The Sun.
London, England, 1852-08-02 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON,

Pastime though it was in reality, it practically
enough tends d without question to develope the
dreareer into ;he novelist—tutoring his mind to the'
Apperenf ly noilaing could be more hopeless twenty ue g ravellin of the . imsicecies ot. a Oa,. and to the
years ago thrill an attempt to revive the popularity of ripening of those syrthetio powers welch are peeu-
Romance among Englishmen. Romance, we meomean., , Hardy requisite in the creation, and more particn-
lariy in delineation of a fietitiout idiosyncracy.
possessing an interest heightened by the glamour
ceased
embausted his ardour in those innocent ad-
p p
perpetual and portentous improbability—romance the Hwvm
incidents of which were phenomena, the machinery of ventures, Harrison Ainswerth succetsively
.
his labours both as en amateur pyrotechnist, and GS
- • • • •' then_
of the neerornentic, and the principal characters a manager of merionettes. His assiduity _
which
of which were the supernatural. With the " storied became absorbed in the toils, or rather in the
galleri " of Abbotsford the age had become de- delights of literary composition. He had al-
es
lightedly familiarised ; insomuch that Walter Scott ready written, as we have seen, dramatis
exercised a hind of literary despotism through the scenes and dialogues : be now wrote desultory
sketches and ventured even upon inditing certain
influence of his incomparable masterpieces. The charms tragediee. Several of these fugitive pieces he had
of his voluble rhetoric had lapsed into the chief among alregg_
y witnessed in the transfiguration of ‘‘ the
the luxuries of imaginative literature. People were glory of print" before his departure from school,,
t contributor to a weekly'
so far infatuated with his " school " that their having been a frequea
Periodical entitled
sense of pleasure passed into an absorbing and ~. . " The Iris," at. drat period
,b,select literary • le at flourishing in a raieer circ
Man-
dominant predilection. They restricted their approval
chester. Besides these papers, moreover, he penned
almost exclusively to stories constructed according
a variety of others in the tt European Magazine,"
to the model rendered fashionable by the Author of
added to which he contrived to issue on his own ao-
Waverley—exulting in his exquisite sensibility, his
count a small theatrical publication, and to edit the
genial merriment, and his picturesque antiquarianism,
six first numbers of a local journal 'called the Bceotian.
as in former times the lettered community had re-
Among the tragedies before alluded to, the history of
juiced in the witty obscenity of Henry Fielding and
one at least is not unworthy of remembrance. The
the humorous piquancy of Tobias Smollett, or as a still
subject of this tragedy was, curiously enough,
earlier generation bad vaunted the punctilious decorum
identical with that of Lord Byron's "Two Foscari,"
and sentimental morality of Samuel Richardson. The
a kind -of synoptical criticism of it ap-
enthusiasm for the horrible seemed to have died out
peering about a month before the publication of the
with Robert Maturin, but little likelihood remaining latter, in the pages of " Constable's Edinburgh
visible of any companion memorial to that of " Mel-
Magazine"--to which serial the young tragedian
moth the Wanderer." Simplicity was generally
thereupon became an established contributor. To-
recognised as, of all, the most desirable quality in
gether with his effusions in this quarter must be
the novella—simplicity conducing almost inevi-
numbered a tale entitled the Falls of Ohiopyle—
tahly to naturalness. There was an appre-
inserted in Taylor and Hessay's " London Magazine,"
viable disrelieh for the artificial phantasies of
and two poems (printed by Arlist) called respectively,
Horace Walpole, and a proportionate preference for
A Summer Evening's Tale and the Maid's Revenge.
