The Corvey Novels Project at the University of Nebraska

— Studies in British Literature of the Romantic Period —

 

 

 

Catherine Gore

[Gore, Catherine Grace Frances]. Mrs. Charles Gore. The Bond: A Dramatic Poem.

London: Murray, 1824.

 

Contemporary Reviews

[Catherine Gore]. Mrs. Charles Gore. The Bond: A Dramatic Poem.

The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle. July 1826 (Suppl.): 622-23.

IT is a palpable absurdity to suppose that the physical laws of being in any shape can be modified to the will of extraneous agency, without making God the Author of evil and confusion. A thing must be, before it can be any thing else, and on the primary must depend all subsequent being. Rebellion against God by physical means, must therefore be utterly impossible, because the existence rebelling is merely dependent. Archbishop Tillotson observes, that "nothing can be admitted to be a revelation from God, which plainly contradicts his essential perfection;" and if man could be subjected to such action, as is supposed by Monk Lewis, Lord Byron, and his fair imitatrix before us, the Almighty is made to counteract his own work of redemption, and man is only a passive, not an accountable creature. But the Devils of Scripture are more executioners and police agents, who are permitted to inflict punishment for the sake of reform, not for that of making prize of the soul. So at least says St. Paul (1 Corinth. ch. v. ver. 5), "Deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the fles, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus," where destruction of the flesh merely implies the infliction of disease (see Hammond's elaborate note on the passage, p. 523). Now it is certain that we know nothing about Devils, but from Scripture; and that they have by no means the power ascribed to them by the Mediæval ancients, and the parties before named. The question then is, are they fair subjects of poetry? The Devil is Milton's hero, but the Devil is a man, and so are all Devils in every poet which we have seen; and the effect is purely owing to the deception of seeing a human being endowed with supernatural qualities. According to fact, it would be reasonable to make Vickery, Lavender, and the Bow-street officers, the conductors of the machinery of an epic poem, as Satan and his coadjutors.

However, poets make of diabolism something terrific and interesting, and we are willing to give our authoress due credit for her Iago-like spirit Meinhard and his entrapment of the noble Othello-like Falkenstiern. The poetry is strong and energetic, and our readers shall judge for themselves by the concluding lines in Falkenstiern's speech, after his sentence of exile:

"O'er the desert Earth
I am a lost and charter'd wanderer!
And like a solitary vessel, braving
Upon the Ocean's dread immensity,
Tempest and thunder-cloud, my lonely heart
Must wrestle with the storms of fate.
The world
Is all before me : with this sword and Hope,
Hope ! whose bright arch of promise still
o'erhangs
The clouds of Memory, I will oppose
The ills of life, - the wrath of Destiny."

Here are two good figures; and as another part is to appear, we beg to remind our fair authoress, that we shall be glad of more of these necessary accompaniments of poetical diction.

 

La Belle Assemblée. S3,vl. 1825: 33-34. [not viewed]

The Literary Gazette. No. 413. 1824: 802-03. [not viewed]

The New Monthly Magazine. 15. 1825: 28. [not viewed]

- Prepared by Emmy Thomas, University of Nebraska, December 2002.