ATTILA.
Mn. Jeates's novels resemble those pictures by the painters of our own day courteously styled " historical," in which costumes and accessories, sumptuously picturesque, are delineated with minute elaboration and the utmost splendour of colour and effect ; the actors in the scene being as insipid and unreal, and bearing as little resemblance to the actual personages, as the individuals forming a tableau at a fancy dress ball. The heroines are depicted with all the charms lavished on easel creations of beauty ; and the landscape glows with the gorgeous hues of TURNER'S pencil. In the present instance, Mr. FORREST, the American actor, might have sate for the portrait of Attila; and the dandy savage, whose colossal lineaments represent the Sara- cen's Head on Snow Hill, may pass for a pictorial type of the barbarian conqueror in his blander mood. The praise of research, ingenuity, and a flow of elegant de- scription, it is almost superfluous at this time to award to
Mr. JAMES we only regret that he should have chosen so for- midable a person as Attila for the hero of a love story, that would have been more interesting, and quite as picturesque, if it had been less intimately mingled up with the fall of the Roman power. When the destruction of an empire and the devastation of a continent are made the background of a love-scene, the cha- racters and sentiment had need be exalted indeed to prevent a sense of the ridiculous interfering to destroy the effect of the pathos.
The story, which by the aid of diffuse descriptions and high- flown dialogue, is spun out to the publisher's measure of three volumes, is briefly this. Theodore, a noble young Roman, loves Ildica, the daughter of a Roman matron ; and in attempting to rescue his mistress and her family from the barbarians, is himself also taken prisoner, his life being saved by the personal inter- vention of Attila. He becomes the friend and compelled com- panion of the King of the Huns; and in the course of his hon- ourable captivity attracts the regard of Neva, the niece of Attila, who saves Theodore from the treachery of her father, and becomes the friend and confidante of her rival Ildica. Attila is enamoured of Ildica, and sends Theodore on a mission, which he intends shall prove a total one ; taking advantage of the absence and supposed death of her lover to woo the lady. She affects to consent, and submits to be married ; but on the wedding-night stabs the royal bridegroom. Theodore opportunely returns unhurt, just at the very moment the deed is discovered : but he goes without a wife, after all ; for the two ladies enter a nunnery, Ildica to atone for her crime, and Neva to forget her disappoint- ment.
Theodore is one of those" faultless monsters" whom ladieslove to contemplate in the flattering glass of romance ; and his two inamoratas are of that self-denying class which abound in fictitious histories more than in common life. We confess we should have liked Ildica better had she, as she very fairly might, set off Attila's treachery against her murderous act, and made herself and her lover happy, as ordinary people would have done; but, failing that, we think poor Neva ought to have reaped the benefit. Really, we were not aware that we had taken such an interest in the fate of the dramatis personae.
The scenic descriptions are generally too much broken up by dialogue, and scattered over too wide a space, to be readily quotable. Here is one, however, more complete, to serve by way of specimen.
THE FEAST OF ATTILA.
Splendour and feasting reigned in the halls of Attila. Round the immense ball of his cottage-palace were spread tables on every side ; and the wooden walls, quaintly carved and ornamented, were further decorated for the festal day by large green boughs turn from the fir, the laurel, and the ilex. These, gathered together iu a knot, with cords of woven rushes, were fixed against the panuels as high up as the arm of a man could reach ; and, bending over like a plume of feathers, each nodded above some trophy of barbarian arms,—the shield, the bow, the spear, the corslet, which, tastefully grouped together, hong, not without poetic meaning, iu the midst of the evergreens. Above all, waved a thousand banners, and between the trophies enormous torches shed a light redder than that of day, but scarcely less bright than noun. Below, six lung tables were covered with an immense mass of gold and silver. Cups, vases, bekers of every form and shape, glittered on those boards; while round about, seated at easy distances, appeared all those bold and ruthless chiefs who, under the command of a greater mind, led on the myriads of Attila to battle. There might be seen every garb, from the furs of the ex- treme North to the silks and linen of the far East; and there, upon the per- Ms of those daring leaders, blazed gems and precious stones of which the vo- luptuous monarchs of Persia and of India might have been envious. There, too, were all faces, forms, and complexions, from the smalheyed Tartar of re- mote Thibet, to the fair-haired Northman and the blue.eyed Guth. There were the spleudid features of the Georgian and Circassian hordes; the beauti- ful Maui, who brought a race of loveliness from the side of the Caurasus and the shores of the Caspian, and the hard-featured Hun, or tire frightful °rigour, glittering with jewels and precious stones, above the unwashed filth of his native barbarism.
All was splendour and pomp: cushions, of which luxurious Rome itself might have been proud, coveted with clammier and lined with down, were spread over the seats, and supported the arms of the guests; and the bright gleam of the torches was Hashed back on every side from some precious or some glittering object.
In the middle of the side opposite to the windows was placed a small wooden table, bearing a single dish, harmed of oak, and a cup of wild bull's horn ; a dagger, that served for a knife, lay beside the dish, and a drawn sword of mammas weight stretched across the table. That table, with a seat of plain unadorned white wood, was placed for the use of the lord of all those around; and there he sat, the plain dark Hun, covered with no jewels, robed in no splendour, clad in the simple habit of the Scythian shepherds, but with inure of the monarch in his looks than genus or diadems could have given, and with the consciousness of indisputable power sitting mewl upon his towering brow. What were rubies or diadems to Attila? They were parcels of the dust on which he trod.
At the tables on either hand sat Arderie, King of the Gepidm, "Valaniir, King of the Ostrogoths, Onegisus, Mac, Erhicon, alaximin, Priscus, Theodore; and at tables further oil' were placed Constantius, the Latin secretary of and Vigilius, the interpreter of Alaximin's embassy. Many another king and mane another chief was there ; and nearly five hundred guests,
almost all leaders of different nations, showed, by their different feat no vs and ti.eir dilletialt garbs, the extent of Attila'a dinniutou. In the saute hall arse,
were collected the ambassadors from several distant countries, and there appeared humble envoys from Valentinian, Emperor of the West, as well as Maximin, whose coming from the Eastern empire we have already noticed.
Viands in profusion were placed upon the table, sad delicacies of every kind gratified the palate of the most luxurious: rich wines of many a varied sort circled in abundance; and barbaric music, wild, but not inharmonious, floated through the hall, mingling with, but not interrupting, the conversation of the guests. A multitude of slaves served the banquet with rapidity and c ire: sad no one had cause to say that, in the hospitality of Attila, he had been at all neglected.
At length an elevated seat was placed in the midst of the hall ; and an old but venerable maim, with long white hair and snowy beard, slowly ascended and took his place thereon, while an attendant banded him up a small rude harp. In a moment all the Huns were silent, while, with careful hand and bent down ear, he put some of the strings of his instrument into better tune. The next moment, he looked up for a single instant, with the natural glance turned to.. wards the sky which almost every one uses when seeking for elevated words and thoughts ; and then, running his hand over the strings, he produced a wild and somewhat monotonous sound, to which he joined a rich deep voice, a little touched, perhaps, but scarcely impaired by age. It was more a chant than a song ; but every now and then the plain recitation ceased, and he burst forth into a strain of sweet, of solemn, or of majestic melody, as the subject of which he sang required.
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