the sweet and homely delineations of Oliver Gold-
A selection from these miscellaneous writings, col-
smith. Scarcely anyone cared to penetrate the mys- lected together in a diminutive volume designated
teries of ihe "Castle ef aranto," but everyone cite- December Tales, was subsequently published by
riteed en affectionate interest in the fortunes of the
Whittaker ; and must be inscribed on the catalogue
" Vicar of Wakefield." Across the Channel, the
of those works which are interesting as productions—
fantastic and grimly genius of Honore de Balzac
jejune it may be, but still original in their very crudity
was preparing the •i üblic mind for the more cordial
and extravagance—completed before the age of nine-
appreciation of Paul Lecroix, if it was not actually
teen. If devoid of loftier merit, they evidence at
suggesting that homage for the marvellous which teaet a very considerable fertility of fancy with a pre-
eventually produced the strangest characters in the
mature and therefore spontaneous facility of com-
" Notre DAM," of Victor Hugo, the ghastliest fea- position.
tures in the " Juif Errant" of Eugene Sue, and those
Scarcely had Ainsworth reached that momentous
very extraordinary complications of plot which
epoch when, with the generality, life begins in all
render the "Monte Christo" of Alexandre Dumas in
its earnestness—when the death of his father induced
some /respects altogether incomparable. Beyond the
him to repair to the metropolis for the purpose of
Rhine, moreover, the wizard-like capacities of Ludwig
completing (under the guidance of Mr. Jacob
Tieck were preparing for his wilder effusions a con- Phillips.of the Inner Temple) his long-evaded studies
aideration in Germany equivalent only to that which
as a conveyancer. Ostensibly at least such was the
has been secured by the " Devil's Elixir" of Ernest object with which his journey to London was under-
Hoffinaan. In England the revival, we repeat, of the
taken, though we conjecture that his arrival in the
popularity of Romance appeared at that epoch by. no capital was attributable to emotions similar to those
means matter of probability—scarcely, one mightf
which subsequently conducted the hero of his master-
almost have ventured to assert, within the limits
hod
piece through so many novel and fascinating enter
possibility. The notoriety of Matthew Lewis a teinments. Whatever the motive, the result was
already floated away into dim perspective,
ll theas indisputably such as might, under the circumstances,
his own corpse is said to have doneii. hammock—
when
y have been anticipated. The " jealous mistress"
buried him in the deep sea in is.nt
of the Lew was abandoned for a flirtation with
the shot slipping, the shroud blowing.tohpeni o
Literature. Previously, however, the young
a sail, and the dead man gliding awatl; ghost-tv't'lhink law-student had penetrated those mysteries
like rapidity—an incident we cannot,, hid
of pecu-
of the metropolis of which, at a subsequent period, he
liarly befitting the author of the . Moak,
_all rc-
mances the most daring as it is unquestionably of all the began the Revelation. That be ehould ever have
most detestable. Besides which the lovers of ro-
of .
permitted himself to he diverted from the completion ;
mantic fiction had reason to lament, about the period
this eof
nterprise must always be matter regret,
referred to, namely in 1823, the departure in the aware as the public is of his very peculiar and ad-
rnir.able ualitications. With somewhat of the mi-
seemedb:xtietb year of her age, of Ann Radcliffe. There
nate e lof Henrya hew, and with something
no likelihood whatever of the world of ' ntss e y y
letters producing vary speedily any one worthy more than the exactitude of James Grant, he pos-
of Eugene Sue's mastery over the
of being her successor. Materialism appeared
aeaseamuchlh none of his socialist views or of his sickly
to have altogether, if not permanently, usurped terrible,. with
the licentious. Aided by this unusual
the place hitherto occupied by Spiritualism. More
combinationapptiter of abilities, he might yet recount the
than ever a mercantile community, the people of
' of London in some fiction wherein the prin•
these islands were beginning precisely at that period
m'alrveAoaf social economy would be illustrated through
to augment their activity very considerably for the
eiP
esedium of its own picturesque analysis, while the
purpose of extending, as well as of facilitating, their
commercial avocations. Physical science and me- the
I"statistics glittered (like motes in the sunbeam) in
driest
chanical ingenuity were entering upon that the golden glow of imagination.' As inexperienced as his
united action which, within the last quart favourite -tan r dulph, as susceptible in temperament,
ter of a century, has so miraculously mule as gay and as handsome, Harrison Ainsworth passed
fiplied the industrial achievements of the United with equal zest .
