| | | The author of this ingenious work informs us, in a very | solemn preface, that if anyone | entertains any doubt of the authenticity of these letters it will | be the worse for the doubter. He adds that he hesitated for a | long time before publishing them. The book, as will | be seen, is therefore not a mere novel, but is intended to | effect to collateral purpose of frightening a great many | people into salvation. Of its success in this direction it is | scarcely our province to form any opinion; and we are the | more careful to avoid a rash excursion beyond our proper | sphere, as we find that hell is peopled to a great extent by | reviewers; for reviewers, we are told, . Not only are | there in hell , but even the damned avoid them as if | they were mad dogs, . Moreover, all the malicious | reviews are read by the damned as soon as they appear on | earth. We have no desire for such an extension of our | circulation, and will confine ourselves to the mere literary | merits of the work. We shall thus be free, at any rate, from | the crime of sneering at the author’s good intentions; and we | need not solve the difficult problem, whether a study of | elaborate pictures of all the tortures which the human mind | can conceive forms, on the whole, a healthy religious | exercise. | We may say at once that the book, considered merely as a | work of art, is rather better than the ordinary run of | second-rate novels. There is indeed no proof of much imaginative | force, and still less is there much power of the grotesque, | although that power is almost a necessary relief to the | painful impression made by a constant dwelling upon | horrors. Some sort of grim humour is desirable as a contrast | to the prevailing gloom, and to show that the pictures | presented to us are to be taken rather symbolically than | literally. What there is of the grotesque is an involuntary | result of the attempt to produce a lifelike effect by prosaic | details. Thus the letters are supposed to be conveyed from | the writer to the receiver by the agency of ghosts, some of | them

“very estimable ghosts.”

One night the | receiver happens to lay his pen aside so as to form a cross | with his pencil. The ghost is so much startled at this symbol | that . It will be seen from this that the author’s | conception of hell includes a very strong resemblance to our | own world. This is, in fact, the main principle of the book; | and the ghastly mimicry of human occupations and passions | is described with some literary force. The hell of the letters is | by no means the hell of Dante ~~ a place of infinitely varying | tortures. It is rather an expansion of the admirably described | scene in Redgauntlet, where the adventurous | piper finds Claverhouse and his companions employed over | a diabolical repetition of their earthly revels. Human nature, | the author oddly remarks, is much the same everywhere ~~ | even in hell. The letters are pretty much after the manner of | those of a newspaper correspondent, except that a large | part of them is naturally devoted to personal reminiscences; | they include accounts of excursions to different parts of hell, | of conversations with many distinguished characters, and | remarks as to the way in which business is transacted there. | Thus we find that there is a great deal of society, sometimes | of an exclusive kind; but all the mirth is unreal; . | There is a public promenade, where people are to be seen | dressed in the fashion of every country and century; but all | the dandies know that they are as ridiculous as the rivals at | whom they are compelled to scoff, and that, gorgeous as | their dresses may be, they do not really hide their | nakedness; for, in hell, . There are beggars in hell; | the most troublesome are the missionaries, who have made | false reports of their successes, baptizing without being | particular as to conversion, and who still go about . | There are balls and social gatherings of all sorts, where | everyone talks scandal of the worst | kinds about his neighbours, and is irresistibly impelled to talk | equal scandal about himself. There are churches in hell, | which are thronged with worshippers, who, when they try to | sing hymns, break out into lewd and blasphemous songs, | and where the preacher makes hideous grimaces, and pours | out a flood of abominable balderdash. There are towns and | palaces and theatres, for whenever a number of spirits unite | to desire anything, their wish is at once accomplished; the | result, however, is a mere phantasm, and is incapable of | giving real pleasure. Soldiers can still carry on imaginary | wars, and sensualists seek for illusory gratifications; in short, | the chief horror of hell is that | everyone is doomed to act in accordance with his old | propensities, but finds that they never give him more than a | shadowy image of pleasure. A short conversation with one | ghost brings out the continuity of worldly associations. The | writer sits down beside a young lady of admirable beauty | and modesty, dressed all in white, and asks her, | she replies. . The ghost nodded her head in assent, | and proceeded to tell a story which, but for her peculiar | situation, we should have been tempted to describe as a | wilful fabrication. | There is one obvious difficulty in the way of working out this | conception. It is of course necessary to represent the | damned as suffering from the continuance of their old evil | desires, which they have become incapable of even | attempting to resist. A sort of impotent recollection of | attempts to repent is all that remains. The writer, for | example, endeavours to say the Lord’s Prayer, but after | trying it twenty or a hundred times, he only gets through the | first two words, and then tries to say it backwards with | equally ill success. Hence, to be consistent, it would seem | that he should express sentiments of a kind befitting his | position. He should glory in his wickedness, and only regret | that he is no longer able to find satisfaction in it. Instead of | this, we find this lost soul constantly expressing sentiments | which would be creditable in any position of life. Perhaps | they may be suspected as being rather too unctuous in tone. | The overflowing of love to all mankind, the absence of any | repining against the justice of his punishment, and the desire | to draw useful morals from every point of the story, are | exhibited with an eagerness calculated to throw doubt upon | their sincerity. His tone rather unpleasantly reminds us of the | convicts who are trying to get on the weak side of the | chaplain. The interstices of descriptions of life in hell are | filled with such matter as this: ~~ And there are | many other remarks of a still more decidedly religious | character. From this we must infer that one of the incidental | occupations of persons in the unfortunate position of the | letter-writer is to produce raw materials for tracts. We do not | argue as to the intrinsic probability of such an hypothesis; | but its dramatic propriety seems, to say the least of it, to be | doubtful. An evil spirit whose chief punishment it is that, | although unable to gratify his earthly passions, he is | constantly possessed by them without the capacity for | resistance, should not be constantly overwhelming us with | pious advice. It tends to convince us that the section of | society to which he belongs is by no means wanting in | persons of very excellent character, though in a very | uncomfortable position. To be just, indeed, we must confess | that the author seems to accept this conclusion. He takes | great pains to tell us that not only is hell paved with good | intentions, but that it is actually filled by a large number of | persons distinguished by exemplary qualities. There is, he | says, a general opinion that a man must be exceedingly | wicked to find himself in hell; but it is really inconceivable | how little can send a person there. He meets, for example, a | young woman whose worst fault is . She is | punished by his arrival at the same destination with his heart | occupied by another passion. One of the sins for which the | author himself is punished is that he had been merciful to a | certain evildoer, not from pure mercy, but from the feeling | that he had previously been too severe. he | exclaims, . Another

