• IN THE OLDEN TIME.* WE regret to have anything
but praise to bestow upon so charming a writer as the author of Mademoiselle Mori and The Atelier du Lys, but we hope that she will look upon our blame as the very opposite of that faint praise which is condemnation, when we say that what we chiefly complain of as to her last story, is that she has chosen a subject which does not suit her genius,—or rather, that other subjects suit it so very much better, that it seems not to suit her genius. In the Olden Time is an historical romance ; and if we had not been spoilt for historical romances by Sir Walter Scott and a few others, or even if this story were not by an authoress who excelled in another branch of fiction, our criticism of it might appear hyper-criticism. The scene is laid in Germany, and the story begins during the time of the Peasant War which raged in some parts of the empire in the reign of the Emperor Charles V., in the years 1524-5—a turbid and dark period, marked by tyranny and .oppression on the part of the nobles, and by savage revenge and crime on the part of the serfs ; by rivalry between the different Courts of Austria and Germany, scheming and plotting amongst the nobles against one another, and amongst the powerful monasteries,—then more like small courts than anything else, with soldiers and money at their command, which they lent now to one of the rival princes now to another.
Through all the confusion of these public affairs runs the history of a child,—the daughter of a noble who is murdered at the instigation of his cousin, the next heir to his property in succession to the little heroine of the story, Rosilde of Burgstein, whom he makes his prisoner, and destines to be the bride of his savage young son ; and of her deliverer, a lad, the son of a freedman on the neighbouring lands of Geyer. Parallel to the history of these two—we may amost say—children, moves that of a young priest of noble birth, exiled by some jealous superior to the Ilzthal, a valley in the Thuringian Forest belonging to the Barons of Bargstein ; and of a leper—or one supposed to be a leper—who lives apart from his fellow-men in a cave above this valley. The stories of these four characters, as we have said, rims through or by the side of all the historical incidents of the book, but are too independent of them for the latter to give any very absorbing interest to the plot. The times being such as we have described them, it would require a masterhand, such as Sir Walter Scott's, so to interweave the fortunes of the hero. and heroine with the failure or success of all the political schemers, as to give intense interest to the tale. Few men, and still fewer women, are able to throw themselves successfully into other times than their own, and the power of creating real, living characters out of the actors in the stormy, warlike Middle Ages, is a very rare gift indeed. The dash and fire, the lawless aiming at the overthrow of others, the skilful and, at the same time, wary carrying-out of plot and scheme, are beyond most of us who live in this lawful and, for the most part, law-respecting.nineteenth century of ours. Again, plot should be one of the strong points of the writers of historical romances, and we do not consider that it is a strong point in the stories of this author. The dangers and difficulties through which Rosilde and Hildemund pass, are rather a series of short adventures, out of each of which they emerge safely and soon, than one continuous danger which is triumphantly overcome in the end, although the peril arising from the Graf von Lichtenberg's tyranny runs through the whole story. The re-establishing of Rosilde in her rightful rank and position—which of course is the chief purpose of the story—excites no strong feeling of interest in the reader's mind, because Resilde herself is indifferent to it, or rather, because she has cast off, in disgust, the class to which she belongs, and embraced, with all their cares and dignities, the burgher class, amongst whom she has found a good home, and in which she has centred all her affections. Now, this may be, no doubt is, the right state of mind, but it is not the one which lends interest to the righting of a great wrong, the main point of the story. The author stands too much apart from her characters, and from their mediwval life, superstitions, and class-prejudices, as few indeed could avoid doing. She writes back, as it were, from her own age to theirs, instead of being—as Sir Walter Scott, for instance, is in Quentin Durward, a tale of only a few years later date—one apparently of the time, writing of them as a contemporary might do, sympathising with all their violent loves and hates, and not putting the reader into a critical state of mind about all their old-world faults and superstitions. The authoress of In the Olden Time fails also in creating a good,. sound, hateful villain ; for though the actions of the Graf von Lichtenberg are bad enough unquestionably, and though his character is as unprincipled and unscrupulous as self-interest can make it, he does not, somehow, create in our minds the active and comfortable hatred which the true villain of a piece should do, and his downfall, therefore, is not the gratification to our love of retributive justice which it might have been.
The story shows very minute and careful study of the times and of the manners of the people, and it is unnecessary to say, in speaking of this writer, that the English and the style of expression are faultless, and that the sentiments throughout are of the highest and purest. The character of the leper is very good indeed, and his terrible struggle for resignation, to a lot so hideous, touchingly and admirably described ; the only thing we have to regret about him is the short episode in his life in. which he appears, after his return to the world, as a lover. To see him in this character jars upon our feelings a little, and spoils the striking picture of the lonely man—striving to give himself up, both body and soul—helped and encouraged, amidst the contempt and loathing of his fellow-creatures—or at best their pity and compassion—by the admiration and love of a child, and the unshrinking caressess of the hare and other wild animalsaround his cave, which he tames. Had he at once, on being restored to life and health, given himself up—as he eventually does—as an offering of thanks, to ministering to such wretched ones of his fellow-creatures who are actually what he had believed himself to be, the picture would have been complete. In Pfarrer Basil we have the most attractive character in the book, and in his life there is no discordant element. Believing ardently in the: great doctrines at the foundation of the Christian religion, his affection for the Church from which he had learnt them, the force of early training, and his modest want of confidence in himself, bind him, from first to last, to the Church of Rome, though his intellect and his sympathy with the people incline him to em brace the broader teachings of Luther, and to join the band of Reformers which is every day augmenting its ranks. His final step in joining the Brotherhood of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem, who devote themselves to ministering to the wants of lepers, and to assuaging, as much as possible, the wretchedness of their outcast lot, is characteristic of the way in which—just because, as it were, of his doubts of his Church—he subjects. himself to her severest discipline. To atone for the shrinking of his sensitive nature from the loathsome disease of leprosy, when endured by one so noble as Ulfrich von Lichtenberg, he relinquishes all the pleasures of life among his fellow-men, and.