speedily
through the round of the
London
amusements. Hapm y,
I also, he very disco-
Kingdom. England was being threaded, even then, d
Hilda in Fanny, the youngest daughter of
by railroads, which, by subsequent ramifications and v" a P known librarian, at that •
intersections, have become transformed iron Mr. Ebers, the we .- period
into an
lessee of the Italian Opera, or, as it is designated by
network. Under all circumstances, an endeavour at
way of
peculiar distinction, Her Majesty's Theatre.
that time to wield anew the weed of a literary Merlin • The marriage which consequently took place in 1826
would have seemed to the generality a scheme.of the
productive of those three daughters—it Fanny,
Emily most idle and preposterous extravagance.lt was scarcely vetas
ar
y' and Blanche"—to whom Ainsworth
less futile than an attempt to encounter a ghost at has
veyr gracefully inscribed the most delightful of
twelve o'clock at noon-day in Piccadilly.
It was his .animated compositions. Scarcely twelve years
like evoking a dryad out of a lamp-post. It was h
after l
pitting Ariel or ?tick in a race against the electricher nuptials, s, however, the young mother, in
1838, expired—sod the continued literary success of
telegraph. It was summoning Egeria from among
the widower became thereupon, we may conjecture,
the bow pots, and the london-pride, and the lupins,
enhanced from a pleasure into a consolation. That
and the geraniums of a front-garden, twelve feet by
success may with a certain degree of accuracy be
seven, in Pimlico. There might have appeared
dated back to the year which witnessed his union
at the time hardly more absurdity in examining a
with his betrothed-1826 having, in a manner, also
drop of the divine ichor—the blood of the gods—(if
witnessed its commencement. For it was then that
one could only have obtained it) by the aid of the
his maiden romance, Sir John Chiverton, first made
oxyhydrogen microscope. To a matter of fact ob
its appearance---a story recounting in seven chapters
server the project of realizing a thoroughly popular
the crimes and sorrows of an English baronet at an
reputation as an ultra-romancist would have seemed
old country house, peopled with victims under-
about as rational, possibly, as an effort to trans-
ground, and above-ground with a motley and sinister
form a steam-engine into a hippogriff. Yet
group of myrmidons. Brief though the narrative
that project was actually realized. The steam-
was, it yielded augury of worthier achievements,tand
• 'was not transformed into the hippogriff, but the
engine was mentioned
in " Scott's Diary," under date
romancist appeared, and in an age of railroads secured
October 17, in the year of publication, as a " clever"
to himself this apparently unattainable reputation !
volume, which had been perused " with interest" even
And what was, perhaps, yet more remarkable, his affec-
by the fastidious eye of the Master-Novelist. Uh-
tion for the unearthly dreams of mysticism had been
questionably the most enthralling passage in the
nurtured in the land of the loom—their voice becom-
veaole story is that in which the heroine,
ing audible, so to speak, above the din of the roaring Ellice Chiverton, proceeding at midnight through
workshops and the populous factories of Lancashire.
