583.

ART. II.-Valentine's Eve. By Mrs. OPIE. 3 vols. 12mo. Longman and Co. London. 1816.

MRS. OPIE possesses by nature two great requisites for good writing-simplicity and pathos. The Father and Daugh ter,' her first prose performance, combined these qualities in a manner scarcely exceeded in the English language; her Mother and Daughter,' though not altogether so successful an effort, is yet a work of which many authors might be proud; and some of her Simple Tales' possess strong powers of interesting and affecting the reader. We do not, upon the whole, think that her excellencies have encreased in proportion with her fame. Brought more into the notice of the fashionable world, she has appeared to think it necessary to employ her pen more in delineating fashionable manners and she must not be displeased when we say, that for this delineation she is by no means fitted; here her simplicity is misplaced, her pathos lost. Neither the characters nor the incidents she has of late chosen appear congenial to her; no wonder, therefore, that they do not appear natural to the reader. What is unwillingly drawn, can never have the case of real life. Besides, to this class of society belongs a sameness, both of manners and of incidents, which we have daily proof is sufficiently ennuyant to themselves, and which we think must in time prove as much so to the most indefatigable reader of modern novels, which turn so entirely on the follies and frivolities of the higher classes, that one would imagine the middle rank of life cannot, under any circumstances, possess a claim upon sympathy or admiration.

This performance opens with much of Mrs. Opie's native manner; and how delightful that manner is, the feelings it irresistibly excites in the reader are an undeniable proof.

"In the year eighteen hundred and odd, General Shirley was dining at the house of a friend, who lived at the distance of about twenty miles from London, when it was daily expected that an engagement, of great importance in its probable results, would take place between our fleet and that of the enemy,

"As the glass gaily circulated, the patriotic sentiments of the company were more warmly and more loudly expressed, till General Shirley declared that, though he had a son on board the admiral's ship, and though that son was an only child, he had rather he should fall in the ensuing engagement, than that the arms of England should not prove victorious.

Bravo! Well said, and nobly felt;' cried the gentleman next him,

""This is what I call a disinterested and true love of one's country,' observed another. But before approbation of the general's Roman virtue had echoed round the table, the father's feelings had resumed their empire; and while his lip quivered with strong emotion, a pang like that of remorse had struck across his bosom ;-for this son, this only child, whose death he had allowed himself to contemplate as a preferable event to the defeat of the English powers, had been for years an exile from the general's presence, though not from his affections, because he had contracted a clandestine and unsuitable marriage. The consequence was, that Captain Shirley, on the death of his wife, whom his father bad resolutely refused to receive as such, rejected the proffered advances of his now repentant parent, and had gone on board the admiral's vessel as a volunteer in the service, having been for some time on shore a post-captain without a ship.

"I believe,' thought General Shirley, I could better lose my poor boy, were I on good terms with him:' and by the time that the hour for breaking up arrived, much of the general's patriotic glow had subsided, and the image of his long-exiled William rose to his view dearer and more distinct than he had lately beheld it.

"Call up my carriage directly!' cried the general, eager to escape to the indulgence of his now-perturbed thoughts: when, just as he was about to depart, news arrived from London, that there had been an engagement; that our fleet was victorious; and that a general illumination was at that moment taking place.

"Shouts, unimpeded shouts, burst from the company. The general shouted also; but his was the faintest shout of all."Vol. 1, pp. 1–4.

His impatience to get to town, his anxiety to procure a newspaper at the first coffee-house, and his agony at finding his son's name in the list of the killed, are affectingly told. Staggering through the crowd, stupified with grief, and bewildered with the glare of illuminations around him, he is enabled to reach his own house only through the assistance of a young girl, who hears the name of General Shirley from the sympathising spectators, and who is herself described as in the wildest agony of grief. This young girl proves to be his grand-daughter, the orphan and only child of his deceased son. Her adoption into his family follows of course, and is agreeably described; but with it much of the interest expires, and the succeeding incidents are common-place and unaffecting. The heroine herself, instead of being the wild child of nature, which we are led to expect from the cir cumstances attendant on her first appearance, proves to be in possession of the most perfect self-command and decision of character; interlarding her conversation with so many sententious remarks and scriptural quotations, that we are not surprised at the censure cast upon her for her "pompous piety," by her aunt, Mrs. Baynton. There is not much more consistency in the character of her friend Miss Merle, though

she is exceedingly well described as a beautiful virago of warm heart, but of republican principles. That such a character may be perfectly in nature, no one will deny, who recollects the fever of mental excitement into which, near thirty years ago, the French revolution threw many even of the innocent, the lovely, and the young. But Miss Merle's principles might as well have been those of George Fox or John Wesley, in regard to any particular results that arise from them; and it is perfectly natural that they should gradually vanish on her reception into a family of superior rank and refined habits, where she becomes the object of admiration to a young peer. But Mrs. Opie seems to have sketched her characters without knowing precisely how to group them, or what places they should occupy in her piece. She must, at first, have meant Mr. Melim to be a much more agreeable personage than we afterwards find him. Like many fine gentlemen, he appears to the greatest advantage, when others speak for him;-in the author's description, he is elegant, witty, and fascinating; in his own person, he is vulgar, inconsequent, and dull; and his villany seems of that gratuitous sort which works without fee or reward.

