Critical Notices [pp. 255-288]

Critical Notices.
need to tame her disposition to exaggerate monstrously the features
which she attempts to delineate. She is content to do few things natu rally, and we are made to sleep on surprises, to sup on horrors, and to
sit down at the board with some of the most unmitigated social mnon sters. This story will find readers and will afford interest; but if the
author desires to secure a permanent reputation, she must learn to sub due her paces; to get back to nature; to reform her imagination; to
mitigate her rages; to put her passion into straight jackets for a season,
and labour to live within the common laws of humanity. Let her but
adopt Hamlet's direction to the players, and not tear every thing to tatters, and she may yet rise to an honourable rank among living novelists.
She has invention in high degree, enthusiasm, and considerable know.
ledge of the sterner and wilder passions....". "The Bleak House"
of Dickens, drags its slow length along, but as we receive the numbers
so irregularly, we have ceased to read them. We note the use of some
shocking expedients in the progress of the story, by which to get rid of
troublesome members of the dramatic corps, and to awaken the horrors
of the reader at the same time. The destruction of a sot by spontaneous comnbustion, is made the subject of a horrible and grossly revolting
picture, which answers no good purpose to paint; and we believe that
men of science have long since come to the conclusion that spontaneous
combustion, in the case of a human being, from the immoderate use of
strong drink, is sheer absurdity. There is no valid authority for any
of the instances on record. In all such cases, the probability is that the
drunkard fell into the fire-place, and had not time or strength left to
escape the flames...... "Villette," by the author of "Jane Eyre"
and "Shirley," scarcely rises to the standards of excellence which those
books implied, as in the possession of the author. The story is one of
less varied interest, and of less concentrative power. Not that it lacks
in good characterization, good sketching, and in the exhibition of that
masculine grasp of the subject, which particularly marked the mind of
the author in her previous words. But the subject chosen is one of
inferior susceptibilities. There is much excellent description in this
story, and many scenes of lively and searching talent. But the heroine scarcely wins upon you, and the curious loves which she delineates
between herself and the French Tutor, may be likened to those of a
rabbit and a sturdy tom cat. MI. Emanuel, however, though a strange
creature in his wooing, is a fellow of excellent nature, and is wonderfully
well painted throughout. But his love is very wolfish and devouring.
.... "Castle Avon" is by Mrs. MARSht, another well known and popular
lady writer; but it will scarcely help her reputation. This lady has of
1853.]
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