: The Southern Literary Messenger Vol. II. No. 1 December 1835 by Various - American literature 19th century Periodicals

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"When I recovered"--continues the lady--"he was gone. It was two years before I could trace him. At length I found he had sailed for America. I followed him in the depth of winter--I and my child. I knew not the name he had assumed, and I was struck mute with astonishment, in your beautiful city, on beholding, surrounded by fair ladies, the form of my husband, still beautiful, and still adored. You know the rest." But as our readers may not be as well informed as the correspondent of the fair forsaken, we will enlighten them with some farther particulars.

Among other persons whom he encounters is a monk Ambrose, a painter Angelo, another painter Ducci, a Marquis Alezzi, and a Countess D., which latter personage he is convinced of having seen at some prior period of his life. For a page or two we are entertained with a prospect of a conspiracy, and have great hopes that the principal characters in the plot will so far oblige us as to cut one another's throats: but Mr. Fay having clapped his hands, and cried "Presto!--vanish!" the whole matter ends in smoke, or, as our author beautifully expresses it, is "veiled in impenetrable mystery."

Mr. Leslie now pays a visit to the painter Ducci, and is astonished at there beholding the portrait of the very youth whose life he saved, together with that of his mother, from the horses in New York. Then follows a series of interesting ejaculations, among which we are able to remember only "horrible suspicion!" "wonderful development!" "alack and alas!" with some two or three others. Mr. Leslie is, however, convinced that the portrait of the boy is, as Mr. F. gracefully has it, "inexplicably connected with his own mysterious destiny." He pays a visit to the Countess D., and demands of her if she was, at any time, acquainted with a gentleman called Clairmont. The lady very properly denies all knowledge of that character, and Mr. Leslie's "mysterious destiny" is in as bad a predicament as ever. He is however fully convinced that Clairmont is the origin of all evil--we do not mean to say that he is precisely the devil--but the origin of all Mr. Leslie's evil. Therefore, and on this account, he goes to a masquerade, and, sure enough, Mr. Clairmont, Mr. Clairmont happens to go, at precisely the same time, to precisely the same masquerade. But there are surely no bounds to Mr. Fay's excellent invention. Miss Temple, of course, happens to be at the same place, and Mr. Leslie is in the act of making love to her once more, when the "inexplicable" Countess D. whispers into his ear some ambiguous sentences in which Mr. L. is given to understand that he must beware of all the Harlequins in the room, one of whom is Clairmont. Upon leaving the masquerade, somebody hands him a note requesting him to meet the unknown writer at St. Peter's. While he is busy reading the paper he is uncivilly interrupted by Clairmont, who attempts to assassinate him, but is finally put to flight. He hies, then, to the rendezvous at St. Peter's, where "the unknown" tells him St. Peter's won't answer, and that he must proceed to the Coliseum. He goes--why should he not?--and there not only finds the Countess D. who turns out to be Mrs. Rinaldo, and who now uncorks her bottle of gratitude, but also Flora Temple, Flora Temple's father, Clairmont, Kreutzner, a German friend from New York, and, last but not least, Rosalie Romain herself; all having gone there, no doubt, at three o'clock in the morning, under the influence of that interesting young gentleman Norman Leslie's "most inexplicable and mysterious destiny." Matters now come to a crisis. The hero's innocence is established, and Miss Temple falls into his arms in consequence. Clairmont, however, thinks he can do nothing better than shoot Mr. Leslie, and is about to do so, when he is very justly and very dexterously knocked in the head by Mr. Kreutzner. Thus ends the Tale of the Present Times, and thus ends the most inestimable piece of balderdash with which the common sense of the good people of America was ever so openly or so villainously insulted.

THE LINWOODS.

Jasper Meredith, considered as an actual entity, is, as we have already said, a heartless, calculating coxcomb--with merely a spice of what we may call susceptibility to impressions of the beautiful, to redeem him from utter contempt. As a character in a novel, he is admirable--because he is accurately true to nature, and to himself. His perfidy to Bessie meets with poetical justice in a couple of unsuccessful courtships, and in a final marriage with a flirt, Helen Ruthven, who fills him up, with a vengeance, the full measure of his deserts. Mrs. Meredith is a striking picture of the heartless and selfish woman of fashion and aristocracy. Kisel, the servant of Eliot Lee, is original, and, next to Bessie, the best conception in the book. He is a simple, childish, yet acute and affectionate fool, who follows his master as would a dog, and finally dies at his feet under circumstances of the truest pathos. While Miss Sedgwick can originate such characters as these, she need apprehend few rivals near the throne.

WESTMINSTER REVIEW.

Article II is "Venetian History. Family Library, No. XX--London, Murray, 1833." A compendious History of Venice, and apparently forced into the service of the Review "will I, nill I," without any object farther than the emptying of some writer's portfolio, or common-place book. It is nevertheless an invaluable paper.

This is a short article in which the book under review is condemned for inaccuracy and misrepresentation. The Essay itself is another instance of the interest now taken in the mathematics of music.

This critique speaks of Tytler's Scotland as displaying much research, and considerable skill, as well as impartiality, but the greater part of the article is taken up in reviewing some of the leading features in Scottish History.

The authors of the works here reviewed have attempted to unfold, and to show the worthlessness of, those technical mysteries which have so long enveloped the science of Law. The "Forms of Deeds, &c." is from the pen of Mr. Okey. He gives several examples of English and French Deeds--printing them on opposite pages. The difference in conciseness is said to be four to one in favor of the French, while in clearness they admit of no comparison. The greater brevity of the French documents is attributed to the existence of a Code. "The Mechanics of Law making" insists upon the necessity of reform in the arrangement, language, classification, and contents of the British Acts of Parliament, and in the agency by which the laws are 'prepared, made, promulgated, superintended, enforced, and amended.' The Review is brief--but concurs heartily in the necessity alluded to.

From the specimens of these Pamphlets, given in the Review before us, we are inclined to think them excessively amusing. Mr. Isaac Tompkins busies himself with the House of Lords, and Mr. Peter Jenkins gives the lash to the House of Commons. Mr. T's account of patrician taste in literature and wit--of courts, courtiers, court-jesters, buffoonery, &c. are not a little edifying. His book has created a great sensation. In a note appended to the fourth edition, occur the following significant remarks. "The Quarterly Review, the organ of the Aristocratic Church, and of the Lay Aristocracy, has taken the opportunity of printing the greater part of the work, under pretence of giving a Review of it. Pretence it plainly is; for there is hardly one remark added, and not one syllable of censure or objection! Can any thing more plainly demonstrate that the cause of the Aristocracy is hateful, even to the very writers who affect to support it? Can any thing better prove its decline among all educated and sensible men? Mr. Canning's abhorrence of it is well known, and so is the hatred with which he was repaid. But in our time, the advocate of establishments can think of nothing better than giving a very wide circulation to Mr. J. Tompkins' observations. These Quarterly Reviewers would not for the world, that these observations were not generally known." Peter Jenkins concludes his pamphlet with some remarks on the new liberal government. Winterbottom's letter treats chiefly of the evils resulting from the accumulation of wealth in a few hands. "The whole family of Tompkins &c. is good"--says the Reviewer--"and the public, will be glad to see more of their kin and kind."

The Reviewer, here, seems to think that Sir Robert Peel's Bill, with some little amendment, would meet the case of the Dissenters in the manner most satisfactory, and, under all circumstances most convenient. The Dissenters themselves have little to propose, and that little impracticable.

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