makes. But these do but come on the stage and go off again like a servant or messenger in a play, without attracting the notice of the author or the audience. We would not willingly have our veracity suspected, and we cannot venture to vindicate it by giving extracts, at once extravagant and dull, preposterous, yet not ludicrous. We feel, therefore, that it becomes us to account for that sort of popularity which encourages such writers to put forth their trash upon the public, and secures them such a sale as makes their works more profitable to the bookseller than others of greater merit. We take it, that there is nothing that tradesmen like so well as quick returns. This is true of booksellers as well as others, and therefore nothing suits the bookseller better than a work for which a ready market is afforded by the city where he publishes. On such sales he saves all discounts and commissions, and thus secures to himself not only a quick return, but a larger profit, than on books which must be sent abroad in quest of purchasers. We have said that, with a single exception, none of these tales is much better than those which we have abridged, though none of them is, perhaps, so excellently bad as those two. The excepted tale is called Edward Saville, and is by Charles Whitehead. We have never met with Mr. Whitehead before, and should be happy to cultivate his acquaintance, had we not found him in such company. We hope he was lugged into it against his will, or at least blundered into it by mistake. His little tale really surprised us as much as would the appearance of a genuine diamond among the glass beads and tinsel trumpery of a woman of the town. We have a double purpose in mentioning it. It is short, and might be read, while standing on one foot, at a bookseller's counter, and might be the means of cheating some man of taste into the purchase of the work. We hope that all such among our readers may escape that imposition by means of this notice. We are moreover bound to return our acknowledgments to Mr. Whitehead for the pleasure we experienced in reading this little production; and we would requite it by a word of advice. He has heard the adage noscitur a socio. They, whose names are connected with his, will not be judged of by him. Mr. Boz is obviously the criterion writer by whom the rest would like to be estimated. We can hardly think that Mr. Whitehead would choose to be valued by the same standard. We therefore warn him against his associates, and call upon him to "come out from among them, for he is not of them." This advice will probably never reach him, but it may be of service to our readers hereafter to recognize the name of Mr. Charles Whitehead as that of one who can write and does write interestingly, and in good taste. It may serve an opposite and more important purpose to know, that the gentlemen who have chosen Mr. Boz as their exemplar, as far as their names are given, are Samuel Lover, T. Haynes Baayly, Douglas Jerrold, T. S. Coyne, Alexander Campbell, J. A. Wade, and Hamilton Reynolds. We hope that our readers will remember and shun them as we shall do. They are bad company and dull company; such as we may suppose assembled at the Boar's head in East-cheap when the Prince and old Jack were both absent, and with them all the spirit and all the wit of the club. Bardolph's red nose and the "Humors" of Corporal Nym make the whole entertainment. HENRIETTA TEMPLE: A Love-Story. By the author of "Vivian Grey." Philadelphia. E. L. Carey and A. Hart. "By the author of Vivian Grey!" How the sight of these words delighted our eyes, and with what eager zest we betook ourselves to the perusal of the work! We were glad to find ourselves once more engaged with a writer in whom we are always sure to find much that is original and nothing common-place, and whose faults are chiefly such as spring from the exuberance of genius. We have always regretted that we see so little of Mr. D'Israeli. We have sometimes wondered at it; but when we have expressed this wonder, we have been told that he is not popular as a novelist in his own country, and that his labors in that line have proved unprofitable. If this be so, we should not wonder if he renounced his pen forever in indignant disgust. To be postponed to Bulwer is bad enough: Bulwer, whose heavy wing (to borrow a thought from Pollock,) comes flapping laboriously as he strives to work his way up into the regions where the mind of D'lsraeli floats at ease amid the creations of his own genius that people the ethereal expanse! This is bad enough. But to be neglected by the admirers of James and Ritchie! To see "Philip Augustus" and "One in a Thousand" preferred to "Vivian Grey" and "Contarini Fleming," is more than any man should be expected to endure. But "a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country;" and we find pleasure in the belief, that there is no writer of novels now living