George Sand's Consuelo.

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thoughts; his nights passed in orgies with wild companions, yet still the memory which comes athwart them bringing sobs amid laughter, and shining like a pale lamp through the darkness when his gondola bears him before the leaning walls and faintly-lighted chambers of the Corte Minelli.

The succeeding volumes, for the work is not yet concluded, appear to us to sink in value, being no longer that story of the poor singer, with its simple plot and strong passion, which we have thought would interest our readers. They have eloquent pages and graphic descriptions notwithstanding: that, for instance, of the noble German family, in which Consuelo becomes an inmate, with its inherent prejudices and kindly nature. The humpbacked Chanoiness, with her fine qualities obscured by the daily exercise of petty employments and the undue importance of small things; the hunting brother, absorbed in the morning's chase and the afternoon's repast; the grave chaplain, pursuing harmless intrigues to preserve importance, and troubled with the care of his digestion; the fine figure of the old father, who has bowed his intellect to this level; and the young visionary, who has given scope to his imagination till its light blinds him, and the rein to his finer feelings till they rise to madness. All these, too, are finely set within the frame of the dim halls of the feudal castle. The meal ever occupying the same period; the domestics ranged round, automatons like their masters; storms which Count Albert's secondsight had predicted in the silence, coming suddenly to shake the casements and howl in the forest: these are effective points in the tale.

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With Count Albert, his visions and his madness, we confess that we have little sympathy, save in the shape of pity for his infirmity. We are not quite sure whether Madame Sand merely intends to portray in him the noble mind overthrown,' or to develop gravely by his means the doctrine of the Metempsychosis, which is such a favourite crotchet with Pierre Le Roux, jointproprietor of the Revue Indépendante' in which the tale appears. If we met him in our pilgrimage, we frankly confess that we should mourn over him as a mere maniac: if he persisted in deploring his ferocity when he was Jean Zitzka, and his vengeance when he was Wradieslaw, and in abhorring his gay cousin, the caged bird of this prison, because his soul once inhabited the form of a certain Ulrica.

As to other matters in this sequel of the tale, we do not think philanthropy (for we are told love was out of the question) a sufficient power to have urged and supported Consuelo while in search of this Albert, who has escaped from his home during his insane fits. Here, through cisterns and underground passages,

she braves the danger of drowning; looks calmly on a close prospect of being buried alive by an idiot; and, arrived at Albert's cavern, retains sufficient presence of mind to reason away monomania. Again, in Albert's sane moments he seems to us at times almost as mad as in his insanity. For instance, in his theological discussions, in his disquisitions on equality, and the reappearance of the soul in various forms, and in his explanation of the nature of Satan and his rehabilitation. Nor do we at all understand how Consuelo, being of sane and strong mind, and not feverish just then, should, merely because a young man plays remarkably well on the violin and in a cavern, yield to such aberrations, even momentary, as Madame Sand describes. Besides, it is not in nature, above all, not in German nature, that the old noble should discard all kinds of cherished prejudices to pray the fatherless and wandering actress to be his son's bride. Yet at this point of the tale the frank retrospect of her life is given charmingly. Anzoleto's return to her after resenting the insult of the patrician Zustiniani, is extremely good. Strong while he is so; meeting coldly, and with contempt, his efforts then to harm her in the eyes of others;-she is not proof against sorrow. Her strength fails while they sing the airs of their childhood with the voices of their youth; she stifles a cry, and bursts into tears. But her subsequent flight from her two lovers is not at all well imagined; nor are we much interested in the musician with whom she and ourselves become acquainted on this journey (even though his name be Joseph Haydn); and when they are received by the mysterious man, we should like something more probable, and therefore more affecting, than her discovery that a certain vehicle has a false back, receiving light and air from above, wherein, by means of a crevice she enlarges with her dagger, she discovers a man gagged, bound, and bleeding, in what we can conceive to be no other than a most disagreeable position.

As a whole, in short, from the time it quits Venice, the story is ill-framed, and in most respects inferior to the earlier passages, whose spirit and some of whose detail we have set before the reader. In its unfinished state, it would be scarcely just to make further exception. We must only remark that the philosophical devagations of the somewhat preposterous Count Albert, are by no means to be perforce considered true philosophy, but rather to be treated, if the reader so pleases, as in the mouth of a veritable madman, and a portion of the madman's part. We desired to communicate to our readers some of the pleasure this tale had given us, because its genius certainly appears far less in fever-fits than is the wont with other works from the same hand: its strength is steadier, clearer, calmer, and more collected.

ART. VIII.-Reise seiner Majestät des Königs Friedrich August von Sachsen durch Istrien, Dalmatien, und Montenegro, im Frühjahr 1838. (Journey of the King of Saxony through Istria, Dalmatia, and Montenegro, in the Spring of 1838.) Dresden. 1842. THE short volume thus headed is a German condensation, by Baron von Gutschmid, of an Italian work, written by Dr. Bartolemeo Biasoletto, a botanist, who accompanied the king on his journey. The object of the expedition was the observation of the plants growing in the several countries through which the travellers passed, and the description of the Italian doctor was essentially a scientific one. The German adapter, conceiving that there was much in the narrative that might interest the general reader, by giving him an insight into parts of Europe but seldom explored, has omitted those portions that are merely botanical, translated the rest, and elucidated it by annotations.

The steamer in which the king travelled started from Trieste, coasted round Istria, stopped at several places in Dalmatia and the adjacent islands, and proceeded as far as the little town of Budua. Thence the travellers returned to Trieste, taking in their way several places, chiefly inland, which they had missed in their journey southward. Though the book has been cleared of its scientific part for the benefit of the general reader, one fault in it has not been remedied, and that is, that it does not so much give a full account of the places visited, as of the reception which the king met. The journey of his majesty of Saxony undertaken for the advancement of science, was questionless a very laudable one; but still, as we are not Saxon subjects, we must not be blamed that our hearts do not beat particularly high at the many very handsome complements that were paid. At Dresden doubtless the case is different.

