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Scarcely had the refined mental pleasure subsided, which the Poems of this justly admired Authoress had afforded to every feeling heart, when the elegant prosaic composition now before us made its appearance.

[345] It is a tale more than well told, full of horror, exciting pity, and commanding admiration. We are not favoured with any features of its origin; yet, from many circumstances, we are led to believe that it is not altogether fiction; but that species of romance, the superstructure of which is raised upon the foundation of historic truth. An ancient Spanish record of domestic woe, extremely interesting and pathetic, has been decorated by the pen of our fair enchantress with peculiar taste, elegance, and variety.

We do not believe this lady has ever read that part of 'Mason on Elocution,' which treats of the power of numbers in prosaic composition; but certain we are, that by the impulse of a fine natural genius, she has been enabled to exhibit a perfect model of that rare species of writing. Every period is full and harmonic, and not one sentence throughout the descriptive part terminates flatly, that is to say, with an insignificant particle, which Mason calls 'a lame foot.' To extract the essence of this entertaining bagatelle, that may be read through in two or three hours, would be something like the conduct of those petty depredators, who being admitted into a beautiful flower-garden, and allowed to cull a few choice flowers for a nosegay, are not content with this indulgence, but dig up the best by the roots, in order to transplant them into their own parterre. With concern we have observed the plot and chief incidents of these slender volumes thus purloined under the specious title of Reviews; and disapproving of such manoeuvres, we shall confine ourselves to specimens of the uncommon, and, in our opinion, truly excellent style of the descriptive and sentimental parts, leaving the story untouched, as well for the benefit of the Authoress, as of many a youth and many a maid, who will eagerly pursue all its winding mazes with unremitted attention, till the long-confined swelling tear, gushing from its lucid orb, shall fall involuntarily on the concluding pages, and half obliterate the dreadful catastrophe.

The opening scene, which conducts us to the Castle of Vancenza, we produce, in evidence of the strength and beauty of her descriptive powers:

Upon the side of a beautiful forest, sheltered from the northern blast by a chain of mountains, bordered with trees and shrubs, the growth of many centuries, rising above a canopy of luxuriant foliage, the gilded vanes of Vancenza glittered to the eye of the far-distant traveller, while the lofty turrets cast their long shadows across an extensive lake, that partly overspread the neighbouring valley.

The towering precipice, from whose giddy height the fearful shepherd gazed with terror and astonishment, hung over its woody skirts, tremendously sublime, while down its winding paths the rushing torrents scattered their white foam, sometimes lost in unseen channels, at others dividing in small currents towards the lake beneath!

So wild, so romantic a spot seemed rather the work of enchantment than the earthly habitation of anything mortal! The harmonious warblings of the feathered minstrels - the murmuring sound of intermingling streams - the lulling moan of the confined breezes, amidst the flint-rooted pines, that waved their tall heads, rocking their callow tenants in leafy cradles - the verdant glades here and there opening to the skies, and scattered over with sheep and wild goats - the adjacent hills hanging their dark brows over a vast sheet of quivering water, presented a scene so magnificent, so abstracted from the busy world, that the beholder's heart thrilled with delicious transport, harmonized by the sublime sensations of enchanting melancholy.

The Castle of Vancenza had been built in the beginning of the twelfth century. The structure consisted of a spacious court-yard, encircled with a vast pile of architecture, of the most exquisite order. At each corner a lofty tower commanded a variety of luxuriant prospects. The front facing the lake was raised upon an invulnerable rampart, whose ivy-covered battlements formed a beautiful and extensive terrace. The southern aspect presented innumerable avenues, cut through the venerable forest which led to the boundaries of Old Castile. The northern view was terminated by mountains grandly romantic. The valley beyond the lake led to a verdant opening of some miles in length, revealing at once a thousand undescribable and fascinating attractions!

The numberless small cottages besprinkled in the vicinity of the castle, bespoke the hospitality of its lord. The happiness and good fellowship of the rustics conferred a degree of lustre on his name, that idle ostentation might have blushed to behold; while he enjoyed in this secluded paradise that health and tranquillity of mind, which is rarely to be found in the palaces of the most splendid cities.

Of the beautiful Elvira, the Orphan of the Castle, the object of universal adoration, the principal character in the story, whom the neighbouring rustics in their [346] enthusiastic fondness had named 'The Rose of Vancenza', we have the following beautiful delineation.

