Page images
PDF
EPUB

declamations of the amorous Valerio excited comparisons unfavourable to Fleetwood, chooses to desert the rehearsal in order to botanize with a young peasant on the cliffs of Cader Idris. Now, there is nothing unnatural in this incident, and we believe domestic felicity is frequently interrupted by such differences of taste, and neglect of the feelings of each other; but we doubt whether our readers will not think the tragic declamations of Fleetwood infinitely too high-toned for the nature of his misfortunes. It is not very pleasant to lose possession of a favourite closet, and it is teazing enough to be deserted while reciting a favourite author; but, surely, the sesquipedalia verba of Fleetwood attach to these grievances a degree of consequence in which none can sympathize, and which to most will be the subject of ridicule. Another cause of dispute, of a still more important as well as of a more common kind, arises betwixt Fleetwood and Mary. This concerns the share to be taken in the visits and public society of the country in which they lived. Mary's fondness for these amusements excites the displeasure, and at length the jealousy of her husband; and he expresses both, with very great indulgence to his own feelings, and very little to those of his lady. In these circumstances her health began to give way, under the perpetual irritation occasioned by the deportment of her moody partner; and her mind settled in mournful recollection upon the contemplation of the loss she had sustained by the shipwreck of her sisters and parents. We transcribe the following account of the progress

[blocks in formation]

of her malady as one of the few interesting passages in the book.

"One further circumstance occurred in the progress of Mary's distemper. She would steal from her bed in the middle of the night, when no one perceived it, and make her escape out of the house. The first time this accident occurred I was exceedingly alarmed. I awoke, and found that the beloved of my soul was gone. I sought her in her closet, in the parlour, and in the library; I then called up the servants. The night was dark and tempestuous; the wind blew a hollow blast; and the surges roared and stormed as they buffeted against the hurricane. A sort of sleet blew sharp in our faces when we opened the door of the house. I went myself in one direction, and despatched the servants in others, to call and search for their mistress. After two hours she was brought back by one of my people, who, having sought in vain at a distance, had discovered her, on his return, not far from the house. Her hair was dishevelled; her countenance as white as death; her limbs cold; she was languid and speechless. got her as quickly as we could to bed.

We

"This happened a second time. At length I extorted her secret from her-she had been to the beach of the sea to seek the bodies of her parents. On the sea-shore she seemed to converse with their spirits. She owned, she had been tempted to plunge herself into the waves to meet them. She heard their voices speaking to her in the hollow wind, and saw their faces riding on the top of the waves by the light of the moon, as it peeped precariously through the storm. They called to her, and bid her come along, and chid her for her delay. The words at first sounded softly, so that it seemed difficult to hear them, but afterward changed to the most dolorous and piercing shrieks. In the last instance, a figure had approached her, and, seizing her garment, detained her just as she was going to launch herself into the element. The servants talked something of a gentleman, who had quitted Mary precisely as they came up to conduct her home.

"She confessed, that whenever the equinoctial wind sounded in her ears, it gave a sudden turn to her blood and spirits. As she listened alone to the roaring of the ocean, her parents and her sisters immediately stood before her. More than once she had been awaked at midnight by the well-known sound; and, looking out of bed, she saw their bodies strewed on the floor, distended

with the element that filled them, and their features distorted with death. This spectacle she could not endure. She had crept silently out of bed, and, drawing a few clothes about her, had found her way into the air. She felt nothing of the storm; and, led on by an impulse she could not resist, had turned her steps towards the sea."- Vol. iii. p. 79-82.

This kind of partial derangement of the intellect is very strikingly described. It has not, however, the merit of novelty, as the same idea occurs in the licentious novel of Faublas, written by the famous Louvet. At the conclusion of that work the hero tells us, that still when the south wind whistled, or the thunder rolled, his disordered imagination presented to him the scene which had passed at the death of his mistress; he again heard the sound of the midnight bell, and the voice of the sentinel who pointed to the river, and coldly said, "She is there." We quote from memory, a work which, for many reasons, we would not choose to read again; but we think that this is the import of the passage, and it considerably resembles that in Fleetwood, though the idea in the latter is more prolonged and brought

out.