the
subterranean dungeons, releases her lover Reginald
P
William Harrison Ainsworth, born on the 4th of stwyche from captivity—or rather the subsequent ,
February, 1805, in King,street, Manchester, was the re on where she is surprised by her brother while
eldest son of Thomas Ainsworth (a solicitor, enjoying porti ,
traversing the vaults under Chiverton Hall, and in fly-
in that locality considerable practice), by Ann, fremeitn, through dread of assaseination, is mei-
daughter of the Rev. Ralph Harrison, a distinguished ing drowned. Occasionally, even in the diction
Presbyterian. Among his progenitors there had al- dentally,,s ___
'r John Chiverton," there are perceptible the
ready been several in both branches of his °fit Isof a beginner, the evidences of a quaint and
family who had achieved for themselves some degree ev : enc.:
affectation—as where in the course of this
of distinction. His maternal ancestor, Cuthbert Har-
faums'ticident reference is made to the "external ex-
rieon, was celebrated both by learning and by lade- very IT,
from the cavern. Several of the subordinate
eendence as a nonconformist. His paternal ancestor, trance
introduced are little else than. the dim
Robert Ainsworth, has, by his industry as a lexica- personages
jags
of character, afterwards more care-
grepher, associated his name with the English••and- I
for, la el
8 aand artistically elaborated—such, for exe
Latin, as inseparably as Boyer has associated his with u sd,
as the tawny visage of Mahmood
the English-rind-French Dictionary : while another aßmSe' the Moor and the malignant features
member of the same house, Henry Ainsworth, ob-
of Bali
mel ithe Physician. Another creation,
tailed a high repute two centuries ago as a Brotvnist sketchy of its kind, lends to
thou hY e wally the
having evidenced, moreover, the ripeness of' his erut
bookga mocire agreeable fascination in the goodly and
ditiou as a Hebrew scholar, both by his translation f the steward, Master Misseltoe.
venerable person o
of the Pentateuch and by his annotations on the or shortly before, the a
Sim ltaneouslet with,appear-
01d Testament. Our author's our} brother,
anceuof Sir John Chiverton,. Harrison Ainsworth is.
Thomas Gilbert Ainsworth, appears to have Pamphlet (Bvo.. pp.
sued from the press A 24), en-
given early promise of attaining some positionthe Best M. eans of Afford-
titled "Considerations on
kindred in its intellectual eminence, but, after taking . i
I m diate Relief to the Operative Classes in the
a scholarship at Cambridge, and otherwise enhancing in al-e . paper inscribed by
Manufacturing is ri
D. t 'ets"—a the
the expectation of those interested in watching his - Right Hon. Robert Peel, then secret
advancement, his constitution appears to have and author to the_
State for the Home Department. At. A. feeling
denly broken down under the effects of over-study— tarY of • to have ' been the motive
compelling him to abandon the idea cf obtaining of humanity appears
' to appeal thus to the "miihifi.
his degree, and precluding him from entering actuating the writer
of the population —pig
the Church, to which he could scarcely have canoe and magnanimity
roused by the horrors of a
proved otherwise than an ornament. Very dif- sympathies being
alert destitution. It would scarcely
terent were the destinies of the eider son of the very fatal and prev
however, to allude otherwise
solicitor. E I ucated in the first instance by his uncle,
than i
have bn een
t h
e moat necessay,
erurso r
y manner to an effusion like
the Rev. William Harrison, he was eventually placed
w with
si
wp _ y
I local and ephemeral in-
in one of' the classes presided over by the Rev. $o- serest—had we not remarked in one portion of the
binson Elsdale, at the free grammar-school in
argument (p. 20) an expression which—considering
Manchester. In this establishment,d,ti,n illustratedbaekto
the subject mentioned, the time in which it was
by many scholars of distinction,
n theg sixteenth mentioned, and the statesman to whom it was men.
the period of i's foundation
reported to have tioned—must, if on from its singularity, command
century, Harrison Ainsworth is
abilities our surprise and our admiration. The expression ,
displayed somewhat unusual and precocious.
among' occurs where the pamphleteer, having hinted at the
obtaining the commendation of his superiors,Gree,
advisability of settling the question of the corn-laws
other thing, by his ingenious translations of , - in reference to the alleviation of the distress in the
and Latin poetry—his declamation on one of the manutacturing districts (a distress analogous to that
public-display-days of the "Quis vere Rex" of Seneca,
of 1846), addresses this curious inquiry, in 1826, to
i
followed by the recital of an original version, beng
the very statesman who, twenty years afterwards,
still remembered in the scene aids academic successes.