The most complete, and, at the same time, the most interesting part of the book, is the description of the king's visit to the patriarchal region of Montenegro: a visit which at the time occasioned some sensation in the political world, as it was thought that the wild inhabitants had been led to a sense of their own importance, and that the pride occasioned by the condescension of royalty had caused that opposition to the Austrian troops, which terminated in the border-warfare of August, 1838. Montenegro is one of those places of doubtful independence, which though not recognised by any power, is virtually free of all, and entirely governed by its own laws and patriarchal institutions. It is the north-western part of the old Servian dominion, which on the peace concluded between the Emperor Leopold II. and the Porte, in

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1791, was ceded to the pachalic of Scutari. By the mountainous nature of their country, and the talent of their chiefs, the inhabitants, who in 1838 were estimated at no more than 107,000 souls, have been enabled to resist their nominal rulers: their constant endeavour being to avoid the payment of a tribute, which, according to the popular belief, was imposed to provide the sultan with shoes. They are a bold, hardy people, chiefly addicted to a pastoral life, noted for their hospitality and for the inviolability of their word, and imbued with an inextinguishable border-hatred against the Turks. Their country is divided into districts, called Nahjas,' and each of these into communities. Twelve captains are distributed among the nahjas, and the whole are under a Vladika,' or governor. The present Vladika is named Peter Petrovich, and is a young bishop aged about thirty-two, who has been celebrated as a poet in his own language. It was to the pride of this governor that we are indebted for the visit of the King of Saxony to Montenegro, and consequently for the account which Baron Gutschmid has been kind enough to furnish. The magistrates of Cattaro, when the King was in their town, sent to their neighbour the Vladika to inform him of the fact. At first he intended to proceed to Cattaro, but he afterwards resolved to meet the king on the borders of his own dominions. The meeting between the two potentates we extract from Baron Gutschmid's work. It will be recollected that Dr. Biasoletto speaks.

"The higher we went, the view of the canal of Cattaro, which we left behind us, became more beautiful. Further towards the mountains the path grew more difficult, and we completely lost sight of the canal, while the continuous mountain-region made almost a melancholy impression upon us, as we met with shapeless masses of stone, threatening rocks, and steep heights, seldom enlivened by a scanty speck of land or a tree. Suddenly a broad and beautiful horizon was before us, which dispelled every gloomy thought. We saw the town of Budua, which, on the edge of the sea, was reflected in its waters, well-arranged plantations, pleasant fields, which extended to Pastrovichio along the ridge of mountains, with Scutari, and the borders of Turkish Albania, Janina, &c., by the sea-shore.

"Soon, while we ascended the path, a salute of musketry was fired on the rocks over our heads, and for a short while the pure atmosphere and the blue sky were obscured. It was the Vladika, who greeted the King from a rock; his colossal form was rendered more conspicuous by his long black dress, and he stood above many of his followers, whose heads alone could be seen, as their bodies were concealed by projecting fragments of the precipice.

"The King alighted when we came up to the Vladika, who welcomed him, and requested him to sit down and rest, while he pointed out

An Apostolic Vladika.

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a stone hewn among the natural rocks into the shape of a large chair, over which a shawl (struka) was spread, of the kind that the Montenegrians, male and female, wear about their shoulders; in summer out of luxury, and in winter to guard against the cold, when they wind it about their neck and shoulders, and use it as a mantle.

"With this sort of covering was the hard seat adorned on which his Majesty Friedrich August King of Saxony first took a place in the Montenegrian region; and although the silken stuffs to which he had been accustomed were afar, and chairs with soft cushions had been exchanged for a seat hewn out of a rough material, nevertheless this reception and hospitality on the part of the Vladika, in this desert and solitary spot, greatly delighted him.”

Who could not tell that the good doctor was a courtier? He takes his scat right gingerly among the mountains of Montenegro, and complacently admires the condescension of his Majesty for being satisfied, when he finds a fragment of rock actually unprovided with a cushion. Oranges, and water from the spring, quenched the thirst of the travellers, and the Vladika very politely invited the King to his court at Cettigne. The invitation was accepted, and off went the whole party along a very dangerous mountain-path. The Montenegrians who accompanied the Vladika are described as follows:

"They were of a middle stature, lean, robust, muscular, quick, active, and sunburnt, and their aspect was proud and animated. All wore mustaches, and had on their heads a red cap, while they wore a coarse surtout of white wool, secured at the waist by a girdle, in which were stuck a pair of pistols and a cutlass, long breeches of the same woollen material, reaching down to the ankle, and opankas (a sort of sandal) on the feet. Their head was shaved, with merely a tuft of hair left at the back in the Turkish fashion. Across their shoulders they wore the struka and the musket."

Dr. Biasoletto warns his reader not to expect that the state residence at Cettigne is like that of any European prince; telling him that the prince-bishop lives in solitude like an apostle in a hermitage. This apostolic character of the good Vladika is rather too much for Baron von Gutschmid, who loves to give the Italian a quiet hit in his notes. "The Turkish heads that are stuck upon the tower near the residence," says the Baron, "have not a particularly apostolic appearance. The great curiosity, the 'lion' of Montenegro, is quite in keeping with the decorations of the town. This is an embalmed head of Mahmud Pacha, of Scutari, to whom the Montenegrians, notwithstanding the peace of 1791, refused obedience, and by whom they were consequently attacked in 1796, when their country was devastated with fire