NOVELS. Art. Whether it be that lords are, in modern times, become so numerous as to bear a very considerable proportion to the mass of the community, or that there is something in a title which annexes a sort of adventitious dignity to the trite sentiments that abound in novels, we know not but it is certain that, in all the minor works of this description, the actors are seldom below the degree of nobility'. Sometimes, indeed, an amiable inconnu is brought into play: but it generally happens that, in the thickening of the plot, he or she is found to have an undoubted, though hitherto latent, claim to a title. The mere common run of mankind, the swinish multitude, stand as low in the estimation of the Novelist, as they are said to have done in that of some very eminent statesmen: they are much too insignificant to occupy any place in these prosaic epics. In the present composition, there is no deviation from this established practice; for the reader will here find how Miss Rutland, the dependent orphan, who was supposed to be the offspring of an illegitimate amour, turns out to be the lawfully begotten daughter of Lord and Lady Severn; and how her cruel grandfather meets with her by a fortunate accident, (the oversetting of his carriage,) acknowleges her birth, and constitutes her heiress to his fortune, by which she is at length enabled to become the happy wife of her adoring Lord Merioneth! The reader will not be less delighted with an account how Lady Laura, straying one day into a cottage, finds its inhabitant to be the amiable and accomplished Clifford, by whom she is afterward twice rescued, once from a ravisher, and once from a mischievous cow; and how, when she comes of age, she bestows on his fidelity and valour the 'unreluctant hand of his Lady Laura.' Art. 36. Of this novel the morality is indeed very exceptionable. It is designed to illustrate the mischiefs that result froin ill-asserted marriages but, in doing this, it impresses on the reader the dangerous idea that persons of the most cultivated understanding, of the purest and most honourable mind, and who have imbibed the most correct and elevated principles of moral duty, may yet violate the most sacred ties which bind society together, in order to gratify the tender passion. REV. AUG. 1798. I i Geraldina, Wall. Geraldina, daughter of Lord Grey, admits the addresses of Mr. Fitzaubert, with the consent and approbation of her father; and the affair is carried so far that the day is fixed for the nuptials. Lord Grey, however, an ambitious character, negociates for his daughter a much more advantageous match with Lord Seagrave, an accomplished. and amiable man. He then dishonourably breaks with Fitzaubert, and compels Geraldina, by the threat of a father's curse if she dis. cheys, to receive the hand of Lord Seagrave. His Lordship, ignorant of the Lady's attachment to Fitzaubert, marries her, and discharges for some time the duty of a husband in the most affecting and exemplary manner. In the meanwhile, Fitzaubert becomes mad, and Geraldina declines in health. In a journey to Bath, Fitzaubert, somewhat recovered in his intellect, meets her, and by a little artifice, which circumstances combine to favour, persuades the intelligent, the grateful, the virtuous Geraldina, to clope from her adoring husband. The husband sues for a divorce, and the lady and her lover marry. Such is the moral which this novel inculcates.-Its allusion to a recent event our readers will perhaps easily discover. An under-plot is carried on between Sir C. Withers, a spendthrift and unprincipled baronet,—his wife, a lady of congenial character,— and Mr. Revel, a nabob, possessed of an immense fortune and an hand, some though vulgar wife. To Revel, Withers sells his estate: but, in the course of a summer's visit, he wins it back at play; while, with the aid of Lady Withers, he contrives to ruin the nabob's fortune by urging him and Mrs. Revel to the most inordinate expence, and by exciting a love for Pharo. Having ruined Revel, Sir Charles elopes with Mrs. Revel; and Lady Withers, thus deserted, retaliates on her faithless spouse by throwing herself into the arms of a Mr. Nugent. While this fond pair are on their journey to Bath, they meet at an inn the corpse of Mrs. Nugent, who died of a broken heart in consequence of her husband's indifference. Nugent, struck with a sense of his ill treatment of a worthy woman, shoots himself; and his mistress returns with great sang-froid to London. Thus the profligate Withers, and the vulgar and ignorant