Elvira had just attained her fifteenth year. Her form was the animated portrait of her mind: truth, benignity, pure and unstudied delicacy, the meekness of sensibility, and the dignity of innate virtue, claimed the esteem, while the exquisite beauty of her bewitching countenance captivated the heart of every beholder. She was tall, and finely proportioned; her complexion was neither the insipid whiteness of the lily-bosomed Circassian, nor the masculine shade of the Gallic brunette: the freshness of health glowed upon her cheek, while the lustre of her dark blue eye borrowed its splendour from the unsullied flame that gave her mind the perfection of intellect! Her voice was mild as the cooings of the ring-dove, and her smile the gentle harbinger of tenderness and complacency! - she was everything that fancy could picture, or conviction adore! - Perfection could go no farther. The lovely maid had required considerable eminence in the science of harmony; her voice was the seraphic echo of her lute*, whose chord spoke to the soul, under the magic touch of her skilful fingers. She was well acquainted with the works of the most celebrated French and Italian authors; the beauties of Ariosto and Petrarch by turns captivated her heart; she felt the force of their compositions, though she was a stranger to the sensations that inspired them. Happy Elvira! who, nursed in the tranquil bosom of retirement, feared not the vicissitudes of fortune, nor the corroding pangs of agonizing disquietude.

Almanza, a Spanish Prince, who becomes the hero of this moral tale, in the hot pursuit of the chace leaves his attendants far behind, and encountering the wild boar, is so dreadfully wounded by the tusks of the enraged animal, near the Castle of Vancenza, that his page, in consternation, on approaching his Royal Master, called aloud for help. The count flew, with the eagerness pity ever prompts to succour the unhappy. At the outward gate he met the bleeding stranger, borne in the arms of two friends, whose afflicted countenances proclaimed the virtues of their illustrious associate. He was instantly conveyed to a lower apartment, and, surrounded by a train of attendants, laid upon a coach, pallid, and to all appearance lifeless. Affliction seemed to prey upon every bosom! 'The lovely and tender Elvira, who stood like a weeping angel over the reliques of the martyred saint, raising her fine eyes towards Heaven in silent invocation, drew from her polished brow a veil of transparent lawn, and, unmindful of the group that stood wonder at her exquisite beauty, began to bind it round the lacerated arm of the unfortunate Prince - then, recollecting the impropriety she had been guilty of in exposing her face to the prying eyes of so many strangers, burst into tears, and retired to a window at the farthest end of the apartment.'

It is the standing etiquette of all novels and romances, that every perfect beauty should have a number of admirers, and at least two contending lovers; one to be made happy, and the other miserable. - It was a case in point, in the present tale, to make the Prince the fortunate man, and, by way of contrast, to throw into the back-ground a fiery Don, a Duke del Vero, the bosom-friend of the Prince, who according to custom, and the manners of the well-bred gentlemen of 'St. James's air,' turns out an arrant traitor when all-seducing lovely woman steps in between him and his friendship to the Prince; and the sequel presents us a chain of perfidious contrivances to gain the new mistress of his affections, which are described upon similar occasions, in such strong terms, in our newspaper details of trials for crim. con. that we shall take the liberty to pass them over, and, pursuing our first intention, notice only the following energetic remark: - 'The tender passion, when it takes root in stern and violent natures, like the raging of a fever in the strongest constitutions, becomes more fatal from the force that opposes it, and, perpetually fed by its own fire, frequently consumes the object it encounters.'

The recovered Prince takes a grateful leave of his noble Host and the fair Elvira, between whom a fond exchange of hearts had taken place, and the probable hope of his speedy return consoled the solitary maiden for his absence. The interval is seized by the Duke del Vero, who suddenly leaves Madrid (to which city his duty had obliged him to attend the Prince), returns to a village near the castle, and, lurking in disguise, imposes, by [347] an artful stratagem, on the credulity of Elvira, who is induced to believe she shall meet the Prince at a certain cottage, and is thereby exposed to the dangers of Credulity, the secondary title of our moral tale. She escapes from the snare, however, without ruffling a single feather in the pinion of chastity: but the risk furnishes a fine lesson for the ladies, and a lecture for those insolently-presumptuous married women, who glorying in the single virtue of chastity, and considering it as a full compensation for the want of every other amiable, endearing qualification, domineer over their wretched husbands, with a conscious sense that the captive for life cannot break the galling chain without deranging his worldly affairs, and exposing himself to the ill natured reflections of a censorious world. Thus pride, domestic tyranny, insolence to inferiors, moroseness and rigour to children, and callous insensibility, are sanctioned and protected under matrimonial rights, which the discontented, secretly repining Benedick droops, sickens, and dies a martyr to the high-vaunted chastity of his all-commanding wife; and thus the town is filled with buxom widows!

