ANNETTE..

APART from any merit in the tale of Annette itself, this publica- tion would possess considerable interest from its prefatory matter; displaying as it does so much of kindliness on the part of the late Sir Walter Scott and the present Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd. The late William Frederick Deacon, the author of Annette was a junior schoolfellow of the Judge ; and, with no other claim than his having been often assisted in his exercises by Talfourd, the acquaintance was renewed in after life, and steadily continued on the part of the successful advocate till Deacon's death in 1845; as the friendship of the Judge now shows itself in the kindly and graceful memoir prefixed to the noveL Upon Scott, Deacon had no claim at all, nor any ground for addressing him beyond that of being a young literary aspirant. Yet, in spite of the many de- mands upon his time, Scott entered fully into the subject put upon him, and with an earnest attention far beyond -what courtesy or common good feeling demanded. Ile seemed unwilling, indeed, to recommend the specimens to Blackwood's Magazine ; and his criti- cism was perhaps more guarded than Deacon's abilities justified, and certainly than was usual with Scott : but this extract will indicate how thoroughly he went into the case. "What you mention frankly of your irregularities at college implies, I sincerely hope, the intention of repressing all tendency to such eccentrici- ties in future. Take my advice, and carry your self-control a little further. Reconcile yourself with your father and subdue your inclinations to his. Your road to literary distinction will be as easy from the counting-house as from a Welsh valley, for the world does not ask where but what a man • Annette; a Tale. By William Frederick Deacon. With a Memoir of the Author, by the Honourable Sir T. N. Talfourd, D.C.L. In three volumes. Published by Colburn and Co. writes. You will acquire a steady income, and in all probability an honour- able independence ; and when your head is gray, you may lay it on a pillow made soft by your own industry, and by the recollection that you have dis- charged the duty of a son, by the sacrifice of a predominant taste to the will of your parent. If I thought my own interference could be likely to be of use, I have so much regard for your situation as a young gentleman of ta- lents who seems too much dispelled to give way to a generous but irregular love of literature, and so much for that of your father, whose feelings I can judge of by making his case my own, that if you choose to give me a direc- tion and your permission, I would take the liberty to write to your father and try to make up matters betwixt you, an intrusion which my years and situation might perhaps induce him to excuse. "Perhaps, Sir, y may have exceeded the limits of the sphere to which you meant me to limit my opinion in offering it upon these points ; but you must hold the intent, which is most sincerely kind, as an excuse."

It must have been gratifying to Scott to learn, as he soon did, that his advice was followed, and that a reconciliation took place between father and son. The main source of the difference was owing to young Deacon's aversion to enter the church, for which his father, at some pecuniary inconvenience, had designed him. The name of Deacon is not much known to the world, though his productions were frequently before it, and had a certain degree of success. Soon after he quitted Cambridge and came to London, Hone published for him a poem called Ilacho, which yielded "an available surplus." In 1820, when hardly beyond his nonage, he projected and almost entirely supported The Djeiine, a weekly journal yet remembered by its readers, the idea of which might have been suggested by Leigh Hunt's Indicator, but which was a remarkable undertaking for a youth just out of his teens. He contributed a good deal to Gold and Northouse's London Maga- zine; an imitation, so far as title was concerned, of the able but ill-fated London. In 1822, he published a volume of sketches of the manners and scenery of Wales called The Innkeeper's Album; and continued occasionally to produce works of light literature till nearly the close of his life. He also contributed to Blackwood. But his main source of income was his connexion with the San newspaper, as the contributor of its literary criticism; which "gave him a substantial provision" till his death. We have indicated the literary events in Mr. Deacon's career. The personal incidents are few, and not extraordinary, beyond his undertaking, like young Primrose in the Vicar of Wakefield, the office of usher in a school, when the death of his grandmother, who had allowed him 100L a year, left him for a time without resources. The little there is to tell is told by Justice Talfaard with quiet spirit, and much amiability; the now .almost traditional minor facts of literary history, which he runs over from living observa- tion, not books, giving an additional interest to his narrative. Sir Thomas is also sensible as well as kindly in his judgments ; avoiding the exaggeration and claptrap hi which many with less experience and knowledge of life would have been tempted to in- dulge. Witness his remarks on a subject continually mooted, and of late somewhat pressed upon the public—literature as a profes- sion.

