the plate of his guest the bones of an ortolan after he had feasted on its flesh. We will suppose, then, each tale to be as well before our readers as ourselves; and instead of describing an object which must be the same to us both, let us exchange our opinions of its merits; for opinions may differ with a difference not undeserving of discussion.

in reading a story, the majority of readers begin at the beginning. In an analysis, however, of its beauties or defects, we hold that it is best to begin at the end. Every good story has an object; and its relative excellence is measured by the fitness of its matter and its manner to accomplish the design of its contrivance. We do not here speak of the moral of the tale, but of the purely literary purpose of its plot. What is this purpose in the story before us, The Young Italian?" Is it to explain the singular effect of the portrait of the murdered Filippo-the fundamental incident of the first of the three stories we have mentioned; or the strange distress of the mysterious Ottavio-the prominent object in the second; or the motives of the murder of the traitor friend-the catastrophe and termination of the third? We think that all this should successively be done, for each is professedly attempted. Mr. Irving has, with great propriety, in these three stories reversed in the narration the order of the events. We must, therefore, begin with the end of the first.

In justifying (so to speak) the peculiar effect of the portrait, the author has displayed the greatest address. The improbability that a mere picture should exercise such a strange and dismal influence upon the mind of a reasonable man, is completely removed by the artful combinations of circumstances, by which the spectator is surrounded. First, the ancient rookhaunted mansion, the violent storm and the ghost stories, must have predisposed the nervous gentleman to feel the full effect of those impressions which bewilder an excitable imagination. Then, the wine and the wassail of his host, the indigested supper, the spacious room and old fashioned furniture, the constrained position on the arm chair, the night-mare, the great winding sheet in the taper, and the strong light thrown upon the picture as the sleeper suddenly awakes, are admirably managed. With all these appliances and means to boot,' it is perfectly natural that the picture of the blood-stained features of the man just murdered, painted by an exquisite artist, who had exerted all his skill to produce a strong resemblance, it is perfectly in nature, we repeat, that the nerves of a hypochondriac should be violently agitated at the sight. Then the 'pitch darkness and howling storm without,' the fitful gleaming Vol. II. No. I.

of the light, the suspicions that this was the mysterious chamber; the gradual going out of the fire, and many other little circumstances neediess to enumerate, but all of them combining to concentrate the effect, justify abundantly the remainder of the narrative. Yet foreseeing that the story, with all these enforcements and proprieties, could scarcely excite any very strong emotion in the reader; the author has contrived to introduce precisely such a quantity of cheerfuller and livelier imagery, that no part of the story awakens any sentiment not perfectly in concord with the rest. These remarks will appear no doubt to many, needlessly minute; and so indeed they would be, if they were intended to apply exclusively to the story whose structure we are canvassing. But the same ob. servations may be made of most (though not of all) the tales contained in these four volumes; and we think that, independently of the main incident, the success of a story, nay, even of the tragic and epic fable, depends upon the due subordination of the parts to the catastrophe.

There is one passage in this story which offends us. It is the part which describes the vehement and angry asseverations of the nervous gentleman, that he is perfectly cool, calm, and collected. It is a rule, we believe, in description, to avoid as much as possible dilating upon common places. Whenever it is necessary to allude to them, it always can be done, incidentally or indirectly.

In the second of these three stories, there is very little incident. The description of the deep and settled anguish of the stranger is very well sustained. Inexplicable melancholy is a very usual resource with the seachers after interesting fictions, but the grand sources of interest are so limited by nature, that it would be unjust to insist upon novelty of matter, when novelty of manner is exhibited. The most striking peculiarity in the conduct of Ottavio is thus described by the teller of the story.

"In spite of every effort to fix his attention on the conversation of his companions, I noticed that every now and then he would turn his head slowly round, give a glance over his shoulder, and then withdraw it with a sudden jerk, as if something painful had met his eye. This was repeated at intervals of about a minute; and he appeared hardly to have got over one shock before I saw him slowly preparing to encounter another. p. 94.

I remarked him glancing behind him in the same way, just as he passed out of the door." p. ead.

In the Piazzetta, he

"noticed this same singular, and as it were, furtive glance over his shoulder, that had attracted his attention at the Cassino." p. 95. In a gallery of paintings

1

"still would recur that cautious glance behind, and always quickly withdrawn, as though something terrible had met his view. p. 96.

At the theatre, at balls, at concerts, every where in short, there takes place "that strange and recurrent movement, of glancing fearfully over the shoulder."