Revel, terminate their career like the virtuous, sentimental, and amiable Geraldina,-in an elopement; and Sir Charles and the Nabob, though possessing wives of congenial characters, yet find the matrimonial knot as frail a tie as did the unfortunate Lord Seagrave. Though by the perusal of such a novel the mind of the young reader will not be much improved, it will be sometimes diverted by the ridiculous description of the character of the Revels, and by the well-drawn portraits of Withers and his lady. Wall Dedicated by Art. 37. Ianthe, or the Flower of Caernarvon. Permission to His R. H. the Prince of Wales. By Emily Clarke, Our readers probably remember the melancholy fate of Colonel Frederic; "whom his ungentle fortune urged against his own sad breast to lift the hand of impious violence." Recollecting his sad story, they will no doubt read with indulgence this first essay of his 7 descendant; descendant:-an essay which had its birth not in any vain hope of li- This is really a domestic story, in which the incidents are natural, indeed, but at the same time not very interesting. From real life' it may probably have been taken, for we meet nothing in it but what in common life is daily seen to happen.-A curate's daughter, matronized by a great lady in the neighbourhood, and instructed in such a manner as to qualify her for superintending the education of this lady's daughters, excites the love of their brother. The prudence and virtue of this young governess, however, resist his suit: the young gentleman travels; and in the mean time the Gouvernante is acknowleged as a relative by an old rich widow, with whom she goes to live. Here she becomes acquainted with a naval captain, a widower, who has four female children. Smitten with the love of teaching, she sighs for an opportunity of educating these girls; and for this reason, as well as to cure her former lover of his hopeless passion, which gratitude to his mother will not permit her on any terms to cherish, she becomes a step-mother. Her lover's health declines, and he at length dies in Italy, of a consumption; while her husband, having been called abroad during the American war, perishes in his return home, in the Ville de Paris. The heroine discharges her duty as a stepmother in an exemplary manner, educates her children very laudably, and at last sees them well married. Thus ends the domestic tale; in which, if the reader be not gratified either by interesting incident or elegant language, he will not meet with any sentiment or anecdote which will endanger his virtue; nor with any of those false views of human life which tend to corrupt the heart, and to mislead the imagination. Art. 39. Sadaski; or the Wandering Penitent. By Thomas Bel lamy, Author of the Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, &c. &c. &c. 12mo. 2 Vols. 78. sewed. Sael. 1798. In this romance, the reader will find a considerable share of enchantment that will not enchant him. The style is designed to imitate the eastern manner, but it is only the turgid verbosity of that manner which the writer has been able to copy. The plot and incidents are all of the most marvellous nature, and deserve praise only for aiming to illustrate that virtue and vice respectively tend to produce happiness and misery. Even in a moral view, however, the author fails; for the virtues of his hero are preserved only by supernatural interposition, and are ultimately rewarded only by supernatural means. seems not very easy to conceive how morality is advanced by shewing that virtue can be upheld only by miraculous power, or that its re ward cannot be cbtained without a violation of the laws of nature. Ii2 It POETRY, Wall. Wall. Wall POETRY. Art. 40. Epistle in Rhyme, to M. G. Lewis, Esq; M. P. Author of The Monk, Castle Spectre, &c. With other Verses, by the SAME HAND. 8vo. IS. Lunn. 1798. The general design of this Epistle will appear from the following lines: In ev'ry virtuous, ev'ry guilty breast? And ev'ry goblin finds acqaintance there.' There are notes to this performance, which serve to remind us of the celebrated Pursuits of Literature; the author of which is, perhaps, designedly imitated: in these little appendages, a variety of dramatic writers and actors of the present day are smartly attacked. The smaller poems, added to the Epistle in Rhyme, are of various merit but none of them are destitute of wit. Art. 41. Mary the Osier peeler, a simple but true Story: a Poem. By a Lady. Printed for the Benefit of the distressed Family described in it. 4to. I S. Wisbeach printed, and sold by Rivingtons, London. 