The Sun.
London, England, 1835-01-21 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

COLBURN'S MODERN NOVELISTS—Voz.
R. Bentley. London, 1835.

The present volume contains Mr. Bulwer's popular
tale of " Pelham, " which will be completed in
two volumes, after the fashion of Mr. Bentley's Stan-
dard Novelists. It is introduced by a few pages of.
preface, in which the author explains the objects which
he proposed to himself in writing his tale. " It struck
mc," he obsotves, " that it would be a new, a useful,
and perhaps a happy moral, to show in what manner
we- might redeem and brighten the common-places
of life ; to prove (what is really the fact) that the
lessons of society do not necessarily corrupt, and that
we may be both men of the world, and even, to a cer-
tain degree, men of pleasure, and yet be something
wiser—nobler—better:' Mr. Bulwer has certainly
shown in his Pelham " in shat manner we may re 7
deem and brighten the common-places of life ;" but,
if we remember rightly, his book, which we ,-read with
considerable interest at the time of its first appearance,
inculcates no profounder moral than is contained in this
well-known couplet:-7--

" When health is gone, and money spent,
. Then wisdom is. most excellent."
Its great merits are, the masterly way in which an
intricate - plot is unravelled, the smart, • graceful
piquancy of its style, and the perfect keeping and
reality of the character of Lady Frances Pelham.
Yet this tale, thus recommended, was, it seems, re-
fused "It may serve," says Mr. Bulwer, briefly
alluding to this subject, " to stimulate the courage
and sustain the hopes of others, to observe that the
reader' to whom the MS. was submitted by the pub-
lisher, pronounced the most unfavourable and damning
opinion on its chances of success." No uncommon
case, for the " Miseries of Human Life," which ran
through twelve editions, and the " Rejected Ad--
dresses," which has just reached its eighteenth,
both shared the same fate. The present volume is
neatly got up, and possesses the additional recom-
mendation of being cheap in price.

THE MANUSCRIPTS OF ERDELY.
A Romance, in 3 vols. By George Stephens.
London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1835.

The days are gone when this tale, the evident pro-
duction of an author of much reading and many
scholarly acquirements, would have been popular. It is
in every respect a tale of other times ; and_belongs to
that class of Romance of which the works. of Mrs.
Radcliffe are the principal standard. The hero of the
tale is Cardinal Martinuzzi, Regent of Hungary, in the
beginning of the sixteenth century, and the scene is
for the most part laid in Transylvania—then , the only
territory of the ancient kingdom of Hungary which
was not subject to the sway of Ferdinand of Austria,
or menaced by the overwhelming power of Solyman the
Magnificent. There is no lack of characters, incident,
or plot ; and the whole is so intricately interwoven
that the reader who is able, after one perusal, to disen-
tangle the different threads of the story, deserves a
place in the biographical history of the world's worthies.
The main incidents of the story may be thus
summed up :—John of Zapola, King of Hungary,
dying, the Regency of the Kingdom devolved on his
Queen Isabella, and Cardinal Martinuzzi,- who, from
an obscure origin, had by his splendid, talents raised
himself to his present dignity. To the Cardinal had
been committed the guardianship of the infant heir of
the Crown of Hungary, who, by the treachery of a
nurse, is secretly conveyed away, and the only-child of
Martinuzzi=--a daughter—substituted in its_ stead. Of.
this. the Cardinal had no knowledge at the time, and is'
only made acquainted with it, when exposure of the
villainy must involve himself and his daughter in in-
extricable ruin, without benefit to the lost scion -of
Royalty. Meanwhile, the daughter of Martinuzzi is
brought up in the belief that she is the rightful heir to
the vacant throne, and as such is sought in mar-
riage by Alaric Polgar, Count Ragotzy, leader
of a band of Cyganis, or Gipsies ; then the most
revered race in Europe, and the most powerful as well
from their numbers as from the awe with which which
their assumed knowledge of the future was regarded by
the ignorant peasantry. Ragotzy is on the eve of suc-
ceeding, by means of his secret emissaries, when he
learns from his mother—a fiend only inferior to himself
in ferocious cruelty and crime—that Czerina is not the
rightful heir to the throne, but Veronica the daughter
of. the Duke of Eissenburg, an outlawed nobleman.
The Cyganis' leader immediately changes his course, and
makes love to the Lady Veronica, who rejects his proposals
with horror. In the interim her father is imprisoned,
and she is carried off, but is subsequently released un-
scathed by Count Sigismund, the rightful heir to the
throne, who had previously feigned madness in order
to escape what we find never existed—the -vengeance
of Martinuzzi. After the
.commission of innumerable
Murders, treasons, treacheries, and every villainy that
can be imagined, Ragotzy is slain, and Sigismund
ascends the throne of his ancestors, having first be-
stowed his hand on Veronica. The mists which
so long obscured the head of the Cardinal pass
away—and he stands confessed an intrepid war-
rior, a sage counsellor, and a true patriot. His
death is his greatest triumph over his enemies, as he
has the rare felicity of being mourned by a country
ruined by his brilliant but misguided policy.

Such is. a brief outline of the main incidents which
are worked up in the strangest style of fiction. The
character of Queen Isabella, the deadly enemy of Mar-
tinuzzi, and who is early despoiled of her power by his
superior policy—and the dark movements of the mys-
terious monk and his familiar Scipio, are drawn
and detailed with much vigour. To the general rea-
der we must leave the task of unravelling all the minor
plot, which are to be found in these strangely interesting
volumes.

The Rothance of Erdely is not purely a_ work of
fiction. The characters belong to history ; and some
of the actions ascribed to them must dwell in the re-
collection of all who are familiar with the state of Eu-
rope during the early part of the sixteenth century. The
work bears unquestionable traces of scholarship, and a
most extensive acquaintance with books, ancient and
modern. It is full of learned allusions, and replete
with quotations from the old Greek dramatists, and
the poets and historians of every age and country.
On this account the work is entitled to respect ; but
still it must be confessed that there is a want of the
power of observing and developing the nicest traits of
character---a love of mystery and intrigue—and a
want of order throughout, which shews the author to
be either a very young or a very careless writer. The
style is particularly exceptionable.—.being too florid,
and blurred over with bad metaphors, and strain-
ings after fine descriptions, seldom realized. A
passage in the second volume, in which the author
enters into a long colloquy with the reader, is abso-
lutely disgusting. As to matter there is the greatest
abundance of it—enough for five volumes ; and there
is both a sufficiency of plot and incident for thrice that
number. We said in the commencement that the
Romance of Erdely bore a strong resemblance to the
works of Mrs. Radcliffe. We give the following ex-
tract as an example of the author's claims to be
ranked in the same class of writers with that cele-
brated woman :

" I had not been long lodged on my post, when, just as the
cathedral bell tolled the hour of midnight, my eye caught
sight, at some distance, of a gloomy shape, diffused of dew
and ether, 50 lustrous and transparent, that ntethought I could