E391200B. Findens’ Tableaux (1840).
Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, December 1839, pp. 813–814.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 412–413.
How enchanting a combination—Prose, Poetry, and Art! Over the three united graces, Miss Mitford presides, as in former years, imparting to the Tableaux whatever is most charming and characteristic in her peculiar style of thought, invention, and expression. One is glad to find that the ennobling genius of old romance—rudely exorcised from the three volume fictions of the day, whose elements are either wild and extravagant passion, or the stern and coarse realities of vulgar life—obtains refuge in the Annuals. Miss Barrett is once more the tuneful auxiliary of her friend, the Editor. And among her allies of the nobler sex, as they call themselves, are Barry Cornwall, H. Chorley, and R.H. Horne. The latter contributes a slight dramatic sketch The Death-Fetch, imbued with poetry. Miss Mitford, however, as well beseems her, plays the principal part in her own entertainment. The nature of her five prose tales (each brief, though graceful and felicitous) may be divined from the prints they illustrate. The King’s Page is a pretty picture, illustrated by a pretty dramatic incident, the personages of which are Frederick the Great, and the page and his sister. It turns upon sisterly affection, though a little incidental true love gives zest to the narrative. The Proud Ladye—of which the scene is also Germany, though in the olden time—and The Roundhead’s Daughter are both love stories; the latter the gem of the volume. Miss Mitford is much more at home on the wolds and among the villages of Kent, Hampshire, and Berkshire, than in the Highlands of Scotland; and so her Woodcutter much excels The Death of Luath, though it is a neatly-turned clan fragment. A great deal of the poetry of the Tableaux is legendary—a style which is peculiarly suited to the work. Miss Barrett’s supernatural legend of the Brown Rosarie, is inferior to her beautiful and pathetic poem of last year, but still a wildly imaginative performance. Our only extract must be this graceful opening of Part Third; as it is difficult, within moderate bounds, to convey any idea of how passionate love, and the fear of death tempted Leonora to the deadly sin of sorcery, and how love and faith finally redeemed her from the power of the fiends:—
’Tis a morn for bridal. The merry bride-bell
Ringeth clear through the greenwood that skirts the chapelle,
And the priest at the altar awaiteth the bride,
And the grave young sacristans jest slyly aside,
At the work shall be doing;
When down through the wood rides that fair companie—
The youths with the courtship, the maids with the glee—
Till the chapel-cross opens to sight, and at once
All the maids sigh demurely, and think for the nonce.
So endeth the wooing!
And the bride and the bridegroom are leading the way,
With his hand on her rein, and a word yet to say;
Her dropped lids suggest the replyings beneath,
And the little quick smiles come and go with her breath,
If she sigheth or speaketh.
And the tender bride-mother breaks off unaware
From an Ave, to trow that her daughter is fair;
But in nearing the chapel, and glancing before,
She seeth her little son stand at the door;
Is it play that he seeketh?
Is it play when his eyes wander innocent, wild,
Yet sublimed with a sadness unfitting a child:
He trembles not, weeps not, his passion is done,
And meekly he kneels in their midst, with the sun
On his head like a glory.
“O merry fair maids! ye are many,” he cried;
“But in fairness and vileness who matcheth the bride?
O merry brave youths! ye are many, but whom
For courage and wo can ye match with the groom,
As ye see them before ye?”
The pure-minded and pious child is aware of the dark dealings of his sister with the Fiend. But we cannot follow [p. 814→] the legend, which, without its poetical dress, were comparatively tame. In the opening poem, The Dream, Miss Barrett, as many ladies have, wittingly or unwittingly, done before her, chooses to mistake a Sleeping Cupid—a very palpable boy-god—for a dreaming child. This plate, which forms the frontispiece to “The Tableaux,” is peculiarly rich and delicate, and also gorgeous in those accessary embellishments which this year give a new feature to the prints. These are a series of smaller groups, which “illustrate some point of the story”—according to Miss Mitford—and are so arranged as to form a frame-work round the central figures. Those who see “Knight’s Illustrated Shakspere,” and other works of the same nature, will be already familiar with the plan. The execution of those dainty, Ariel-like groups is fanciful and delicate. The designs are all by J. Browne; and if somewhat theatrical in character, we may presume the artist meant it so, as the style best adapted to the “Tableaux,” such groups always consisting of stage-dressed or masquerading figures. Although it greatly impairs the effect of Mr Kenyon’s elegant verses, not to present them with Miss Mitford’s ingenious dramatic introduction, as found in the tale of the Roundhead’s Daughter, we venture this poem in its simple state.
[The review is concluded with Kenyon’s “To an Æolian Harp”; this we omit.]
[Christian Johnstone]
Reviewed:
Findens’ Tableaux, ed. M.R. Mitford, London: 1840.
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