taste. On all, he holds forth with the same confidence and complacency; and indubitable it is, that never man stood on better terms with himself. Thus, at the very outset, he obtrudes himself upon our notice ostensibly to vindicate his injured modesty from the suspicion of having, in the first part of his magnum opus, described his own character under that of his respectable hero; but in reality, to indulge his ineffable vanity, by talking of himself. Who cares one farthing, whether he meant to paint his own character or not? But, he placidly observes, this charge is an inconvenience, which I share in com |