whose powers are estimated so highly by the best judges among us, as Mr. D'Israeli's. The work before us is a striking example of the versatility of his genius. At first, we hardly knew how to believe that it was actually his. The reader can hardly fail to remember the peculiar characteristics of Vivian Grey. The suddenness, the abruptness, the total absence of detail, the disregard of all connection between antecedents and consequents, leave us at a loss to know whether we have been asleep or awake-whether the vivid images which have flitted so distinctly before us, and which did but flit and pass away, were the fragments of a broken and disjointed dream, or occasional glimpses of the affairs of men of flesh and blood transacted before us, but so as to let us see but part of what was done, or but a narrative so contrived as to seem to tell us every thing, and still to leave us in perplexed and wondering ignorance. The story before us is told in a style exactly the reverse of this. The preliminary circumstances are laid before us with the distinctness and precision of a lawyer's brief, so that without being wearied with a long detail, we find ourselves in full possession of all the circumstances of all the parties, and of their mutual relations to each other. They are placed, as on a chessboard, before the game begins. We understand precisely who is who, and what is what, and can, at any moment, without confusion, trace the progress of each piece from his original position, and see the philosophy of all the moves which have conducted him to his present place. Such is the impression made upon us by the mere manner in which this story is told, and at the same time we are sensible that nothing is lost in the interest of the piece by this attention to detail. There is, indeed, one | been more so, had the whole truth reached Malta before signal exception to the generality of this account, in the captain's departure. But he sailed as soon as he which we are left to guess and wonder with as much heard of the old lord's death; and it was not until his perplexity (though certainly with less interest,) as at arrival in England that he learned the nature of his tesany tour de main in Vivian Grey. tamentary dispositions. We now proceed to give an abstract of our author's story, to which we propose to add some specimens of the good and bad of his style. What was to be done? He owed some 15,000l., and had nothing to pay withal; but he had a pretty cousin to whom the estate had been left, and on her he finds that his handsome person and fine address have made a favorable impression. For her he cares not a straw: but what of that? He courts her and is accepted, and his Maltese creditors hearing at the same moment that he is not the heir, but that he is to marry the heiress, refrain from pressing their demands. Sir Ratcliffe Armyn is a decayed baronet, whose family came in with the conqueror, and flourished under the long line of his descendants, until the spirit of religious controversy began to mingle itself with political strifes. It was the fate of this family to cling to the falling fortunes of the Catholic church, and to incur attainders and forfeitures, by which its wealth and power Soon after this snug arrangement has been agreed were so reduced, that a large landed estate mortgaged upon, he meets with the lady whose name designates to its full value was all that remained to Sir Ratcliffe. the work, and a mutual tumbling into love at first sight With the estate and the mortgage he inherited the pride is the consequence. Here then is a new toy on which of his family, and this determined him to keep together | Mr. Ferdinand Armyn has set his heart, and he snatches his patrimonial acres, paying nearly every shilling of at it as unhesitatingly as he had snatched at his cousin's his rents to keep down the interest of his debts. In fortune, and with the like success. But unluckily he this way he lives in poverty and obscurity in one cor- cannot have both, and Miss Temple is the daughter of ner of his old dilapidated baronial mansion. His wife, a gentleman of very moderate fortune. Of course she the daughter of a wealthy nobleman, brings him no is not let into the secret of his prior engagement; so dowry, but she brings what is better-a kind and gene- leaving her in the dark about that, he hies away to see rous heart, a cheerful temper, and a disposition to share his cousin, with a full purpose of breaking off from it. his poverty without a murmur. They have an only But his heart fails him, and he trifles away the time, son, who, under the tuition of a Catholic priest who has until Miss Temple becomes uneasy at his protracted sought and found a shelter under the roof of his early absence, and until she hears from the best authority friend Sir Ratcliffe, grows up an elegant, accomplished, that he is certainly engaged (as he certainly was) to and well instructed young