The Press.
London, England, 1854-01-28 00:00:00

history, and as we may sometimes get instruc-
tion of another kind from a good historical
romance, perhaps the reader expects us now
to specify which of these two advantages_
" Castellamonte " principally furnishes. We
must honestly answer that the book escapes
the apparent dilemma altogether—by furnish-
ing neither. For, where a book professes to
run on a fictitious design, whatever of truth it
may over and above comprise is so much out
of the fire : that which is ideal in it may serve
its own purpose—may delight, improve, and
exalt—but cannot practically mislead. But a
book may practically mislead which, profess-
ing the fidelity of a real narrative—not, ob-
serve, of what might easily occur in the
author's vievi of human nature and of the cir-
cumstances of the scene and epoch, but of
what actually did occur there and then—fulfils
this pledge, by putting an ecstatic imagination
into the witness-box in the counterfeit garb
of a retentive memory. There is an " ori-
" ginal sin," for which no purifying lavatory
has.been reserved, in the very design, marrow,
spirit, and essence of all such misconceived
productions. It is not a defect, it is not a
blemish—it is the ineffaceable primordial
taint, the breaking of the first of all literary
covenants. Of course a book is not bound to
be a biography, nor an autobiography, any more
than the person who entertains us with his
conversation is bound to volunteer to relate to
us the history of some selected portion of his
life. But if he volunteers this, and if he then
occupies us with a morbid and rhapsodical
medley of sketches, in order that we may see
how Titanic are the powers—how antique,
pristine, heroic, the aspirations—how wise,
serene, and vast the plans—of one whom we
can perceive to have been a rather ordinary
youth intellectually; turbulent, giddy, hair-
brained ; of a peculiarly visionary disposition
where many were visionaries ; hating the con-
trol of others, though not able to control
himself; and not eminent in anything save
that in which the whole class of these regene-
rators are eminent—we mean their exceedingly
curious estimate of themselves, early formed
and never rectified—if, we say, he gave us
some frothy romance on this basis, we might
ask, " Didou tell us that this was the sketch
of a novel'." and when he reminded us that
he was merely fulfilling the promise which he
had volunteered, and but favouring us with a
few passages of his true and faithful auto-
biography, are we required to exhibit gratitude?
We do not mean that many of the facts
narrated in this book are not real. The
public facts we knew already,—and knew and
know where to find them—we were about to
be so uncivil as to say—better told, much
better told. The private facts may, many of
them, also be related truly, in so far as the
occurrence of such incidents is concerned.
But the statement that an encounter or a
catastrophe happened may be false or it may
be true ; and then, further, the statement
how it happened may be false or it may be
true, and the account given of actions may be
exact and the character given of the actors
may be flagrantly mendacious, But we need
not waste time on these points. We may
observe, in reference to this " autobiographical
sketch," that while, for example, it is no de-
preciation of a book to describe it as a his-
torical romance, or a biographical romance, it
is justly a disparagement of a book to have to
say that it is a romantic history or a romantic
biography, and we fear that the readers of
" Castellamonte " will be able to discover no
milder censure to pass upon it than that it is
an extravagantly romantic and a most gaudily
and floridly coloured autobiography, indeed,
if autobiography (so far as it extends) is to be
its name.
Let us leave it to the verdict we have just
implied, and, to spare time, give as animated
an account as we can of its plan, materials,
and literary merits. These are, in one sense,
by no means contemptible. The style is ex-
ceedingly vivacious throughout: here and
there, vvere it not for a certain affectation of
smarta.sss," it almost rises into brilliancy.
There it a continual play or skimmer of fancy.
And i !you add to this that the incidents are
numero as, and sometimes both picturesque
and exciting, it will easily be conceived that
amusement at least is obtained. More,