NOTE TO THE PRESENT EDITION (1852).
If this work possess any merit of a Narrative order, it will perhaps befound in its fidelity to the characteristics of an Autobiography.The reader must, indeed, comply with the condition exacted from hisimagination and faith; that is to say, he must take the hero of thestory upon the terms for which Morton Devereux himself stipulates;and regard the supposed Count as one who lived and wrote in the lastcentury, but who (dimly conscious that the tone of his mind harmonizedless with his own age than with that which was to come) left hisbiography as a legacy to the present. This assumption (which is not anunfair one) liberally conceded, and allowed to account for occasionalanachronisms in sentiment, Morton Devereux will be found to write as aman who is not constructing a romance, but narrating a life. He givesto Love, its joy and its sorrow, its due share in an eventful andpassionate existence; but it is the share of biography, not of fiction.He selects from the crowd of personages with whom he is brought intocontact, not only those who directly influence his personal destinies,but those of whom a sketch or an anecdote would appear to a biographerlikely to have interest for posterity. Louis XIV., the Regent Orleans,Peter the Great, Lord Bolingbroke, and others less eminent, but stillof mark in their own day, if growing obscure to ours, are introducednot for the purposes and agencies of fiction, but as an autobiographer'snatural illustrations of the men and manners of his time.
And here be it pardoned if I add that so minute an attention hasbeen paid to accuracy that even in petty details, and in relation tohistorical characters but slightly known to the ordinary reader, acritic deeply acquainted with the memoirs of the age will allow that thenovelist is always merged in the narrator.
Unless the Author has failed more in his design than, on revising thework of his early youth with the comparatively impartial eye of maturerjudgment, he is disposed to concede, Morton Devereux will also be foundwith that marked individuality of character which distinguishes the manwho has lived and laboured from the hero of romance. He admits into hislife but few passions; those are tenacious and intense: conscious thatnone who are around him will sympathize with his deeper feelings, heveils them under the sneer of an irony which is often affected and nevermirthful. Wherever we find him, after surviving the brief episode oflove, we feel--though he does not tell us so--that he is alone in theworld. He is represented as a keen observer and a successful actor inthe busy theatre of mankind, precisely in proportion as no cloud fromthe heart obscures the cold clearness of the mind. In the scenes ofpleasure there is no joy in his smile; in the contests of ambition thereis no quicker beat of the pulse. Attaining in the prime of manhood suchposition and honour as would first content and then sate a man of thismould, he has nothing left but to discover the vanities of this worldand to ponder on the hopes of the next; and, his last passion dyingout in the retribution that falls on his foe, he finally sits down inretirement to rebuild the ruined home of his youth,--unconscious that tothat solitude the Destinies have led him to repair the waste and ravagesof his own melancholy soul.
But while outward Dramatic harmonies between cause and effect, and theproportionate agencies which characters introduced in the Drama bringto bear upon event and catastrophe, are carefully shunned,--as real lifedoes for the most part shun them,--yet there is a latent coherence inall that, by influencing the mind, do, though indirectly, shape out thefate and guide the actions.
Dialogue and adventures which, considered dramatically, would beepisodical,--considered biographically, will be found essential to theformation, change, and development of the narrator's character. Thegrave conversations with Bolingbroke and Richard Cromwell, the lightscenes in London and at Paris, the favour obtained with the Czar ofRussia, are all essential to the creation of that mixture of weariedsatiety and mournful thought which conducts the Probationer to thelonely spot in which he is destined to learn at once the mystery of hispast life and to clear his reason from the doubts that had obscured thefuture world.
Viewing the work in this more subtile and contemplative light, thereader will find not only the true test by which to judge of its designand nature, but he may also recognize sources of interest in the storywhich might otherwise have been lost to him; and if so, the Author willnot be without excuse for this criticism upon the scope and intention ofhis own work. For it is not only the privilege of an artist, but it isalso sometimes his duty to the principles of Art, to place the spectatorin that point of view wherein the light best falls upon the canvas. "Donot place yourself there," says the painter; "to judge of my compositionyou must stand where I place you."
CONTENTS.