The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-05-02
ROmances of Crime.


Something of the moral curiosity
which we have attributed to Bulwer in
respect to the last mystery of existence.
no dou 0t moved him to the compost.
tion of those stories which we have call
ed the romances of crime. To trace
out through the dismal tragedy of Eu-
gene Aram, how the mind of scholar
could be moved to the meanness of rob
berry and brutality of murder, is a NOR
bid exercise of this great sentiment.
and the effect to ourselves is most dis
agreeable one, characterized by all the
faults and few of the merits of the au-
thOr's peculiar genius but yet it is
searching and anxious investigation INTO
Il moral problem. The still earlier ro-
nance of paul Clifford " is neither so
dismal nor so tedious. 1t is an attempt
to show how the evil influences of edu-
cation could corrupt a young spirit
naturally honorable and pure. And,
no doubt, the attempt is thoroughly
successful !; and no one who reads the
narrative of the young highwayman'
early days will be at any loss to perceive
how and why it was that he came to
take mp WITH that perilOus profession.
1t Is, however, very much more difficult
to find out how a true brother of the
school of Pelham and Linden, a gay,
noble, generous, and commanding hero,
finding his place naturally among gen
tlemen, and possessed not only of the
instincts, but the manners of the best
society, should have been brought up
among the thieves and ribalds of the
lowest dens of London, without even
the consciousness to elevate him, that
L L. Z l. IL
is the great error of the conception
but it is a weakness of a generous kind,
and one which naturally belongs to the
romantic age and spirit. 1t is far less
easy to account for the much more elab-
crate effort made by our author in 'Lu-
cretia," 10 trace the full development OF
crime, out of mere heartlessness and
ambitious longing for the possession of
an old mans fortune, to the darkest de
liberation of guilt, long premeditated
and Often-repeated murder. He him
self tells us with Indignation that the
book in which he embodied this dark
history was attacked by the critics as a
book of immoral tendency and it i
evident that this reproach struck him
to the heart. So deep was the blow
that he did what no writer should allow
lished a reply to the remarks of his as
saIlants, and defence of the attacked
novel. Such defences are always futi e.
1t is true, indeed, that the hOrriblr
crimes of Lucretia are followed by snch
tremendous justice, and are throughout
presented to us In such a gloomy and
revolving light, that even in her softes,
moments We are never allowed to pity
or take part with the guilty woman
and IN this point of view the book IS in
finitely more moral than " Maltravers,"
for instance, in which something very
like vice is made to look like a NOR
than ordinarily ethereal virtue. No
body can say that crime is recommend
Ell or excdsed in the gloomy pages OF
Lucretia ;" but the curiosity which
investigates the workings of such
mind, and endeavOrs to trace its crimes
to their origin, is not of a kind which
could ever gain the sympathy of hu-
manIty. We shrink from the investiga-
ton of such dread events. We prefer
not to know how by one tOrtuOus way
after another the murderer is led from
blood to blood. 1t is the least seduc-
tive of all kinds of guilt, and we believ,
may be safely trusted to lead no one
into imitation; but, perhaps, for that
very reason it is the least popular
There are readers enough who love to
be stimulated and excited by descrip-
tiOns of the rise aud development OF
another kind of passion descriptions
really much more dangerous and much
more likely to tempt and lead astray
than all the spiritual anatomy of " Luz
cretia ;" but while we admit the latter
to be less perniciOus, it is more inhu-
man. Lord Lytton himself, who seems |
to have considered this investigation oil |
NOR | mysteries as one of the rights of |
his Office, was evidently somewhat be |
wildered a disconnected by the storm |
of opposition which rose against this /
work. Almost sternly, as we as indig- |
nantly, he repels the accusation of hav- |
ing lent the weight of his name and |
authority to the defence and encourage |
ment of crime and with very good |
reason; for, certainly, of all works of |
fiction ever composed, "Lucretia is |
the least adapted to encourage crime |
But he misses, we think, the real point |
in the charges against him when he at.
tributes this universal disapprohation /
to the public dislikes of painful impress |
siOns. The cause is deeper. Men and |
women are almost ali subject to move
ments of the pass on of love, the pas
sion most discussed in books, and &C /
cordingly follow with a certain newt |
able interest even it's darkest and guilt /
lest developments. But few of us are |
moved with homicidal impuls S, and, |
therefore, human sympathy totally fails |
In their analyzatiOn. The first may do |
us harm-they are distinctly immoral |
and evil in their tendency; yet even the |
sternest moralist can scarcely shut his |
ears entirely TO them, unless they stOop |
to the lowest and coarsest depths. But |
our interest fails in the other, however |
finely aud tragically drawn. Human
nature has no sympathy with the muir |
derer as it has with the lover, however |
guilty Biack,COOd'S Magazine.