dedicates himself to the alleviation of the leper's lot. The excessive refinement of his sympathy with suffering, and his shrinking from pain, are beautifully illustrated in the following passage,.
which is perhaps the most striking in the book. Pfarrer Basil meets the young Hildemund one evening after mass, and walks with him through the glades of the Thuringian Forest. They are speaking of a serf, who had had his hand struck off for poaching :—
" Yon were not alone when you left the village. Who was that! saw with you—a tall, meagre, swart man, with one hand F'—' Kasper, sir ; he was maimed for fishing in the Freiherr von Burgstein's waters, but it truly was to keep his sick mother from starving:—Hildemund could not read the look which passed over the priest's face. Killing' game or catching fish was so grievous an offence, that it never occurred to him it was abhorrence of the cruel penalty exacted which that look expressed.—' And the sick mother ?' asked Pfarrer Basil, abruptly.. —` She died, sir. Old Martin, Kasper's father, was ailing too, and could earn nothing, and it was winter-time, and the ways blocked' with snow ; no one knew they were in such evil case till Kasper was, set free from the castle prison, and came home and found her dead,. and the old man too weak to seek help to bury her. But the Baron showed them mercy, for he remitted the death-tax; so they put her under ground.'—' Ah !' said Pfarrer Basil, with a sarcastic curl of his. finely-cut, sensitive lips ; aye, that was merciful ! What is that ?' He spoke with a start and accent of dismay which astonished Hildernund. A. rabbit, sir; yes, see, there it comes, and a weasel after it ; how the poor beast screams ! Nay, then, master weasel, not this time, let my lord's game alone ;' and he sprang forward and snatched' up the exhausted, terrified little fugitive just as the weasel was nponr it. The rabbit lay powerless with exhaustion and terror in Hildemund's bands; the weasel glided swiftly into the fern. 'I would I had a stick here ; the beast should not have escaped so easily,' said Hildemund, caressing the panting captive. There, get to thy burrow ; see, sir, it lies still, too fearful to stir ; now it lifts its ears ; it will be gone directly.'—` What a cry ! Can a beast feel such mortal terror ? It will ring in my ears all night,' muttered Pfarrer Basil. He was quite pale and overcome. Hildemund, though a thoroughly kind-hearted boy, and fond of all live creatures, could not help feeling a little wonder and contempt at the effect produced by the rabbit's danger. 4 Yon often hear it, sir. If you did not know what it was' you might think a hawk had screamed.'—'In that sight and sound I see and hear the impotent anguish of all helpless, tortured things,' said the priest, passing his hand over his brow. 'My God, 1.0 x, dreadful pain is, wherever it is found !' Hildemund only dimly understood his meaning, and more dimly still the over-sensitive, nervous nature that .could feel thus,—a nature that must inevitably have suffered keenly wherever and whenever it existed, but was certain to cause its owner peculiar pangs at such a rough time, and in such hard and uncultured eurroandings."
We should very much like to be allowed here to make a sug gestion to authors. It: would add greatly to the convenience of reviewers and of the public in general, and would, we imagine, -also promote the sale of authors' books, if a complete list of
all the previous works of the author were attached, as a matter -of course, to each fresh production, and a revised list to each new edition. In the present case, for instance, we see In the Olden Time, "by the author of The Atelicr du Lys," and
in other works of hers, "by the author of Mademoiselle Mori." Now, to our minds, the two infinitely most attractive of those of her works with which we are acquainted are systematically -omitted, namely, Oa the Edge of the Storm and Denise.
Mademoiselle Mori is, like the story we are noticing, more or less of an historical romance, though of modern time, and is also a good deal inclined to be gaide-booky and long-winded, and the Atelier du Lys falls off decidedly in interest towards the end ; while On the Edge of the Storm, though historical also, as treating of the French Revolution, yet touches upon history only as it affects the private life of the heroine ; and, in Denise, this authoress has struck the most harmonious chord of her genius. The quiet, yet wonderfully picturesque life of the little
-town of Farnonx, on the steep hill-side, with its pale, olive groves above its vine-covered hills, and its delicious orange gardens overlooking the exquisite blue waters of the bay below, and the delightfully interesting and comic old artist aunt,
Mademoiselle le Marchand, and, above all, the beautiful, peaceful, and devoted character of Denise herself, make a story
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