The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-22 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The _Rang of Anzasis. From the papers of a
German Physician. Edited by Owen Meredith.
2 vols. Chapman and Hall.
Owen Meredith has the soul of a poet. There is
passion and there is power in the conception of his
work, but he does himself grievous injustice in its
execution. During the last ten years a sad fata-
lity has befallen the world of literature. Our Poets
and our Novelists, not content, like the great masters
of the art who had preceded them, with Truth and
Nature, with 'Sentiment and Simplicity, have made
choice of the Sensational and the Strange tor the
subjects of their stories, and have mistaken rhap-
sody and incoherence for eloquence. When Bon
Gualtier brought forward kis spasmodic tragedy,
we could afford to laugh. The extravagance of
" Firmillian" was a legitimate subject for our ridi-
cule ; but with very different feelings do we witness
the self-immolation of some of the most promising
writers of our day—
" Who but would laugh if such a man there be,
Who but must weep if Atticus were he."
As an example of this extravagant and rhapsodical
style let anyone take up the first volume of this
" Ring of Amasis," and opening it at random,
what will he infer from passages like the fol-

,owing :
And when the priest . . . our union, did I
not see in hers . . . that froze the marrow of
my bones ? . . . She herself, had she not
seen it sparkle I' And then • , . the
frightful secret suppressed for years with the force of a
giant, and endured with the fortitude of a martyr
in a moment of mad delirium Ay, from the
lips of fever and burning breath of hell streamed into her
heart, and seared all pity in it, and hardenedit for ever
. . . . for ever
Such strivings after effect have no real power to
produce sensation. They are like the turnip-head
and the sheet, which even fail to frighten children.
No real spirits are conjured thus. And yet if the
bewildered reader, or rather beholder, of pages like
this passage, throws down the volume in despair,
he will do wrong. He will lose much. Side by
side with these fantastic flourishes, strangely alter-
nate sound sober sense, and homely wit, and wisdom ;
while, as for sensational effect, there is a scene in
the second volume, a panorama of a river floating
by, and two figures in agony of life or death, that
will long haunt the memory of the readers of this
romance. It is because we so heartily appreciate
and because we so cordially admire this power at d
this capacity of the author of "The Ring of Amasis,"
that we are indignant with him for his injustice to
his own gifts. "Like one in whom two natures are
contending," he is alternately swayed by Truth and
Affectation, now inspired by genuine feeling, and now
carried away by an effort after effect. A great por-
tion of the machinery of this tale is clumsy and
wholly unnecessary. The introduction about the
legend of the Loreley, extravagant in itself, is quite
out of character with the details of the story when
these details are revealed to us. The story
itself, however, when its human interest can be
disentangled from the maze of mysticism that
enfolds it, is full of pathos and full of power.
Count Edmond R-- and his brother Felix,
and their young foster sister Juliet, grow up
together in a happy German chateau. Then
Felix, gay and thoughtless, goes to the wars,
and Edmond, sedate and serious, departs on his
travels. In his researches in Egypt the latter learns
the secret history of Amasis and Sethos, the sons
of Theileris, the King. Amasis, the younger son,
having discovered the interpretation of a talismanic
ring, his father leaves to him the kiugd
uch notom. " Dwi is-
turb not the hand of destiny. Toth
earthly finger the hand of fate." So Amasis read
the writing, and Sethos obeyed it to the letter
when, some time after, his brother, the King, who
had supplanted him, met his death by drowning,
Sethos stretched not forth his hand to interfere with
fate ! This legend makes a deep impression upon the
visionary Count Edmond, who takes possession of
the ring from the finger of the mummy. On his
return home, the fair, light-hearted Juliet seizes upon
the ring, and declares that it shall be her ring of
betrothal when her time arrives. Uitimately she
is engaged to Felix,
and she gives him the myste-
rious ring. Meanwhile a powerful passion has been
developing itself in the breast of the visionary
Edmond. From all save the eyes of his mother
Edmond conceals his love and his despair. A brief
while after the betrothal the brothers are together
in a boat, and an incautious movement of the im-
petuous Felix realises the legend of the Egyptian
brothers—
"Against the whirling water he beat, fast and weak, with
desperate arms. His soaked clothes and heavy boots were
dragging him down. The light boat glided on.
" Suffocating and exhausted, he gasped, 'Enough, Ed-
mond 1 For Heaven's sake, enough I I am sufficiently
punished. My strength gives way. lam sinking. T
- Can
no more.'
• 0 •

" . Cold as the spectre of his own thought, erect,
unmoved, immoveable, with folded arms he stood, and

looked.
"Looked on his drowning brother.
"Then, into the eyes, and over the face, of Felix there
came an undefinable terror.
"It was not the terror of death. It was not the vague
alarm of a drowning man.
"He had understood the face of his brother, Edmond.
"He had read in that face the meaning of a thought
which sufficed in a second of time to congeal with horror
the essence of his soul.
"And Felix slviddered.
"So the angels must shudder when they gaze into the
depths of Hell.
_ " With a voice that was the death shriek of man's faith
in man, he cried, Edmond ! Edmond l'
"It was the sad receding message from a world of love
submerged.
"side by side, the fleeting river bore them on, those

brothers.
"The one safe, unmoved, ereot.
"The other, convulsively struggling with baffled and
broken efforts amidst the thousand curling, cold, and silvery
meshes of that liquid loom of death.
"Side by side, the river bore them onwards yet, Side