"Although Mr. Deacon's talents, thus devoted solely to literature, were not rewarded by affluence, I do not think his history can be quoted as an example of the justice of those large and general warnings which have often been put forth against its adoption as a means of subsistence. Having re- gard to his delicate health and excitable temperament, I doubt whether he would have attained greater honour or enjoyed more happiness, or left his family in better fortune, if he had taken any other path of life. Constant confinement to the labours of the desk would have probably led to an earlier development of the seeds of disease ; and shut from the Church by an honest consciousness that he had no mission for her holy offices, without stamina for the labours of the bar, or nerve for the study and practice of medicine, he could scarcely have obtained so comfortable a livelihood by any other course. He lived for many years in a pleasant cottage in Malvern Terrace, Islington, in the unobtrusive enjoyment of independence produced by honourable la- bour; and although some three weeks' visit with his wife and children to the sea-side in the autumn, was the only holyday in which he indulged, he enjoyed it with great relish.

Reviewing his course, I venture to suggest that lamentations over the miseries of a literary life, though often individually true in regard to the persons who make them, and wisely anticipated by Sir Walter Scott in the circumstances submitted to him, are not just in general application. They are often produced by one of two causes : the peculiar temptations which the bright aspects of literature hold out to persons wholly destitute of requisite taste to embrace it ; and the selfish improvidence of others, who lay on lite- rature the blame of indiscretion, which would have produced equal calamity in any other department of society, without the same means of awakening BYTTthf. •

• • heir difficulties are not peculiar to the author's calling, and would have awaited them in any other. If a man in any department of life spends more than he earns, he must soon be immersed in embarrassment ; and if he spends all that he earns, and dies in the prime of life, he must leave his fa- mily. destitute ; these are not the incidents of literature, but belong equally to all who have to carve out their own fortunes. It is a hard thing, even for a prudent man, who marries without fortune, and attains a moderate in- come by successful industry, to make any provision for his family, unless he is spared to be old ; and the children of a literary man, who is stricken in the midst of life, only share a common lot. In one respect, men who, even without the highest genius, pursue the work of literature with industry and honour, have a just advantage over labourers in other professions when mis- fortune overtakes them, that they have a claim on the society which their works have gladdened or instructed, like that which belongs to personal friendship. I do not, therefore, think that my lively schoolfellow made a bad choice when he devoted himself to the press, or that his efforts were ill- requited by fortune. If his health had been stronger, I believe he would, even at the age when he died, have acquired a fair provision for his widow and children. What he could do he did—he provided for their comfort while able to work, and conscientiously abstained from touching a little fund which would have contributed to his ease. A legacy of a few hundred pounds in the Funds, which fell to Mr. Deacon some years before his death, and which he might have applied in obtaining repose and change of scene, he scrupu- lously maintained entire ; and very slender as it was as a provision, the sense that he was about to leave it unbroken, with the hope that the work now submitted to the world would increase it, consoled him in his last ill- ness." Annette, this work which cheered the deathbed of its author, ex- hibits the qualities that might have been expected from the nar- rative of his life. There is a thorough knowledge of the age and country in which the scene is laid—France during the time of the Revolution ; and that knowledge does not merely extend to broad facts, but to minute and living particulars, although it does not ap- pear that the author was ever inZaVendee. The main tale is simple and compact, marching uninterruptedly from the beginning to the end; and an episode, whose commencement dates from a previous epoch, is appropriate and well connected with the principal story. The characters are distinctly and justly conceived, both meta- physically and as regards the influence of French manners on general nature. The style is remarkably clear and pleasant, especially in description. The drawback to Annette is that the book seems the production of a critic or essayist rather than a novelist. The conceptions are generally true; the expositional parts, whether descriptive or historical, equal those of the best writers of fiction; and in scenes of action or emotion the writer is able to sustain the interest, though he has a tendency to exaggeration. But there is a want of vivid dramatic power. As long as the external obser- vation of the author suffices, everything is of a superior kind ; but when he is to sink himself and embody the dramatis personce in discourse and action, a weakness is visible, especially in the more level parts, for where there is inherent strength in the situation Mr. Deacon can partially uphold it.