man. his cousin, and that a short day was fixed for their nuptials. This intelligence comes in such a shape as to leave no doubt in the mind of either father or daughter of its truth; whereupon they give Captain Armyn the slip, retire to the Continent, and establish themselves at Pisa. At length the lover makes his appearance, but the birds are flown. The consequence is a desperate illness, in which he is tenderly nursed by his poor mother and his abused cousin, who is not yet undeceived. At length he recovers slowly; his tutor explains the real state of affairs to Miss Grandison, and they agree that, for the present, the knowledge of the truth shall go no further. Sir Ratcliffe and his wife, therefore, are still happy in the belief that their son is about to marry an heiress, whose wealth will restore the splendor of their house, and his creditors rest in the comfortable assurance that, sooner or later, their debts will be paid with large accumulated interest. Meantime, Miss Temple at Pisa meets with Lord Montfort, who is the equal of Armyn in all that he ought to be, and his opposite in all that he ought not to be. Of course he falls in love with the lady, and addresses her. She rejects him, assuring him of her esteem, but at the same time avowing her hopeless attachment to another man. But Lord Montfort is quite too philosophical to be put aside by any such difficulties. He knows that women must marry, and that if a good woman does not learn to love her husband, it must be her husband's fault. Of the moral worth of Miss Temple there can be no doubt. He therefore plainly places the matter on that footing, and on further consideration he is accepted. For this youth a commission in the army is obtained, and he sails for Malta, where he spends three years or more. While there, the heir apparent of his grandfather, Lord Grandison, dies, and the old nobleman is left to choose whether he will leave the bulk of his estate to the daughter of a deceased son, or to the only son of his daughter. He distinctly avows his preference of the latter, and the young man is taught to regard himself as the heir of 15,000l. sterling per annum. This arrangement is made so notorious, that he finds no difficulty in obtaining credit to any amount at Malta. The consequence is, that while he purchases his way to the rank of captain, he at the same time acquires the most ruinous habits of self indulgence and extravagance. An only son, brought up at home, his self love had been cultivated from his birth to the day that he left his family to join his regiment. There, handsome, accomplished, talented, and rich, he found himself the favorite of his companions, the pet of the regiment, and the darling of the ladies. The consequence was, that by the time of his grandfather's death, Ferdinand Armyn was, in his estimation, the most important personage in the world, and the only one whose comfort or happiness he was at all interested in, or at all bound to provide for. In this view of the subject he found himself countenanced by the unanimous concurrence of all his little world at Malta. But here he was doomed to the same fate which many a politician experiences, who, after being the leader of a dominant party, suddenly finds himself in a lean minority. Into the leanest of all minorities, Captain Ferdinand Armyn was doomed to fall, as soon as it was known that his grandfather was actually dead, and had left his whole estate to the daughter of his son. Unpleasant as this intelligence was, it might have On the return of Miss Temple with her father and lover to England, they are thrown by successive chances into the society of the Armyns. In the meantime the secret steals out that the captain is not to marry Miss Grandison. Miss Temple also discovers that, instead of Dona Inez, and the bed-chamber of Dona Julia, to of forsaking her for Miss Grandison, he had forsaken Miss Grandison for her. Miss Temple was no lawyer, but the story of the lawyer's bull and the farmer's ox is true of all mankind, and womankind too, and so she forgives him with all her heart. But the creditors of Captain Armyn are, by no means, so indulgent. The discovery that he is not to marry his wealthy cousin, rouses their resentment as well as their fears, and he is thrown into prison. From this he is relieved by Lord Montfort, at the earnest entreaty of Miss Temple. But his lordship does not stop there. He resigns the lady herself to her first lover, and being doomed, as it seems, to take up with the leavings of the irresistible Captain Armyn, he seeks and finds consolation with his rejected cousin Miss Grandison. An unexpected legacy makes Mr. Temple a rich man, and all ends well and prosperously. his last critical rencontre with the Duchess of Fitz Fulke. Trace him from the chaste bosom of Haider to the voluptuous embrace of Duder, and the sensual style of Catherine of Russia, and while you look on the skeleton of