All this with the rest of this young stranger's deportment, is no doubt well calculated to excite the reader's curiosity, but this is the easiest stratagem in story-telling. The 'rub,' is to fulfil the expectations you have thus purposely excited. The young unknown finally consigns in the hands of his friend a sealed pacquet containing the particulars of his story. He then takes his departure, and is never more heard of. This pacquet is to unfold the mystery of the backward glance, and the terrifying picture. The tale of the young Italian is beautifully told, and the incidents devised with more than usual felicity. A nervous system of excessive sensibility is alternatively indulged and provoked into absolute disease. He is sent to a convent situated in a gloomy gorge of those mountains away south of Vesuvius.' His morbid fancy is here fed by monastic superstitions, and he is taught painting by a man who was skilful in portraying the human face in the agonies of death. He is permitted to visit his father; and his feelings, when escaped from the gloomy darkness of his person into the sweetnesses and brightnesses of life, are described with admirable truth. He flees from the convent, and seeks his father's palace; quarrels with him, and abandons the paternal roof. All these events must tend to keep alive and exasperate his peculiar sensibilities. In such a temperament the sentiment of love must be extravagantly violent. All the faculties of sense and soul must be swept into the current of this impetuous delirium of passion, and the object of the lover's worship will govern every thought, every sentiment, every purpose, and every association. Nothing can be more natural than the suffering which the contest between passionate affection, exquisite delicacy, generous pride, and unconquerable honour, is calculated to produce in a mind of such acute susceptibilities; and nothing surely can so deeply agitate and painfully interest a woman, as the sight of the external evidences of the struggle, when she sees the intensity and vehemence of the emotions of her lover, without being admitted to a knowledge of their causes. Bianca's fond and enthusiastic expectation that the obstacles which opposed her lover's hopes, would one day be removed by his attainment of the brightest glories which are given to the masters of the art, is conceived and described with great beauty and effect. There is a strong and pertina

cious partiality in woman, that loves to lend to its venerated ob ject the perfections and the prospects of supernatural intelligence; and nothing can be truer to the character of love than Bianca's firm conviction, that Ottavio was fitted and even des tined to become the favourite of kings and the pride and boast. of nations. The effect of the succeeding incidents upon the conduct of Ottavio, is perfectly in character. His mingled feelings on hearing of the illuess of his father, his parting with his mistress, the conflict between the affection of the son and the impatience of the lover, his intense anxiety and eagerness in returning to Bianca, the painful thrillings of his frame and the fearful workings of his fancy, as he approached the pavilion, are all so many circumstances, the natural effects of what precedes, and the natural causes of what follows. The catastrophe is compelled by the motives, and this is the true test and evidence of the possession of the powers of invention. Nothing but unquestionable talent is capable of disposing with given agents, given circumstances, and given objects, the rest of the materials of story, with such justness and exactness, that the issue must result from the action of the motives on the passions of the agents. It is always so in nature; the last act of a drama in real life, is (in the language of mathematics) the function of the circumstances; but the poet has very seldom the opportunity to copy an entire scene from nature, for the truth of the picturing is only a small part of the properties of the ideal beautiful.' The action must be stripped of what is useless or obtrusive, and invested with the attributes of interest and value. The means and the purposes must authorize each other, and this arrangement is the work of inspiration alone. The ungifted may attempt it, and display the most admirable skill in their contrivances; but the work of their hands, like the manufactured man of the modern Prometheus,' will be but a melancholy mass of unsuccessful ingenuity; while he who possesses the genuine fire of heaven, forms his beautiful creations without art, and without labour, and almost without effort. All the parts of a perfect picture with their relations, their harmonies and their dependences, can only be discerned by the coup d'œil of genius. The fictions of the legitimate inventor are neither contrived nor elaborated, but conceived and imagined; or rather, to borrow from the German a word which finely expresses the effortless activity of creative imagination, they are gedichtet, by a faculty whose springs and modes of action are too mysterious for philosophy to detect, or for any other power of the mind to supersede. But we must return to our author.

Is the mysterious and unsoothable melancholy of the young Italian perfectly explained by his story? We confess we hardly think it is. There was much in the circumstances of the case to extenuate, and almost to justify his violence. Filippo had been guilty of the grossest violation of the most sacred obligations. The crime he had committed was perhaps the greatest which one man can commit against another. He had basely and fraudulently robbed, of an inestimable treasure, the man who depended on his friendship for its safety and security. Surely, it is in nature to be consoled, amid the sorrows of repentence, with the reflection of the enormity of the outrage which drove us to the commission of the crime. It is true, all the early education of Ottavio had rendered him morbidly alive to every impression, and a venial offence would be followed, in such a being, by the deepest regrets. But the victim of feelings so acute, would also exaggerate and dwell upon the provocation he had received, and the embittered recollection of his wrongs would soften very much the anguish of remorse. Might not the exquisite sufferings of Ottavio have been better accounted for, if Filippo had been made innocent of treachery? This might easily have been done, by so disposing of his friend, that there might be just ground for Filippo to believe in his death. The dreadful reflections that result from the discovery that the victim of revenge is guiltless of the crime that was imputed to him, are as bitter as the keenest remorse, and when added to the anguish of penitence, must almost realise the torments inflicted by the fabled Eumenides. Whether the timorous glancing over the shoulder is one of the effects of the guilty and agitated conscience of a murderer, we are utterly unable to determine; not being able, by the most vigorous efforts of our fancy, to comprehend the sufferings of the penitent assassin. We presume the incident is borrowed from the confessions of some actual criminal; for we do not see how, a priori, this symptom of remorse could well have been anticipated.

The second part of the Tales of a Traveller contains no serious story; but we are presented in the third, with one of deep and fearful interest. The Story of the Young Robber is to the tale of the Bandit Chieftain, what that of the Young Italian is to the Mysterious Stranger. The young brigand is introduced to the notice of the reader very much as Ottavio is brought forward. But there is a specific difference in the exhibition of their remorseful feelings, precisely such as is called for by their characters. The sufferings of the former are the stern self-condemnations of a strong and stubborn spirit; the sorrows of the latter are the sharp and keen regrets of a