MR. JAMES'S BOOK OF THE PASSIONS.
IN its quality, literary, artistica], and bibliopolic, this book is of the nature of an Annual, though it does not bear the name. The paper is of the texture, the margins are of the amplitude, and the gree and gold binding is of the spangle splendour which distinguish those ephemera: the plates, illustrating nothing, and not illustrated, might be taken from their present position and placed anywhere else without loss, and without gain : whilst the " letterpress" u hich accompanies them, if raised above Annual literature by the extension of its subjects and the ambition of its aim, falls below seme of it by its want of pleasantness and of zeal in the work. The Book of the Passions appears to be a joint stock speculation, to which the engraver contributes his stray plates, and the author, if not the sweepings of his study, the first ideas that come to hand.
The tales of the Passions are sie in number, designed to illustrate Remorse, Jealousy, Revenge, Love, Despair, and Hatred. The scene of the first story is laid in Germany : the Remorse which embitters life arises from the accidental death of a brother in a quarrel which the brother originated : the Jealousy is that of an Italian woman, who has the sister of her husband assassinated, thinking her his mistress, and her lord stabs himself upon the body : the Revenge is that of an English natural son, who plot i a diabolical series of schemes against a man who he thinks has broken off his marriage by telling the stigma of his birth, but being detected, blows his brains out : the Love is an historical tale —the scene Navarre—the hero and heroine Blanche of Navarre and Francis of Foix—the object, the conversion to virtue of a libertine of chivalry by means of virtuous affection. In these stories the incidents are improbable ; and the characters of a very exaggerated and melodramatic kind. But in the vicious disposition of the English victim of Despair, who takes up his residence
amongst the bills of Tyrol, the bombast et Bajazet is distanced— however, he was an Atheist, which, says Mr. J AMES, "reveals all."
Hatred carries us to Spain ; and, us a fitting climax to the other tales, the hatred of Don Juan de Sylva is the most motiveless and demoniacal passion of all these illustrations of the Passions.
When any work either of literature or art deviates from universal nature, or front those general modifications of it which pass under the name of temporary manners or modes, nothing can redeem it but skill in the design and pains in the execution, coupled with some originality. It is a harsh duty, but it is a duty, to say that
neither of these qualities can be found in the volume before us. Even as a matter of mere style, the tales have little merit : when they are level they are flat, when the author would rise he writes in this strain—
Winter is upon my brow and in my heart—the dark, the sombre, the hopeless winter of age; with no bright spring to gladden the straining eye of expectation, no warmer season, no flowery hours, beyond ! Winter is upon my brow and in my heart—the stern, cold, sorrowful winter of age; but out the winter as it comes to some, after a long and sumhiny life of joy treading upon kr), and of one pleasant cup drained after another till the sated and the weary spirit sees the hour of rest approaching with the calm, glad hope of peaceful slumber, destined to end in another day as bright, as full of glory and enjoyment ! Time, that has blanched the hair and dimmed the eye ; Time, that has bent the powerful frame and relaxed the vigorous sinew ; Time, that obliterates so many things from the tablete of meinoiy—is it Time that has blotted out the Joys, the hopes, the feelings, that were once bright and clear in this strong heart? is it Time that has rendered the past a fearful chaos of dark remembrance% the future a vision of terrible apprehensions ?
Alas, no ! Time has broken down the strength of limb, blanched the jetty locks that curled around my brow in youth, dimmed the bright eye that gazed unshielded on the sun, made the hand tremble and the bead to bow ; all the slow ruin that he works on man, Time has wrought on me; but he has refused me all those blessings which soften and alleviate the destructive power of his calm, deliberate hand, lie has taken away no dark memory of the past, he Las assuaged no pang, he has relieved me of no burden, he has removed no regret, he had given no hope, he has withheld even the consolation of decay, be Las denied me death itself. Lingering onward beyond the allotted space of man, I seem still approaching to an end that is nut reached ; and, as if the agonies of the heart had hardened into marble the external frame, the ruin of these fleshy limbs marches with the same slow progress which marks the decay of the dark and gloomy arches amidst which I dwell. j The frontispiece of the volume,a fashionable beauty by ALFRED CHALON, and the vignette in the title by EDWARD Coetioutnrepresenting a dandy hero checking with one hand the career of a horse pawing the air like the rampant unicorn that guards the Queen's arms, and with the other encircling the waist ofa die-away damsel who seems nothing loth—may be taken as a fair sample of the " illustrations; " which consist of melodramatic scenes, and " beauties" in fancy-ball dresses. The designs would have enraptured the readers of the Novelist's Magazine; and the faces are of the approved models, and judiciously contrived so that their insipidity shall not divert the eye from its complacent regard of the finery of the dresses and furniture. EDWARD CORBOULD is in the
" chivalrous" line ; and he is worthy to paint the apotheosis of
DUCROW—even his horses look as if they were acting. Messrs. Jamtirrs and MitAnosvs deal in domestic pathos ; the climax of which is attained in the picture of a gentleman in ful dress, save his dressing-gown, seated with upturned eyes in the attitude of " Milton composing Paradise Lost," preliminary to blowing out his brains : the pistol in the act of falling from his hand as his wife interrupts his proceeding, is a happy stroke of art, certainly, The style of the pictures is in perfect keeping with the descrip. tions : the artists belong to the class of "ornamental painters," and rank with PARRIS, PERRINO, and others of that stamp.
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