this monster of poetical creations, think of it as it stands in the living verse of Byron. Is it not true, that of all the marvellous productions of that wonderful man, this strange, wild, extravagant, shocking, horrible, incredible, and impossible tale, is the most wonderful and the most fascinating? What makes it so ? It is the power of genius. It is the creative energy which has invested it with every thing that can recommend it to the poetic sense. The music and the hues, and the odors of poetry, are all there, and we revel among them as in a Paphian bower, where every object glows in beauty, and every breath of heaven redolent of roses wafts melody to the ear. We hazard nothing in saying that the work before us abounds in passages which will not lose by comparison with parallel passages in Don Juan. When young Armyn and the heroine meet, they fall in love at the moment, and hence with them as with Rosalind, your only true love is love at first sight. D'Israeli of course adopts the idea as the only one which can mitigate the character of his hero from the coldly selfish to the passionately selfish. Then comes a string of rhapsodies, in which all the poetry of the passion is combined. We present one or two specimens, in which we are at once dazzled by the brilliancy of the execution, and shocked at the picture of the human heart that it displays. We fear it is too true an account of the nature and operation of a passion, which they who feel and cherish it, are in the habit of regarding as generous, refined, and magnanimous. For this story, merely as a tale, we have not much to say. If the execution were not at all superior to the material, we should have little praise to bestow, and there would be no need to condemn a work having nothing to redeem it from early oblivion. Indeed, in the management of the story, there is one fault which appears more glaringly than in our hasty abstract. It is the suddenness of the change of partners. It not only is not explained when and how Miss Temple's hold on Lord Montfort's heart became relaxed, and when he first became sensible of the attractions of Kate Grandison, and she of his, but the possibility of any such change of feeling is almost negatived. On one day we have Lord Montfort the devoted and plighted lover of Miss Temple; on the same day we have Miss Grandison light-hearted, cheerful and free as air; on the same day we have a conversation between her and the young nobleman, which leads the reader to believe that they have no thought of each other, and early the next morning he announces to Armyn that they are betrothed to each other, and that Miss Temple is free. It follows that all this unprepared change of position and plan takes place in one evening, and that between persons of the utmost refinement and delicacy. Now, this is intolerable. It is done, indeed, so barefacedly, that the writer seems determined to defy censure. He had tied a knot too hard for him, and in the exercise of his ple-ty-this is a lover, and this is love! Magnificent, sublime, dinary sovereignty, he cuts it without ceremony. The only thing that palliates this, is the cool impudence with which he does it; and it is certainly less provoking than the bungling contrivances to which so many writers resort in like cases. It is more tolerable, for example, than Fanny Wharton's discovery of Harvey Birch's secret haunt, and her accidental meeting there with Har-racter. The deeds and thoughts of men are to him equally inper, alias General Washington. It will be seen we speak of Cooper's Spy-decidedly his best work, if he had stopt in the middle of the second volume, by giving his court martial sense enough to acquit young Wharton. So much have we been disgusted with such clumsy blunders, that after the first start of surprise, we are not sure that we did not forgive Mr. D'Israeli's abruptness, in consideration of his manifest contempt of them. After all this, the reader may perhaps ask, what merit there can be in such a tale as we have sketched? We will answer by begging him to make a like abridgement of the adventures of Don Juan, from the nursery "Amid the gloom and travail of existence suddenly to behold a beautiful being, and, as instantaneously, to feel an overwhelming conviction that with that fair form for ever our destiny must be entwined; that there is no more joy but in her joy, no sorrow but when she grieves; that in her sight of love, in her smile of fondness, hereafter is all bliss; to feel our flaunty ambition fade away like a shrivelled gourd before her visions; to feel fame a juggle and posterity a lie; and to be prepared at once, for this great object, to forfeit and fling away all former hopes, ties, schemes, views; to violate in her favor every duty of socie vine sentiment! An immortal flame burns in the breast of that man who adores and is adored. He is an ethereal being. The accidents of earth touch him not. Revolutions