inaugurated the free-trade principles—" Important a%
Shortly after attaining the dignity of the " first
it is [meaning the question of the Corn-laws] would
form" the stripling was removed from the school, and
its decerminaiion either way immediately. [sic in orig ]
introduced as a clerk into the office of Mr. Alexander
yield relief to the sufferers ?" Surely a suggestipii
Kay, an attorney of high respectability—the father of
of most prophetic appositeness—sulimicted twenty;
the future novelist intending' ddh et . to the judgment of the .Destroyer of
to e he. e leis energies
six years ago r
to the legal profession. An irrepressible passion for
Protection.
literature decided otherwise. Cbatterton himself had Incited to the experiment by his father-in- law
scarcely more manifest d le h f h drudgeries of - isre is or t eHarrison Ainsworth,
in 1828 commenced business
ees as
the law or a more apparent appetite for the fruits of
a publisher. The enterprise originated in an enthu..
imagination. And as the " wondrous boy " was
.; ,- for letters, rather than iu a solicitude to sue,
enabled to solace himselt by frequent meditation near ;41113 in it merely as a commercial speculation.
Cenyrge's tomblt
in the beautiful church of St. Marv, of favourite theory more than the en.
ltedeiiffe, Ainsworth wandered among th ' was the test a
e more con- and large emolum
genial soli:uth-s of the garden at B h deavour to secure rapid returns
ent'
eee Hill, a country 1 About the time of its commencement. Ainsworth
residence to which the family hard removed almost I
immediately upon the occasion of his nativity, a plea- ~alight have assumed the post originally intended
tance, by formally becoming the head
sent mansion agreeably situated at a distance of fofr his accep firm
established by his progenitor,
nearly two miles on the road to Chatham. Dividing ° the fi,i• legalof which were then being directed by two
his time between the dusty lawyer's office and the the a • irs
in Menchester. Instead of return.
n shrubberies of home, his love of letters partners resident e
ree
to the law, however, be still clung
hadtenacity
wined the re
rapidly gai p .ponderence, hay- mg
to have very •childhood, a love that developed
log been preceded by an entimeieem
• for the menu- to the love of his _
a love and beautiful amble
niid subsequently for the coo- r ambition—the innocent
fecture of fireworks,. .
...
1 the duties of
• eo-- t'of literature. He preferred 1
former a pub-
duet of private there
trice's. i?' is related of him, in re- ion • and in the ogyna,
mentionedeccentricity, usher to those of a solicitor . . .
t at his
&niece to the last•
...
render his establishment, it prese
to the taste ionic art -induced him city he resolved to
schoolboy devotion _ i
acme
its .
Eible, one of the securer havens of scholarship—were
it hod reached the . •of Wen-
at length, when nurtured from embryoes
sity, to erect a miniature theatre in a cellar (possibly { reputation might be _ , .to
Vuences of amenity
in locality es the least liable , fruition under the fostering ill i ___.
selecting that subteiranea.nine project was
n machinist, his own liberality, and discrimination.
to interrurion), being his ow .
Mist. Added to all eminently benevolent in its character, and it
it experienced.was
scene painter, and his own d"'lr
him as Charles ' worthy of' happier consequences than
in
which, you might leave said o re down et
r lin. of Munden, -he " flying island" never settled, r
Lamb said eo deliglit'll' J took root in " the Row." After eighteen months had
much a come-
that he was " not so m _ elapsed reluctantly brought to a
d' himeelf the the endeavour was . . .
lan as a company"—actin]; conclusion—the adventurer finding himself
doubt- i . n—the youthful .
whole of his different characters .
I Here, portion at* least
when
less, poor Lamen Dancbard was correct be
, of the career of Richardson. Although the attempt
observed in his cursory
memorial of our riut-"r, proved in no res 1 •• it fortunately led to,
pect .ucrative,
originnlly Published in 1842, in the "Mirror," that'. no pecuniary involvement, A bubble was broken---
`' it is to this Circumstance, that our Libra- .
. . perhaps, bu' it was only the bubble
1, ' of a a
d ydream. *mi-
nims are indebted for many
admirable romances. while the pleasures of composition bad not been alto-
.

HARRISON AINSWORTH.