Mary Robinson

Mary Robinson. Hubert de Sevrac, a Romance of the Eighteenth Century. 3 vols.

London:  Hookham and Co., 1796

Contemporary Reviews

Analytical Review 25 (1797): 523

ART. XXV Hubert de Sevrac, a Romance of the Eighteenth Century. By mary Robinson. 3 vols. 12 mo. 950 pages. Price 13 s.6d. sewed. Hookham and Co. 1796.

Mrs. Robinson writes so rapidly, that she scarcely gives herself time to digest her story into a plot, or to allow those incidents gradually to grow out of it, which are the fruit of matured invention. She certainly possesses considerable abilities; but she seems to have fallen into an errour, common to people of lively fancy, and to think herself so happily gifted by nature, that her first thoughts will answer her purpose. The consequence is obvious; her sentences are often confused, entangled with superfluous words, half-expressed sentiments, and false ornaments.

In writing the present romance Mrs. Radcliffe appears to be her model; and she deserved to rank as one of her most successful imitators: still the characters are so imperfectly sketched, the incidents so unconnected, the changes of scene so frequent, that interest is seldom excited, and curiosity flags.
After this account we shall not be expected to give the outlines of such an imperfect tale; the object of it is apparently benevolent, but it has no centre out of which the moral, that the vices of the rich produce the crimes of the poor, could naturally emanate.

It is but just, however, to observe, before dismissing the article, that some of the descriptions are evidently sketched by a poet, and irradiations of fancy flash through the surrounding perplexity, sufficient to persuade us, that she could write better, were she conce convinced, that the writing of a good book is no easy task.

Monthly Review 22 (Jan. 1797): 91.

Art. 17. Hubert de Sevrac, a Romance of the Eighteenth Century. By Mary Robinson, Author of Poems, Angelina, &c. 12 mo. 3 vols. 12 s. sewed. Hookham. 1796.

This work possesses many of the beauties, and some of the faults, which characterize that species of modern novels called Romances. The mysterious, the horrible, the pathetic, and the melancholy, are the leading features of this kind of writing. We could point out many parts of these volumes that are delineated with strength and spirit: but, as a whole, the composition rather fails in effect, owing to the multiplicity of characters and incidents, and to the frequent change of scene. We doubt not, however, that it will be perused by many with pleasure; and, though it be not a first-rate work, it has many more inferiors than superiors.

European Magazine 31 (1797): 33-34.

Hubert de Sevrac. A Romance of the eighteenth Century. By Mary Robinson. 3 vols. 12 mo. Hookham and Carpenter.

This is a romance of a more sober and probably cast than the preceding [Ann Radcliffe's The Italian], though there are not wanting in it scenes of horror of the same kind, which we do not conceive add in the least to the value of it. The characters in Mrs. Robinson's work, particularly Hubert, are natural and well discriminated; and there are interspersed through the whole many reflections on the conduct of human life, which shew the author to be an attentive observer of the manners of the world, and consequently better qualified to instruct it than most who undertake this species of composition. What we least approve of in this work is an evident partiality towards French Philosophy, and something too much of the cant of French Democracy.

[Coleridge, Samuel Taylor.] Critical Review 23 (Aug. 1798): 472.
Rpt. in The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Shorter Works and Fragments. Vol. 1. Ed. H. J. Jackson and J. R. de J. Jackson. Bollingen Series LXXV. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1995. 82.

Hubert de Sevrac. A Romance, of the 18th Century. By Mary Robinson, Author of Poems, Angelina, &c. 3 Vols. 12 mo. 12 s. sewed. Hookham. 1796.
The character of Mrs. Robinson's novels being generally known, it is perhaps sufficient to say, that Hubert de Sevrac is inferior to her former productions. It is an imitation of Mrs. Radcliffe's romances, but without any resemblance that may not be attained by a common pen. There are detached parts, however, of which we may speak with approbation; and, during the prevalence of the present taste for romances, the whole may afford amusement to the supporters of circulating libraries. But is may be necessary to apprise novel-writers, in general, that this taste is declining, and that real life and manners will soon assert their claims.

Prepared by Lisa M. Wilson, SUNY-Potsdam, July 2006.
© Lisa M. Wilson, 2006.