Critical Notices [pp. 784-788]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
me to animate, if I can, your laudable zeal, and invoke to you
the praise and support of )ur proud city-of the whole country.
In your hands are deposited sacred and beneficial trusts-on
your efforts as citizens and scholars depend much of the future
prosperity and glory of Maryland. It is not enough therefore
that you are the nominal and passive members of these scientific
and literary associations, or the admirers of all that is beautiful
in the culture of letters and the promotion of science. You may
walk indeed through the gorgeous temple of knowledge and
explore its holiest recesses or arcana, or bow before its altars
with homage and adoration, but you must unfold its portals and
lift high its gates that the people may enter, and become as enlightened as they are free. Above all, in aiding by your exertions in this great work, you should endeavor to found a literature whose seat is the bosom of God —whose end the elevation
of man. Let then the Bible be its chief pillar or corner stone,
from whose pure pages and sublime truths, the waters of life
may gush forth, and mingling with the full stream of rational and
social prosperity, form
"-as deep and as brilliant a tide
As ever bore freedom aloft on its wave."
THE PICKWICK CLUB.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club: Containing a Faithlful Record of the Perambulations, Perils,
T'ravels,,riventures, and Sporting Transactionits of the
Correspondiing Jtembers. Edited by "Boz." Philadelphia:
Republished by Carey, Lea and Blanchard.
In our June "Messenger," we spoke at some length
of the " Watkins Tottle and other Papers," by "Boz."
We then expressed a high opinion of the comic power,
and of the rich imaginative conception of Mr. Dickensan opinion which "The Pickwick Club" has fully sustained. The author possesses nearly every desirable
quality in a writer of fiction, and has withal a thousand
negative virtues. In his delineation of Cockney life he
is rivalled only by the author of " Peter Snook," while
in efforts of a far loftier and more difficult nature, he
has greatly surpassed the best of the brief tragic pieces
of Bulwer, or of Warren. Just now, however, we can
only express our opinion that his general powers as a
prose writer are equalled by few. The work is to be
continued, and hereafter we may give at some length the
considerations which have led us to this belief. From
the volume before us we quote the concluding portion
of a vigorous sketch, entitled "A Madmnian's MS." The
writer is supposed to be an hereditary madman, and to
have labored under the disease for many years, but to
have been conscious of his condition, and thus, by a
strong effort of the will, to have preserved his secret
from the eye of even his most intimate friends.
1 don't remember forms or faces now, but I know the
girl was beautiful. I know she was; for in the bright
moonlight nights, when I start utip from my sleep, and all
is quiet about me, I see, standing still and motionless in
one corner of this cell, a slight and wasted figure, with
long black hair, which, streaming down her back, stirs
with no earthly wind, and eyes that fix their gaze on
me, and never wink or close. Hush! the blood chills
at my heart as I write it down-that form is hers; the
face is very pale, and the eyes are glassy bright: but
I know them well. That figure never moves- it never
fr-owns and mouths as others do, that fill this place sometimes; but it is mutch more dreadful to me, even than
the spirits that tempted me many years ago-it comes
flesh from the grave; and is so very death-like.
For nearly a year I saw that tface grow paler: for
nearly a year I saw the tears steal down the mournful
cheeks, and never knew the cause. I found it out at
last though. They could not keep it from me long.
She had never liked me; I had never thought she did:
she'despised my wealth, and hated the splendor in
which she lived; —I had not expected that. She loved
another. This I had never thought of. Strange feel ings came over me, and thoughts forced upon me by
some secret power, whirled round and round my brain.
I did not hate her, though I hated the boy she still wept
for. 1 pitied-yes, I pitied-the wretched life to which
her cold and selfish relations had doomed her. I knew
that she could not live long, but the thought that before
her death she mnight give birth to some ill-fated being,
destined to hand down madness to its offspring, deter
mined me. I resolved to kill her.
For many weeks I thought of poison, and then of
drowning, and then of fire. A fine sight the grand
house in flames, and the madman's witfe smouldering
away to cinders. Think of the jest of a large reward,
too, and of some sane man swinging in the wind, for a
dced he never did, and all through a madman's cunning!
I thought often of this, but I gave it up at last. Oh!
the pleasure of strapping the razor day after day, feel ing the sharp edge, and thinking of the gash one stroke
of its thin bright point would make!
At last the old spirits who had been with me so often
before, whispered in my ear that the time was come,
and thrust the open razor into my hand. I grasped it
firmly, rose softly from the bed, and leaned over my
sleeping wife. Her face was buried in her hands. I
withdrew them softly, and they fell listlessly on her
bosom. She had been weeping, for the traces of the
tears were still wet upon her cheek. Her face was
calm and placid; and even as I looked upon it, a tran quil smile lighted up her pale features. 1 laid my hand
softly on her shoulder. She started-it was only a
passing dream. I leaned forward again. She screamed, and woke.
One motion of my hand, and she would never again
have uttered cry or sound. But I was startled, and
drew back. Her eyes were fixed on mine. I know
not how it was, but they cowed and frightened me;
and I quailed beneath them. She rose from the bed,
still gazing fixedly and steadily on me. I trembled;
the razor was in my hand, but I could not move. She
made towards the door. As she neared it, she turned,
and withdrew her eyes from my face. The spell was
broken. I bounded forward, and clutched her by the
arm. Uttering shriek upon shriek, she sunk upon the
ground.
Now I could have killed her without a struggle; but
the house was alarmed. I heard the tread of footsteps
on the stairs. I replaced the razor in its usual drawer,
unfastened the door, and called loudly bfor assistance.
They came, and raised her, and placed her on the
bed. She lay bereft of animation for hours; and when
life, lookl, and speech returned, her senses had deserted
her, and she raved wildly and furiously.
Doctors were called in-great men who rolled up to
my door in easy carriages, with fine horses and gaudy
servants. They were at her bedside for weeks.' They
had a great meeting, and consulted together in low and
solemn voices in another room. One, the cleverest, and
most celebrated among them, took me aside and bidding
me prepare for the worst, told mne-me, the madman!that my wife was mad. He stood close beside me at
an open window, his eyes looking in my face, and his
hand laid upon my arm. With one effort I could have
hurled him into the street beneath. It would have been
rare sport to have done it; but my secret was at stake,
and I let him go. A few days after, they told me I must
place her under some restraint: 1 must provide a keeper
for her. I! I went into the open fields where none
could hear me, and laughed till the air resounded with
my shouts!
She died next day. The white-headed old man followed her to the grave, and the proud brothers dropped
a tear over the insensible corpse of her whose sufferings
they had regarded in her lifetime with muscles of iron.
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