Literary Notices [pp. 646-651]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
649
CHANCES AND CHANGES; a Domestic Story, by the author
of "Six Weeks on the Loire." Philadelphia: Carey, Lea &
Blanchard.
This is an uncommon book. In these days of high
excitement and powerful writing, it is refreshing to be
introduced among characters of so much purity, benevolence and intelligence as those delineated in "Chances
and Changes." The moral of the book, although it is
not ostentatiously pressed upon the attention, is obvious and forcible. A lovelier being than Catherine Neville, the heroine, can scarcely be imagined. There is
nothing new in the story-the events are such as might
easily be supposed to have occurred, and the leading
features of the plot may be stated in a few words:
Colonel Hamilton, a man of fashion and something of
a roul, is engaged in a duel with a baronet, in consequence of an intrigue between the Colonel and the
titled wife of his antagonist. The latter is dangerously
wounded, and Colonel Hamilton seeks a refuge for several months in the remote dwelling of his former
tutor, Mr. Neville, a benevolent and conscientious clergyman. Hamilton becomes enamored of Catherine
Neville, who returns his passion with all the ardor of
a first love. He at length mingles with the world of
fashion again, is involved once more in his former intrigue, and although struggling to retain and deserve
the affections of Catherine, becomes completely entangled in a criminal attachment. Catherine, after a long
and painful conflict with her feelings, resolves to conquer her ill-placed affection, and is ultimately united
to a worthier object. The struggles between passion and duty in her breast, and the conflict of good
and evil in Hamilton, are admirably portrayed. The
sentiments and opinions are often striking, and the
style elegant and attractive. We give a few extracts,
taken at random:
"Come along with me," said she, "come and look
by the side of the little stream that runs through the
garden."
" This girl, after all, can do whatever she likes with
me," thought Hamilton, as he rose with affected effort,
from the chair which he had just before vowed to himself nothing should induce him to stir from, until it was
time to dress for dinner. Away they went to the
brook, and found Mr. Neville standing there, looking
at the daffodils with all the delight of the poet whose
words were on his lips.
"I wandered lonely as a cloud,
That flits on high, o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of dancing daffodils.
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing near the trees.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle in the milky way.
They stretched in never-ending line,
Along the margin of a bay.
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their headsin sprightly dance.
The waves beside thein danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee,
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company.
I gazed and gazed, but little thought
What wealth to me the show had brought.
For oft when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude.
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils."
Hamilton was so unused to hear Wordsworth quoted
in any other tone than that of ridicule, or absurd paro
dy, that he was amazed to hear his old tutor, whose
taste he revered, not nmore from habit than experience
of its correctness, repeat these lines with the enthusiasm of Catherine herself, and conclude them with a
panegyric on their author, as having formed a new
school in poetry, and finding
" Books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in ev'ry thing."
* * * * *
"Well, sir, what do you think of our daffodils?"
said Mr. Neville, pointing to them exultingly, "are
they not enough to inspire a poet?"
" I am not poet enough to answer the question," said
Hamilton, "but I remember the eldest of poets says
they make very good salads."
"Ah ha!" said Mr. Neville, "I am glad you have
not forgotten old Hesiod-but, however, I did not think
of getting into Greek when 1 quoted Wordsworth."
" Nor I of hearing anything like common sense spring
out of a quotation from him," said Hamilton. "Not but
that all he says may be very fine, but I am of another
school-I am a Byronian-he is the only man that is
read in Town-those Lakeists that go and make faces
at themselves on the waveless waters, and then run
home to put their reflections upon paper, are quite outvoted now; even the ladies never think of them."
"No, I suppose not," said Mr. Neville, " any more
than they would think of seeing hay-makers in their
verandas, or a sheep-shearing in their drawing-rooms.
But' the children of darkness are wiser in their generation than the children of light,' and he who sings of
nothing but lawless crimes, and sated vices, does wisely to address his song to the inhabitants of an overgrown and luxurious metropolis."
"Yes, yes; he is sure enough of sympathy, plenty
of dancing daffodils there,-only of rather an opposite
species. What do you say, Miss Neville, do you like
the titled Bard?"
" Quite well enough, as a poet, to wish he had made
choice of better subjects. Edward Longeroft says he
has in him a fragment of almost every other poet's distinguishing excellence, but unfortunately his own genius
is only a fragment itself, and, therefore, he produces
nothing but fragments after all."
"Very wise in Mr. Longcroft-I dare say he could
prove every thing he says most mathematically; but I
fancy he will find the generality of his acquaintance
admire diamond sparks more than brick-bats-though
one is only a part, and the other a whole."
"Very good! very good!" said Mr. Neville, "but
who have we here?" he added, as he looked towards
the little gate. "Ah ha! here he is himself-now we
can have diamond sparks versus brick-bats, as long as
you like, and see who has the better of the argument."
A matter-of-fact-man is well portrayed in the following:
"Henry Barton," said she to herself, "is a good creature, as ever was born; and he has great merit, too, in
cultivating his mind so sedulously, surrounded as he is
only by the clodpoles his father has brought him up
amongst. But, after all, he is such a Inere matter-offact-man, that one soon tires of him-he tells one an
anecdote just as he reads it, and there's an end of it.
And then he moralizes, too, in such a common-place
way, and wonders how the Romans could degenerate
so as to suffer themselves to be conquered by the
Goths, and finds out that it was an abominable thing
in Henry VIII to cut off his wives' heads, and not
much better in Queen Elizabeth to sign Essex's death
warrant. There is no play of imagination about himno whim, no wit-he would as soon think of launching a man of war, as maintaining a paradox."
The subjoined sentiment is beautifully expressed:
"Ah, is there any happiness like that of the affections!
from the soul-absorbing influence of individual love,
through all the endearing gradations of natural ties,
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