“noble-hearted”

artist, | who had died in defence of his country, is damned because | he had been too much disposed to make an idol of his | profession. We are not, therefore, surprised to hear that, as | most persons die unawares, . Of the theological | value of this opinion, we can of course say nothing; but, | artistically, it weakens the effect, for a reason like that which | interferes with the dramatic propriety of Paradise Lost. | We begin, in fact, to feel our sympathies enlisted on | the wrong side. It is true that there are a great many | murderers and other evildoers encountered by the author, | some of whose crimes are recounted at considerable length. | We are introduced, amongst other historical characters, to | Pontius Pilate, who is always endeavouring to cleanse his | hands from the stains of blood; to Judas Iscariot, who tries | incessantly to get behind other ghosts and hang round their | necks, his intention in which, we are told, ; to Joe | Smith, the Mormon prophet, and to Mahomet, who is rather | unfairly classed with so contemptible an imposter; and to a | Spanish king, who gives out a notice that he will . | And, besides these monsters, there are a variety of fancy | murderers and perpetrators of various crimes. Of the | propriety of the sentence passed upon such offenders there | can of course be no doubt; but it only renders more | questionable the poetical justice of intermingling them with | ladies who have been too fond of their husbands, and with | noble-hearted and patriotic gentlemen who have been too | zealous in the pursuit of their art. If there were any gradation | in the tortures to which they are subjected, we should not be | so much shocked. As it is, we cannot help feeling a certain | sympathy with the sufferers which detracts very perceptibly | from the desirable unity of effect. | We have said nothing of the character of the supposed | author of these revelations. Interwoven with the description | of the place of torment, there are a great number of personal | recollections. These are, on the whole, of a very feeble | character. The principal persons described are an old aunt, | whose efforts to improve the character of her nephew were | singularly thrown away; and a virtuous young woman named | Lili, who is so obtrusively holy and innocent, and disposed to | administer good advice, as to be not a little of a bore. There | is another young woman, whom the writer has been guilty of | seducing; and it is a source of very just annoyance to him, | though some of the details are rather disagreeable, that he | cannot tell what has become of their illegitimate child. Of | these recollections, which he is very fond of bestowing upon | us at considerable length, we grow rather tired, as they are | obviously a mere device for introducing a great quantity of | sermonizing, which would not come with equal grace from | the mouth of a damned spirit. | The truth is that the author’s description of hell, whether it is | or is not a legitimate mode of insinuating good advice, is | considerably spoilt by all this infusion of feeble advice. If the | author had been content simply to depict its horrors as | forcibly as he could, and to leave us to draw our own | conclusions, there are some proofs that he might really have | drawn an effective, though a horrible, picture; there are | many passages which are not wanting in the power suitable | to such a purpose. But, as we have said, the mixture of | inferior sermonizing very much spoils the effect. It reminds | us rather of the

“spheres”

imagined by spirit-rappers | than of the forcible, if gross, pictures produced by | the imagination of the middle ages. Hell, as here described, | has been so much refined away, by a compromise with | certain modern prejudices, that it loses its reality. It is good | neither to amuse philosophers nor to frighten the ignorant; | there is a feeble attempt to fit it for the age, which only | makes it a washed-out representative of the hell of bolder | and coarser fancies. | We must add that one rather incongruous effect is produced | by the extreme interest taken by the spirits in the Schleswig- | Holstein question and the events of the Danish war. It is due | to the fact ~~ unnoticed in the title page ~~ that the book is a | translation from the Danish; but it interferes not a little with | the harmony of the picture. Perhaps, however, the | Schleswig-Holstein question is not an inappropriate subject | for mediation in such a region.