The heroine, Annette, is the daughter of a merchant at Nantes; the hero, Alphonse de Chatillon is the son of a Seigneur of La Vendee,—an honourable, kind-hearted, worthy man, but full of the prejudices of the old noblesse. The.end of the tale is of course the marriage, in spite of the prejudices of the old Marquis ; in which his son is by no means a partaker, having had for his tutor a favourer of the new opinions, with the learning and liberality of the philosophers but without their vices. It is a defect of the story, traceable to the want of dramatic genius in the author, that the difficulty rather delays than opposes the marriage by any de- finite obstacles raised either by father or rivals. In fact, the tale, though not interrupted, is continually suspended, by the revolu- tion in Paris and the war in La Vendee. To exhibit these, indeed, seems a prominent object of the work ; the public events consti- tuting too much of what should be the action of the story.

The history, however, is very critically understood and exhibited.. De Sevrae, the courtier who introduces Alphonse to Paris and the Royal Family, is a fine abstract personification of the French in- tellectual man of thoworld,—gay, brave, polished, witty, but selfish under all. Servette, the tutor of Alphonse is a' still more skilful embodiment of the learned, 'virtuous, enthusiastic bookworm and optimist; content with his own obscurity if he can. witness the triumph of his ideas ; winking at mob violence which he has been led to believe necessary; and ascending the scaffold boldly at last, as did so many of the Girondists. Charrette the Vendean chief, is also a capital example of the calm, imperturbable commander, whose sense of duty and some want of feeling render indifferent to every- thing but his objects.

The connexion of Alphonse with Servette introduces him, not- withstanding his loyalty, to the house of Roland. At one of Ma- dame's soirees, he sees Robespierre among the other notabilities ; a character somewhat hardly drawn.

" Barbaroux was about making a reply to these disparaging remarks on Camille Desmonlins, when a gentleman entered the salon, and, walking straight up to Roland, addressed him in such a deferential and obsequious manner as induced Alphonse to regard him with more than ordinary atten- tion. He was rather short of stature, of a slender make, and a livid and bilious complexion; his eyes, which at times wore a singular expression of distrust and fear, were dull and sunk in their sockets, and there was a con- stant blinking of the lids, arising apparently from some nervous affection. His dress was smart and even foppish. He wore a large frill, plaited with extreme neatness, a light blue embroidered waistcoat, and a showy well-fit- ting coat, in which not a wrinkle was to be seen. His hair was dressed in the most careful style, and he had several costly rings on his fingers, which he took care to exhibit while tapping a massive gold snuffbox, which was seldom out of his hands. In his address he was stiff and embarrassed, re- served of speech, and when speaking to Roland studiously avoided looking him in the face.

"Struck with the stranger's manner, and not less so by his dress, which was -wholly, at variance with the taste of the day, De Chatillon inquired of Servette who he was and was answered—' His name is Robespierre, and he is just now patronized by our host, who, though he thinks him much too violent in his opinions, has a great notion of his integrity. He was first brought under Roland's notice by a clever juvenile essay, which he wrote in 1785, against the punishment of death, and which gained the prize awarded by the Royal Society of Metz. At present he is one of the principal orators at the Jacobin Club ; but his position is a precarious one however flattering to his vanity; and hence, while avowing himself a zealous Democrat, he takes care to conciliate Roland, and through him the Girondiste; so that, in case of need, he may have useful friends at his elbow. I cannot bring my- self to like him, for I suspect that he is playing a deeper game than people are aware of. Mark him now, while talking to Madame : see how he casts his eyes on the ground whenever she looks steadily at him.' "

Through the influence of his friend Sevrao, Alphonse is the per- son selected to escort the Queen on the night of the celebrated flight of the Royal Family. When, they are intercepted and brought back, Alphonse is present at their return to Paris ; which produces a scene, and gives rise to an argument in the form of dialogue.

