The Athenaeum was younger, &

so were those then born among

its present writers & readers, at the

a time when the streets of

London were paraded by

advertising views inscribed

“Varney the Vampire !, or, The Feast

of Blood!” in letters wide-spread

as the vampire-bat himself.

The ghastly announcement referred

to a “Romance of intense thrilling interest”

then appearing in penny weekly

numbers. It issued emanated from the

great emporium of such com-

modities in congenial Shore-

ditch; it was doubtless dra-

matized at some of the extreme

minors; & it was one of those works cited among

other works by Mr Charles Knight

in the Preface to the last beautiful issue of

the Penny Magazine, as being

written “by literary scavengers

“at scavenger's wages by literary scavengers”, and as threatening

to drive healthy cheap literature fairly

out of the book-market.

Mr Payne's “Lautrec” is not heralded

along London gutters by red-nosed

charioteers; nor is it illustrated

with woodcuts dangerous to the

nocturnal nerves of youth,

though albeit merely scrawled for one half-crown

& scratched for another by artists

yearning only for the no feast of beer

but that of beer. On the

contrary it comes forward in the all

very clean the digni fied ty cleanliness of

grave grey wrapper & semi-archaic

type, reminding one recalling

at once by its aspect the nasty

nastiness of the newest French

Bordelaisians. Of its kind,

it is a very charming specimen

indeed; only that kind is exactly

the same as “Varney the Vampire.”

Some of Mr Payne's former work

has been somewhat noteworthy, through

wandering always in a maze of reflected styles. Perhaps the best thing

he has done is the ballad-poem

called “The Rhyme of Redemption.”

This is ill followed up by the

“Anatomy of Vampyrism” or

“Screech of Damnation” whichever

the reader may think the better

substitute for the obviously ineffi-

-cient title of “Lautrec”.

We shall give no summary of the hideous

scheme of this poem: but we may note

that it fails to satisfy even on the

side of artistic consistency. In all imaginary Vampire

stories or legends, the curse should be [?]

entailed on the accursed one by some

as the penalty for some fearful act

akin to the “unpardonable sin.” In

Mr Payne's story, the teller of it

(a She, not a He of the species) is

an innocent girl, a king's daughter

who falls into a n insensible trance of grief through

true-hearted love for her knight reported

dead as slain; and being supposed dead

is laid in state in a chapel, preparatory

to her burial. Here she revives while

left alone (which is untrue medically,

as priests would continue to pray by the

bier all night); and it is the mere

fact of the moon striking upon her

through the chapel-casement which

transforms her into a Vampire!

At this rate, why should not the

same thing happen to any one person walking

in the moonlight or acidentally

sleeping under it? Yet

it is on the sole strength[?] of this one guiltless lunacy

that the heroine is made



to incur an eternal community

of fate with fiends & wehrwolves.

One is glad to find the conception

as weak as it is hateful.

We have debated whether to

review “Lautrec” at all, but

it seemed needful to enter our

protest, even at the risk of

rousing the fitting reader of

the book to his repast. But it would be of no avail to

remain silent. When such

things can appear, it is

because the times are ripe for

them.

We fully expect this book to be

translated into French. They

really have not even yet

quite matched it on the

other side of the Channel,

& it must be felt there as a

national want,—almost

a national slur.