THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER. NOVEMBER, 1839. ART. I.—1. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. BY VICTOR HUGO. 2. Picciola, or, Captivity Captive. By M. D. SAIN TINE. THESE two works give a pretty good idea of the two principal schools in the Romantic Literature of France. The great popularity, which they have had with English readers, shows that our tastes are not unlike the French. It is hardly necessary to say, that the Hunchback of Notre Dame is lawless and monstrous enough to be regarded as a type of the whole race of novels to which it belongs. The readers of Picciola among us, and they have been numerous enough to demand a second edition, need not be told of the simplicity, faith, and love, that characterize this beautiful creation of genius. It is not our present purpose to criticise these productions, so much as to speak of two great tendencies in modern literature, from which these works spring, and which they characterize. It is justly the glory of our age, that it is the era of Freedom. And yet side by side with our best blessings, our worst evils have come, arrayed alike in the garb of Liberty. If in government, the age has shown the noblest specimens of free institutions, ever granted to man, it has also seen the vilest anarchy; if it has had its Washington, it has also had its Robespierre. In society, if there have been those, who have looked beyond the petty artificial distinctions of social life, and recognised the true law of social brotherhood, binding alike - 3D s. VOL. IX. NO. II. VOL. XXVII. 19 upon all classes, there have been others, who have merely quarrelled with life's outside distinctions, and breathed nothing but discord and hate. In philosophy, if the brighter intelligences have seen through the errors and prejudices of many old opinions, and nobly vindicated truth from the follies, that have been wrapped around it, there have been others, so mad to destroy these follies, as to deny or forget the sacred truths, of which these are but the accidental appendages. If in morals, the better spirits of the times have explored the foundations of human duty, and found moral obligation to have a far deeper basis, than the authority of man, or the mere customs of society, there have been others, who have carried their inquiries no farther than to see the shallowness of worldly morality, -to call all virtue, but a pretence, and to acknowledge no duty, save that of seeking the greatest amount of animal gratification. And in religion, if many noble souls in all lands and all denominations have vindicated Christianity from the attacks of its foes and its false friends, shown, that it is something more than a device of the despot or tool of the bigot, and asserted a faith sublimely spiritual and plainly practical, free, and yet strict, alike true to revelation and accordant with science, there have been others, who have used their liberty of thought only as an occasion of licentiousness, have carried their free. inquiry no farther, than to examine and war with the human abuses of religion, and to pride themselves either in a sensual philosophy, that degrades man to a brute, or in a vague mysticism, that rests all faith in mere sentiment and all duty in fleeting impulse. In literature, which is generally a faithful mirror of the times, we may see the good and evil tendencies of our free age clearly imaged forth. In literature a large class of minds, and in many respects a noble class, impatient of the shackles of old authorities, and the formalities of artificial life, have rushed with rapture towards freedom, and ended only in rebellion and lawlessness. Other minds, and these of a nobler order and a happier lot, have been equally ardent to join in the free movement, but not content with warring against old errors and fretting at former bonds, they have persevered to the end and attained an independence, that is serene and reverential, and a liberty, that is founded upon law. The former class of minds may be justly called the Satanic School* in literature. It is * We believe that Robert Southey, in the preface to his Vision of to a consideration of this Satanic School, and to the nobler class of minds, that have sprung up to be its reformers, that our attention will now be given. The bane and antidote are both before us. Although the influence of the Satanic School is evidently on the wane, it cannot be denied, that it has been the most popular literature of the age, and has exerted the most effect upon the minds of the rising generation, especially upon those of a more impassioned temper. It has made its way into all places, and been found in almost all hands. Its novels have been found alike in the parlor and the bar-room,- on the student's table and in the steamboat library; its philosophy has been heard in the conversation of the grave theorist and in the harangue of the mad demagogue; its poems have been favorites in the ladies' boudoir and in the profligate's den; its songs have been yelled forth in the midnight orgies of bacchanalians, and warbled on gentle lips at the piano. It is much less hazardous to speak of the characteristics of the Satanic School, than to mention the writers by name. For many writers, who are great favorites with the public, are not free from the Satanic taint, and several, whose later influences have been pure, have in early life been foremost in the rebellious host. Indeed, in many of the impassioned minds of the age, the higher and lower elements of nature are so conflicting, -the dust and the deity so warring, faith alternating with denial, and rebellion with reconciliation, that it is often hard to say which preponderates. All of these are of a noble race, and even in their rebellion and degradation show features like those of “Arch-angel ruined." It may be said of almost the whole school what Byron, himself one of the leaders, perhaps the very Coryphæus of the band, says of his Manfred; "This should have been a noble creature; he Had they been wisely mingled; as it is, It is an awful chaos, light and darkness, And mind and dust, and passions and pure thoughts, All dormant or destructive." Judgment, was the first to use this term. But the term has a meaning in itself independent of any particular application. It represents one of the movements of the passing age. |