of empires, changes of creed, mutations of opinion, are to him but the clouds and meteors of a stormy sky. The schemes and struggles of mankind are, in his thinking, but the anxieties of pigmies, and the fantastical achievements of apes. Nothing can subdue him. He laughs alike at loss of fortune, loss of friends, loss of cha different. He does not mingle in their paths of callous bustle, or hold himself responsible to the airy impostures before which they bow down. He is a mariner, who, in the sea of life, keeps his gaze fixedly on a single star; and, if that do not shine, he lets go the rudder, and glories when his barque descends into the bottomless gulf." "What a mystery is love! All the necessities and habits of our life sink before it. Food and sleep, that seem to divide our being, as day and night divide time, lose all their influence over the lover. He is, indeed, a spiritualized being, fit only to live upon ambrosia, and slumber in an imaginary paradise. The cares of the world do not touch him; its most stirring events are to him but the dusty incidents of by gone annals. All the fortune of the world without his mistress is misery; and with her all its mischances a transient dream. Revolutions, earthquakes, the change of governments, the fall of empires, are to him but tonbury, an habitual water-drinker, ventured to partake. As for Lady Armyn, she scarcely ever ceased talking; she found a jest in every sentence, and seemed only uneasy when there was silence. Ferdinand, of course, yielded himself to the apparent spirit of the party; and, had a stranger been present, he could only have supposed that they were celebrating some anniversary of domestic joy. It seemed rather a birthday feast than the last social meeting of those who had lived together so long, and loved each other so dearly. "But, as the evening drew on, their hearts began to grow heavy, and every one was glad that the early departure of the travellers on the morrow was an excuse for speedily retiring. "No adieus to-night!' said Lady Armyn with a gay air, as she scarcely returned the habitual embrace of her son. 'We shall be all up to-morrow.' childish games distasteful to a manly spirit. Men love in the plague, and forget the pest, though it rages about them. They bear a charmed life, and think not of destruction until it touches their idol, and then they die without a pang, like zealots for their persecuted creed. A man in love wanders in the world as a somnambulist, with eyes that seem to open to those that watch him, yet in fact view nothing but their own inward fancies." "The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end. It is the dark conviction that feelings the most ardent may yet grow cold, and that emotions the most constant and confirmed are, nevertheless, liable to change, that taints the feebler spell of our later passions, though they may spring from a heart that has lost little of its original freshness, and be offered to one infinitely more worthy of the devotion than our first idolatry. To gaze upon a face, and to believe that for ever we must behold it with the same adoration; that those eyes, in whose light we live, "So wishing his last good night, with a charged heart and falwill for ever meet ours with mutual glances of rapture and de-tering tongue, Ferdinand Armyn took up his candle and retired votedness; to be conscious that all conversation with others sounds vapid and spiritless, compared with the endless expres. sion of our affection; to feel our heart rise at the favored voice; and to believe that life must hereafter consist of a ramble through the world, pressing but one fond hand, and leaning but upon one faithful breast; oh! must this sweet credulity indeed be dissipated? Is there no hope for them so full of hope? no pity for them so abounding with love? to his chamber. He could not refrain from exercising an unusual scrutiny when he had entered the room. He held up the light to the old accustomed walls, and threw a parting glance of affection at the curtains. There was the glass vase which his mother had never omitted each day to fill with fresh flowers, and the counterpane that was her own handy work. He kissed it; and, flinging off his clothes, was glad when he was surrounded by darkness, and buried in his bed. "And can it be possible that the hour can ever arrive when the former votaries of a mutual passion so exquisite and engrossing can meet each other with indifference, almost with unconsciousness, and recall with an effort their vanished scenes of felicitythat quick yet profound sympathy, that ready yet boundless confidence, all that charming abandonment of self, and that vigilant and prescient fondness that anticipates all our wants and all our wishes? It makes the heart ache but to picture such vicissitudes to the imagination. They are images full of dis-not speak. At length he sobbed aloud. tress, and misery, and gloom. The