1798. A pathetic tale of uncoinmon and unavoidable distress; the strains in which it is told are derived from the Shenstonian School; and if the poetry be not of the first rate, the tender and benevolent senti ments have the highest claim to praise :-to which, humanity will not fail to yield the preference Art. 42. MISCELLANEOUS. First Letter of a Free-Mason to L'Abbé Barruel, Author of If the author of this Letter be possessed of those works of Nicolai in which he adduces evidence to prove that a silent co-operation, a secret league, or, to use the Abbé Barruel's favourite word, a con The rearing of osiers in Cambridge-shire, for making baskets, hats, &c. is', we are here told, a profitable branch of trade; and peeling them for use, a favorite employment of the young women, at a certain time of the year.-When they have completed their work, they go in precession, dressed in their holyday-cloaths, decorated with strips peeled from the rods; they collect contributions, and with them make a feast and a dance.-The delicate willow hats, of late so fashionable, are made of Cambridgeshire osiers.' spiracy, spiracy, exists among the friends of superstition, chiefly conducted by the ex-jesuits, the object of which is to revive by means of Swedenborgian, Vital, and Methodistical Christianity, the expiring influence of the court of Rome, and the barbarous ascendancy of intolerant creeds; he may amuse and perhaps improve the public by communicating many new and curious theological anecdotes. If not, he would do well, before he proceeds, to study his subject. The following passage betrays a glimpse of the heresy of the Nicolaitans. It is almost impossible to renounce l'Esprit de Corps. Mr. Barruel has been a Jesuit: several among the ministers of the late King of France may possibly have voted in former days for the expulsion of the Jesuits. Inde ira.-Now for the argumentation in the style of a Theologist.... The Jesuits were the Company of Jesus: to give of fence to the Company of Jesus, is offering an offence to Jesus; then, to offend Jesus, is offending God; again, the greatest offence that can be offered to God, is to deny his being; whoever denies the existence of God, is an Atheist: Ergo, the ministers who have voted for the expulsion of the Jesuits are atheists."But, Sir, exclaimed I, interrupting the Gentleman who thus accounted for your acrimonious accusation against the Ministers: "I verily believe that if the Jesuits had not been abolished, they would have opposed the Revolution of France."-He replied: "Their numberless spies and emissaries would have apprized them of it at an early period, and their domineering spirit would have incited them to use their interest for the support of the Clergy, they themselves being concerned their intrigues would have been exerted as powerfully as ever; their animosity against the Jansenist party would have been rekindled.....but remember that the Jesuits, who were all of them sent out of Spain on the same day, and at the same hour, were thus banished for having fomented a revolution there; for they wanted no less than to dethrone the reigning House of Bourbon. It would require my having been let into the mysteries of the Company of Jesus to inform you of what measures their ever-changing policy might have dictated. Who knows, whether the Jesuits would not have usurped the Government of France to themselves?"-I did not offer to reply. "What! what! said an elderly Gentleman, are you sure l'Abbé Barruel has been a Jesuit ?"-I answered in the affirmative.' The letter is written with sprightliness and humour, but is not equal to the first of the Provincial Letters of Pascal. Art. 43. Emigration to America candidly considered, in a Series of Letters from a Gentleman resident there, to his Friend in England. 8vo. pp. 62. 1s. 6d. Rickman. 1798. This appears to us to be one of the most judicious and impartial discussions of the subject of migration from Europe to America, that has yet been published in this country. Mr. Rickman, the pub. lisher, who is likewise the editor, assures the reader that the letters were written by a gentleman who visited America, with the intention of emigrating thither; but who, upon a year's residence in various parts, and close observation on the country, its climate, and the manners and morals of its inhabitants, relinquished all such intention. Mr. R. adds his opinion that their publication may, perhaps, save others the trouble of making a similar experiment,' 113 The Tay. |