The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 5, January, 1835Various
History
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 5, January, 1835
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Glaucus is a noble character throughout; educated of course a heathen,
but endowed with some of those higher faculties of reason, which
enabled him in the end to surrender the charms of a poetic mythology
for a purer and brighter faith. Ione, "the beautiful Ione," is an
almost perfect model of Grecian loveliness and accomplishment; and her
brother Apæcides, furnishes an affecting illustration of great powers
and virtues rendered prostrate by an overwrought sensibility and
enthusiastic temperament. Arbaces, the dark, wily, revengeful Egyptian,
is the demon of the tale. In profound earthly wisdom and diabolical
depravity, "none but himself can be his parallel." The "Asiatic
Journal," whose editors or reviewers we take to be much wiser than we
are, asserts that the character of Nydia is not an original creation of
Mr. Bulwer's; but that the dwarf _Mignon_ in the _Wilhelm Meister_ of
Goethe, is the exact prototype not only of the blind flower girl, but
of the fantastical Fenella in Scott's Peverill of the Peak. The
"Journal" also maintains that the witch of Vesuvius, is of the true Meg
Merrillie's family. In regard to the first supposed
resemblances,--never having seen Goethe's work, we profess our entire
incompetency to judge; but we do most fervently protest against any
comparison between our old favorite Meg and that most execrable hag
whom Bulwer has placed in the caverns of Vesuvius,--the perusal of
whose accursed incantations deprived us of several hours of our
accustomed and needful rest.
Whilst Mr. Bulwer has rendered to the Egyptian and a few others the
just reward of their transgressions, we think that poor Nydia has been
hardly dealt by. What a fine opportunity it was to illustrate the power
of christian faith in soothing even the sorrows of unrequited love. We
do not say this reproachfully however, because we think that Mr. Bulwer
has endeavored at least, to do justice to the christian character and
principles, in his work. Olynthus is a fine specimen of that heroic
courage which, especially in the early ages of the church, was content
with ignominy, chains and poverty in this life, and courted even
martyrdom itself, in the bright anticipation of eternal bliss.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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