E381100A. Findens’ Tableaux (1839).
The Monthly Chronicle, November 1838, pp. 465–466.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 405–406.
A new species of Annual has appeared this year transcending the older series in size and costliness. Of this class we have three specimens—“The Diadem,” edited by Miss Sheridan; Finden’s “Tableaux of the Affections,” edited by Miss Mitford; and “The Amaranth,” edited by Mr. T.K. Hervey. These volumes are of equally imperial dimensions, but not of equal merit. “The Diadem,” in point of literary excellence, may perhaps be permitted to take the first place, while Finden’s “Tableaux” surpasses “The Diadem” in the beauty of its embellishments; and “The Amaranth” is inferior to both in both respects.
Miss Sheridan’s anthology of prose and verse deserves great commendation, and not the less that its contributors are chiefly selected from the higher circles—an evidence of cordiality in the pursuit of letters that must be gratifying to the reading public. With the exception of a few puerilities and ephemeral verses that might have been spared with advantage, the pieces generally are elegant in construction, and indicative of cultivated taste. In addition to the usual variety of matter, there are some stanzas by Lord Chesterfield, now published for the first time, and a song by Congreve, both of which are strikingly characteristic of their authors; and a story of the feudal times, preserved by the late Duchess of St. Albans, as it was related by Sir Walter Scott to a party of friends on a visit at Abbotsford. These novelties considerably enhance the attractions of the volume.
It would be difficult to divine the meaning or application of the title of Miss Mitford’s Annual. If the volume were intended to suggest by en- [p. 466→] gravings some of those noble conceptions that are occasionally, but not often, realised by sculpture, there might be some excuse for so affected a designation; but the engravings, exquisite as they are, make no pretensions to be considered as representatives of the affections, or “womanly virtues” as they are oddly called in the second title of the book; in fact, they might as reasonably be described as the tableaux of the sun, moon, and stars, for all the separate passions that are expressed in them. But the reader will find in this volume two or three felicitous compositions that, taken alone, are worth all the literature of the rest of the Annuals; notwithstanding that we think, for the general purpose of such publications, Miss Sheridan has catered better. Two poems, one by Miss Barrett, and the other by Mr. Hughes, are works distinguished by poetical qualities of the highest order. They are both dipped in the hues of ballad minstrelsy. The “Romaunt of the Page,” by Miss Barrett, is full of the early spirit of English poetry—quaint, simple, and pathetic: and in “The Minstrel of Provence,” Mr. Hughes has given us a very perfect specimen of a style which is now but little cultivated, but which can never lose its fascination, wherever the romantic costume and high-hearted chivalry of the middle ages are regarded with enthusiasm. The rest of the pieces hardly demand special notice. The prose tales are slight, and not very striking either in subject or treatment.
Reviewed:
Findens’ Tableaux, ed. M.R. Mitford, London: 1839.
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