The title of romance still invigorates our spirits. Old as we are, it recalls to our
recollection the stories in which our youth delighted, of wandering knights, tilts,
tournaments, enchanted castles, formidable giants, sea monsters, distressed damsels,
tremendous fights, and impossible valour. We forget, however, that "the days of
chivalry are gone;" and that, in the present-day
romance, we must expect little other amusement than the oglio of the modern
novel supplies: consisting of unnatural parents,—persecuted lovers,—murders,—haunted
apartments,—winding sheets, and winding stair-cases,—subterraneous passages,—lamps
that are dim and perverse, and that always go out when they should
not,—monasteries,—caves,—monks, tall, thin, and withered, with lank abstemious
cheeks,—dreams,—groans,—and spectres.

Such is the outline of the modern romance; and Mr. Ireland's copy is not unworthy of its
numerous prototypes. We have here, in the personages of the drama, a parent and a
husband in the Marquis of Badajos, as wicked and as unnatural as any with whom we
have before had the honor of being acquainted.—We have a son in the Condé Rimualdo,
as eminent for filial piety as Æneas himself.—We have patient suffering innocence
in
the fair Constanza, equalling, if not transcending any of our novel heroines.—We have
very good haunted towers,—and a spectre that stands supremely eminent over the whole
race of ghosts.—Hamlets and Banquos were no more than mawkins in a cherry-tree, compared with that terrific vision which Rimualdo
encounters on entering the old ruined chapel in the forest.—Though familiarized very
much, lately, to these apparitions, we did not feel inclined to go to bed, till we
had puffed away the recollection of this spectre in a whiff of tobacco, and
re-animated our fleeting spirits by a double draught of old October: which will not
be matter of surprise to the reader, when he learns that the hero himself, the brave
Rimualdo, dropped down in a swoon immediately on seeing it!

Murder is in this romance too much the order of the
day. We have murders in castles, in forests, and in cottages; and, to borrow
a word from the author, we are too frequently enhorrored.—Raw head and bloody bones is continually at our heels, through a
long journey of 926 pages; and we were therefore happy to get rid of him, and to
leave our terrified fellow-travellers calmly settled in the unhaunted Castilio di
Montalvan.

Mr. Ireland's language is animated and
flowing, when it is not inflated with pomposity. The
Escurial (for the scene of action is in Spain) is well and minutely described; and
the Castle of Badajos is a pleasing picture: but, like some sister Novelists, he deals too profusely in poetic description,
and the common operations of Nature are never detailed in common language. Morning
never appears without 'Aurora's tints that crown the summits of the distant
mountains.'—The sun never rises but 'as the imperial charioteer of day, hast'ning
his
car of blazing light towards green ocean's occidental flood-gate.' [Page 204]The
moon is always full orb'd, yet never looks full at us,
but peeps behind fleecy clouds.—Night never forgets to assume the appropriate dignity
of her sable mantle, with which (when she is not in a good humour) 'she overspreads
heaven's countless luminaries;' —and if the hero and heroine are in a storm, God
alone can help them,—for then 'impetuous winds blow from every direction (all at once), flakey
lightning emblazons night's ebon robe, and full charged clouds discharge tremendous explosions.'

Thus is poetic imagery blended with prose detail; producing a medley of
heterogeneous language totally destructive of good writing, by violating those
principles of harmonious congruity which form the basis of a correct and
uncontaminated diction.