The main incident turns upon a mystery so insignificant in itself, and guarded by an oath so improbable in its administration, that the sorrowful conclusion in which it involves the work is as unsatisfactory to the mind of the reader, as it is unproductive of any moral impression, unless we are to learn from it that a man should not, under any appearances, however suspicious, presume to believe it possible for his wife to be betrayed into error. We are not fond of fictitious narratives, that turn entirely upon either the actual or supposed infidelity of married persons.

From such a pen as Mrs. Opie's, we ought only to have tales of simple life and virtuous attachment. The first volume of this work awakens expectations, which are certainly disappointed in the succeeding ones; but the writer who can awaken such expectations in such a manner, can gratify them likewise, if she will but take the trouble to do so: and however much the present performance may fall short of our wishes, we shall be among the first to take up any other from the same author.

ART. III.The Russian Prisoner of War among the French. By MORITZ VON KOTZEBUE, Lieutenant on the General Staff of the Imperial Army, Knight of the Order of St. Wladimir. Edited, with the addition of a Preface and Postscript, by the Author's Father, A VON KOTZEBUE. Translated from the German. 8vo. pp. 320. 9s. Gale and Fenner.

He who has suffered from the effects of war, has a sort of right to become the hero of his own tale; and he may be assured that, by the circle of his immediate connections, the account of his sufferings and sorrows will not be heard with indifference, and that many even of those who have never heard his name, will listen to his complaints with that kind of sympathy which has of late years been widely diffused through more than one quarter of the globe.

The narrative of Moritz Von Kotzebue is laid before the reader in a style of the utmost simplicity; and will be read with that interest which a narrative of hardships, undeservedly incurred, is always sure to excite. His lot has not been so severe as that of many placed in similar circumstances; but it exhibits a sufficient number of disagreeable occurrences to reconcile those who peruse it by their own fire-sides, to remaining there in obscurity and peace. Moritz Von Kotzebue is the son of the dramatist of that name, who would rank very highly among modern writers, were his feelings and imagination controlled by somewhat of the stern discipline imposed upon his muse by the celebrated Alfreic; who, alternately compared to a Spartan and an Amazon, might, in return, have gained an attraction by possessing some small share of those weeping graces in which Kotzebue too much abounds.

This work comes into the world under the sanction of the author's father, who, in a short and unassuming preface, justly observes, that few persons unconnected with the mili tary profession, possess any clear and distinct ideas respecting the situation of an officer, on his being taken prisoner, or the hardships he usually encounters during his removal from one place to another, and in his residence in that district within the limits of which he is finally confined. To teach those who are themselves strangers to hardship, compassion towards others, and gratitude for their own security, cannot

be a useless office; and there are few who will be slow to receive instruction so unostentatiously imparted.

Our author, born in Russia, entered at an early age into the corps of Count Von Wittgenstein, a gallant and excellent officer. He had a fine example of heroic ardour in his brother, a young man whose brilliant career was terminated when he was in his twenty-seventh year, and over whose early loss his father mourns in all the anguish of a spirit bowed down to the grave in which his child rests. Moritz appears to have possessed a considerable share of the activity and ar dour by which his brother was distinguished. Whilst sketching the situation of a village, which it appeared de sirable to him that his general should occupy, with his mind intent upon the advantages to be derived from it, he was suddenly surprised by a party of cavalry issuing from a spot, which he had been assured did not contain a single Frenchman. He honestly confesses, that, though he had witnessed many a hard-fought battle, terror never so completely took possession of him as at that moment. To op pose was madness;-to surrender he could not prevail upon himself. There was yet an alternative; he clapped spurs to his horse, and gallopped forward, till a sudden turn in the road brought him directly upon a Bavarian picket: he had the momentary gratification of inspiring as much terror as he experienced; for, in spite of his embroidered uniform and beardless chin, it was imagined that a swarm of followers was at his heels, and a general cry ensued of "to arms! the Cossacks! the Cossacks!" His horse was seized by the bridle, he was surrounded by pointed bayonets, and the word "quarter," always unwillingly uttered by a brave man, at length escaped his lips. The courteous behaviour of the officer who received him deserves to be mentioned; and we do him this justice with more pleasure, because in this, and some other intances, the author appears to regret, that the hurry of events, and the painful state of his own mind, prevented him from recollecting even thie names of those whose services and courtesy had left a deep impression of gratitude upon his memory.

"The captain who commanded this post, approached me in a very friendly manner, and said: "Young gentleman, I feel for your misfortune, But you have fallen into the hands of a plain old soldier, if that can give you any consolation, I promise you not a hair of your head shall be harmed.'

"This unexpected assurance, accompanied by a shake of the hand, banished all apprehension of ill-treatment from my mind, and I began to