Elvira felt unusual delight on entering the gate of the castle, that seemed as if thrown open to receive the oppressed. - As the poor mariner, escaped from the tempestuous surge, gazes in speechless wonder on the foaming ocean, she looked back with horror and dismay upon the gulph she had avoided. The reflections that followed were both natural and useful: Bred in the society of Innocence and Honour, she was the dupe of her own purity. She now perceived, that to be and to seem were very distinct things; Villainy frequently assumes the most specious appearance; and the heart where Rectitude holds unsullied dominion, seldom has the cunning to guard against that duplicity to which it is a stranger.

There is nothing so difficult to preserve as female reputation; as it is rare, it creates universal envy; those who possess it, proud of the treasure, often become its detractors, merely because they cannot brook the presumption of a rival; while they practice, with insolent superiority, every vice that can contaminate the soul! How ridiculous is the woman who conceives a single perfection, which chiefly benefits herself, sufficient to counterbalance the total want of every social virtue! Small is the triumph of chastity that has never been assailed by the cunning of the seducer. The snows of Lapland preserve their whiteness and solidity as long as they escape the dissolving glances of the burning orb. The female heart has little right to exult in its resolution, till it has resisted the fascinations of pleasure, the voice of insidious flattery, and the fatal allurements of corrupt example. No woman can say, I will venture so far, and then recede; for chastity exposed to the breath of slander, is like a waxen model placed in the rays of the meridian sun; by degrees it loses its finest traits, till at length it becomes an insipid mass of useless deformity.

The annexed outline of the Duke del Vero's character seems to be a stroke aimed at a person of higher rank, nearer home than Spain: - 'Hitherto he had followed the dictates of a warm imagination, and dashed through the broad torrents of dissipation; Vanity for his guide, and intemperate gratifications the objects of his pursuits.' So skilled as our fair Monitor must be allowed to be, it would be unpardonable to omit her advice to her own sex for the management of a lover; and we cannot close our account of this pleasing performance, which has nearly passed through three editions in a very short time, more agreeably.

A lover should be perpetually employed; he should have every-thing to fear, and very little to hope for; take from him the necessity of constant assiduity, and he will very soon lose the wish to please. Security is the poison of love: the little God, if suffered to be conscious of possessing wings, will never rest till he has tried their strength; and if once permitted to soar from the shackles of allurement, he never will return, except to reproach his tyrant for past inhumanity.

Every thing that lives delights in liberty, except the lover; like the feathered warbler, who, long confined, sings contentedly in his wiry habitation, he enjoys his slavery: give him his freedom, and he roves a miserable wanderer, seeking new pleasures and new chains: nor does he recover his wonted felicity till he is again fascinated by the spell of female enchantment. - If we have no object to please, we soon lose the desire of appearing amiable. If you would secure the affections of your lover, teach him to deserve you, by a proper respect for your own attractions, and be assured that the moment he ceases to dread the punishment of losing you, you will have no farther claims upon his constancy or affection.

Why do we often see the assiduous and doating lover metamorphosed into the churlish and splenetic husband? Not because the object of his passion becomes less [348] amiable or desirable. Why thus he spurns from him the kind assiduities of social comfort, the attentions of friendship, and the endearing solicitudes of affection? Not because his mind is incapable of enjoying these delights, but that the heart, gratified in every wish, has nothing more to hope for! The appetite palls upon a banquet of unvarying sweets: and when we repine at the fluctuations of fortune, and the little vicissitudes of the world, we are guilty of injustice towards Heaven.

M.

* The Reviewer, in confidence, imparts to the Reader a small alteration. - Substitute for the lute the forte piano, make some grains of allowance for maternal fond partiality, and you will have a just portrait of the amiable Miss Robinson, the only child of Mrs M. Robinson. [complete]

Provided by Julie A. Shaffer, January 2000