The Sun.
London, England, 1850-10-21 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

HARRISON AINS WORTH'S ROMANCES.
Vol X.—Guy Fawkes.

Several weeks having el,ilised since the appearance ;
of the preceding volume of this re-isstne, we accord a
yet more lively welcome to itssuccessor. In the histori-
cal romance of " Guy Fawkes" the novelist has aimed
at a loftier object than that of penning an enthralling
narratives—althouwh in the latter respect his success
has been here very:distinguished. 13:sides the interest
with which he has surrounded the incidents of the
fiction, our author has diffused over the whole work
an earnestness such as of itself sutiMently indicates
the existence of that more elevated intention to whicn
we have referred—the intention of advancing, under
the fascinating garb of a romance, the beautiful and
ennobling principles of religious toleration. A more
brilliant or more bervficent purpose has certainly
never actuated any writer in the process of bringing
to maturity any similar composition. To it Mr.
Ainsworth refers in his recent " Preface" Ns ith a very
reasonable and even enviable complacency. One
portion of these remarks we cannot rßfram
from especially particularizng. " From those,"
he observes, " who have wilfully misinter-
preed one of my firmer production*, and have attri-
buted to it a purpose and an aim utterly foreign to
my own intentions, I can scarcely expect fairer treat-
ment for the present work. 13ut to that wider and
more discriminating class of readers from whom I
have experienced so much favour and support, I con-
fidently commit the book, certain of meeting with
leniency and impartiality." By very gracefully and
significantly selecting Doctor Lingard as his au-
thority, Mr. Ainsworth has added new weight to the
arguments of this powerfully conceived story of the
gunpowder treason, more particularly where they
bear reference to the restiveness engendered among
the Roman Catholics throughout England by the re-
vival, during the reign of King James 1., of the penal
laws, those cruel and grinding enactments firstframed
at the instigation of Queen Elizabeth. In the " loyal
and devout" character of Viviana Radcliffe, in the "un-
scrupulous and ambitious" Catesby, in " the subtle and
yet sincere" Jesuit Garnet, but more especially in the
person of Guy Fawkes himself, " the gloomy and
superstitious enthusiast," the historical romancist has
pourtrayed most vividly the passions excited by the
ferocity of the legislators, the bigotry of the monarch,
and the cupidity of his Scottish courtiers. After
reading the tale as it is told by William Harrison
Ainsworth, we cannot for the life of us help appre-
ciating the fantastic extravagance of that joke of poor
Charles Lamb, where he regretted the failure of the
gunpowder conspiracy on the ground that its suc-
cess would have been such a magnificent thunderclap
in history ! Two more volumes, we presume, will
complete the present republication of the collected
writings of Mr. Ainsworth. When concluded the
series will take its place in the libraries of the
people with the cheap re-issues of the works of other
distinguished novelists, his contemporaries. Our
author has acted judiciously in reproducing his fic.
tions in a form so accessible to the community, as is
being simultaneously done by Mr. Charles Dickens, by
Sir Bulwer Lytton, and even by Mr. G. P.R. James, in
spite 9fhis effusignsPeing so voluminous. One additional
re-issue would perfect the piesent re-publication 'of
Harrison Ainsworth's romances, and, we are con-
vinced, would be peculiarly acceptable to its sub-
scribers—we mean the publication of a supplementary
volume (of a larger size, of course), containing a re-
print of the numerous and brilliant illustrations from
the pencils of Tony Johannot, and of the inimitable
George Cruikshank, not forgetting the admirable
wood engravings from the drawings of Delamotte.