"Be Chatillon, chorine in the general fever, joined the immense crowd that thronged the grand entrance to the Tuileries, and was listening with mingled scorn and indignation to the coarse abuse lavished on the Queen by two working-men near him, when a squadron of the National Guard came riding along with intelligence that the ring had reached the Champs Elysees, and might be momentarily expected. Forthwith, a deep, stern, ominous silence prevailed among the mighty multitude, affecting Alphonse with far deeper sadness than the wildest uproar would have caused. While he stood musing on this marked indication of a settled purpose in men's minds, an- other troop of the Guard approached, and presently Lafayette, followed by his ataff, drew up in front of the palace. ,a:carcely had he done so, when the cavalcade came in sight, advancing at a walking pace, and was received by the populace with their hats on, and with a gloomy silence as of the grave. "With considerable difficulty Alphonse contrived to elbow his way through the dense crowd, close to the gates of the Tuileries, so that when the royal carriage stopped, he was able to obtain a clear view—the windows being down in consequence of the excessive heat—of the illustrious party. The King maintained his usual dull look of apathy; but there was an expression of anguish and even despair in the countenance of the Queen that went to the young man's heart. As she hurriedly descended the steps of the coach, her eye caught his, and ree.ognizing in him the assistant in her escape from the Tuileries, she testified her sense of his presence by a courteous Inclina- tion of the head, which he returned with a bow of the profoundest reverence.

"Some fiery sans-culottes who had observed this action and who seemed ,

impatient of the long restraint which, in compliance with action, orders, they had put upon their feelings, seized this opportunity of giving vent to their Patriotic wrath.

"'Down with the nista:rat!' cried a ruffian, who stood behind Alphonse. " ' He is a spy of the Austrian Committee !' exclaimed another. saw him make a sign to the Queen. Down with him !' and he grasped De Cha- tillon by the collar.

"'Yes,' replied the high-spirited young. Royalist, you did see me make a sign to her Majesty ; but it was merely m token of my respect and sym- pathy for her misfortunes • and where is the true Frenchman who would not have done the same Hands off, fellow!' and he raised his arm to strike his aggressor to the earth. "Down -with him !—the spy—the aristocrat I' cried a hundred hoarse ' voices, and, at the words, such a rush was made at Alphonse, that, excited as the mob were about him, and communicating the infection of their ex- ample to those at a more remote distance, he would infallibly have been torn limb from limb, had not the guards who were posted at the palace-gates in- terfered to restore order.

"By their aid, De Chatlllon was at length rescued from his perilous posi- tion, and a space being cleared for him he lost no timein making his escape; and had got as far as the Carousel, when he overtook Servette, who, like himself had mingled among the crowd, and was now on his return to the Rue St. Jacques.

"As the two friends walked on together, Alphonse mentioned to his com- panion the brutal treatment he had experienced from the canaille adding, with warmth, And these are the people whom you and your party repre- sent as being fit to receive liberty in its purest form! I really um astonished, Monsieur Servette, how, with those refined notions of justice and freedom which you have so often endeavoured to instil into my mind you can dream of espousing the cause of such a herd of immitigable ruffians. "'Alphonse,' replied Servette, I do not espouse the cause of ruffians ; but I can make allowances for excited passions,- especially when they are played on by designing demagogues for their own selfish purposes. You. s.houkt not blame, but pity these poor thoughtless wretches ; for, believe me, they are mere tools. In you, and such as you, they have been artfully taught to recognize an incarnation of despotism ; hence, in attacking you they imagine that they are attacking an evilprinciple. It is from sheer igno- rance that they offend, not from any inherent brutality.' " And is their ignorance, then, to be held as justifying. their brutality ? ' " am far from saying that popular excesses are to be justified; but I do again repeat, that in this instance, they admit of palliation. If the mob now exhibit the ferocity of half-emancipated serfs, such ruthless conduct is the inevitable result of the tyranny that has enslaved them for ages. Blame then the Court and its eenfeclerate aristocracy, not the miserable victims of. their oppression. Why are the lower dames an happy and contented in La Vendee? Because they live—and have lived for years—under the sway of beneficent Seigneurs. Do you suppose hnmannature is different there from what it is in other parts of France ? No; like causes produce like effects all the world over."