Mary is removed to Bath, where she recovers from her depression of spirits, to fall into the opposite extreme of giddy and unceasing hilarity. At this time Fleetwood is joined by two cousins, both under his patronage, and who come to reside in his family. They are half brothers. Kenrick is an open, candid, thoughtless, young soldier; Gifford a deep hypocritical villain. These two brothers, like the black and white genius in Voltaire's tale,

attend Fleetwood through the rest of the book, and are the causes of the good and bad fortune which befall him. Gifford contrives to insinuate into the mind of his patron a suspicion of the virtue of Mary, which is strengthened by her being in reality the confidante of Kenrick, to whom he artfully represents her as unlawfully attached. This plot, in itself rather threadbare, is not, in the present instance, managed with uncommon felicity, The circumstances which excite the suspicions, and finally the furious rage of Fleetwood, are such as usually occur in such cases; but when he drives his pregnant spouse out of his house, he carries his jealous resentment to a most disgusting excess. We can pardon the vehemence of Othello, who kills his wife outright; but, in exposing a destitute orphan to all the miseries of poverty and beggary, we humbly think Fleetwood merits any title better than that of a man of feeling. At the same time that he has been guilty of this outrage, he continues distractedly fond of his wife, as will plainly appear from the following scene enacted upon the Continent, whither he had retired from the scene of his supposed disgrace and actual misery. He ordered wax models to be made, so as to represent his wife and her supposed seducer, with a barrel-organ modulated to the tunes which they used to play and sing together. These were to be produced on the anniversary of his wedding-night.

"When at length the 15th of July came, I caused a supper of cold meats to be prepared, and spread in an apartment of my hotel. All the materials which I had procured with so much care and expense, were shut up in the closets of this apartment.

At

I locked myself in, and drew them forth one after another. each interval of the ceremony, I seated myself in a chair, my arms folded, my eyes fixed, and gazed on the object before me in all the luxury of despair. When the whole was arranged, I returned to my seat, and continued there a long time. I then had recourse to my organ, and played the different tunes it was formed to repeat. Never had madness in any age or country so voluptuous a banquet.

"I have a very imperfect recollection of the conclusion of this scene. For a long time I was slow and deliberate in my operations. Suddenly my temper changed. While I was playing on my organ one of the tunes of Kenrick and Mary -it was a duet of love: the mistress, in a languishing and tender style, charged her lover with indifference; the lover threw himself at her feet, and poured out his soul in terms of adoration. My mind underwent a strange revolution. I no longer distinctly knew where I was, or could distinguish fiction from reality. I looked wildly and with glassy eyes all round the room; I gazed at the figure of Mary; I thought it was, and it was not, Mary. With mad and idle action I put some provisions on her plate; I bowed to her in mockery, and invited her to eat. Then again I grew serious and vehement; I addressed her with inward and convulsive accents in the language of reproach; I declaimed with uncommon flow of words upon her abandoned and infernal deceit; all the tropes that imagination ever supplied to the tongue of man seemed to be at my coinmand. I know not whether this speech was to be considered as earnest, or as the Sardonic and bitter jest of a maniac. But, while I was still speaking, I saw her move-if I live, I saw it. She turned her eyes this way and that; she grinned and chattered at me. I looked from her to the other figure; that grinned and chattered too. Instantly a full and proper madness seized me; I grinned and chattered in turn to the figures before me. It was not words that I heard or uttered; it was murmurs and hissings, and lowings and howls. I became furious. I dashed the organ into a thousand fragments. I rent the child-bed linen, and tore it with my teeth. I dragged the clothes which Mary had worn, from off the figure that represented her, and rent them into long strips and shreds. I struck the figures vehemently with the chairs and other furniture of the room, till they were broken to pieces. I threw at them, in despite, the plates and other brittle implements of the supper-table. I raved and

« PreviousContinue »