knowledge that such changes can occur flits over the mind like the thought of death, obscuring all our gay fancies with its bat-like wing, and tainting the healthy atmosphere of our happiness with its venomous expirations. It is not so much ruined cities, that were once the capital glories of the world, or mouldering temples breathing with oracles no more believed, or arches of triumph that have forgotten the heroic name they were piled up to celebrate, that fill my mind with half so mournful an impression of the instability of human fortunes, as these sad spectacles of exhausted affections, and, as it were, traditionary fragments of expired pas "There was a gentle tap at his door. He started. "Are you in bed, my Ferdinand? inquired his mother's voice? "Ere he could reply he heard the door open, and he observed a tall white figure approaching him. "Lady Armyn, without speaking, knelt down by his bed-side, and took him in her arms. She buried her face in his breast. He felt her tears upon his heart. He could not move; he could sion." It is from passages like these that we have learned to speak of the faults of D'Israeli as those of exuberant genius. Here is the genius, and here are the faults. In this splendid declamation we see no appearance of labor, no spurring of a jaded fancy, no ringing the changes on the hackneyed cant of romantic love. All is vivid, and much original; yet in the very last and most beautiful sentence there is a grammatical fault so glaring, as to show that the passage flowed spontaneously from the pen, and could not even have been read over with a critical eye. We certainly did not discover it at the first perusal, and we trust there are few readers so cold as to have perceived it. But it is there, and does but enhance the beauty of the passage, by showing that it was perfectly unstudied. The following is in a different style, but shows equal power. We cannot imagine anything more tender and more true to nature in its best aspects. It is the account of the parting of Ferdinand from his parents, when he first leaves them to join his regiment: "It was singular at dinner, in what excellent spirits every body determined to be. The dinner, also, generally a very simple repast, was almost as elaborate as the demeanor of the guests, and, although no one felt inclined to eat, consisted of every dish and delicacy which was supposed to be a favorite with Ferdinand. Sir Ratcliffe, in general so grave, was to-day quite joyous, and produced a magnum of claret, which he had himself discovered in the old cellars, and of which even Glas "May our Father that is in heaven bless you, my darling child; may He guard over you; may He preserve you! Very weak was her still solemn voice. I would have spared you this, my darling. For you, not for myself, have I controlled my feelings. But I knew not the strength of a mother's love. Alas! what mother has a child like thee? Oh! Ferdinand, my first, my only-born; child of love, and joy, and happiness, that never cost me a thought of sorrow, so kind, so gentle, and so dutiful!— must we, oh! must we indeed part?" "It is too cruel,' continued Lady Armyn, kissing with a thousand kisses her weeping child. What have I done to deserve such misery as this? Ferdinand, beloved Ferdinand, I shall die.' boy, disengaging himself from her embrace, and starting up in his bed. Mother, I cannot go. No, no, it never can be good to leave a home like this.' "I will not go, mother, I will not go,' wildly exclaimed the "Hush! hush! my darling. What words are these? How unkind, how wicked is it of me to say all this. Would that I had not come! I only meant to listen at your door a minute, and hear you move, perhaps to hear you speak--and like a fool--how naughty of me!--never, never shall I forgive my. self-like a miserable fool I entered.' "My own, own mother-what shall I say?—what shall I do? I love you, mother, with all my heart, and soul and spirit's strength: I love you mother. There is no mother loved as you are loved!' "Tis that that makes me mad. I know it. Oh why are you not like other children, Ferdinand! When your uncle left us, my father said Good bye,' and shook his hand; and he, he scarcely kissed us, he was so glad to leave his home; but you-To-morrow-no, not to-morrow. Can it be to-morrow!' "Mother, let me get up and call my father, and tell him I will not go.' "Good God! what words are these? Not go. 'Tis all your hope to go; all ours, dear child. What would your father say were he to hear me speak thus? Oh! that I had not entered! What a fool I am!' "Dearest, dearest mother, believe me we shall soon meet." "Shall we soon meet! God! how joyous will be the day.' "And I-I will write to you by every ship.' "Oh! never fail, Ferdinand, never fail.' "And send you a gazelle, and you shall call it by my name, dear mother.' "Darling child !' "You know I have often stayed a month at grandpapa's, and once six weeks. Why! eight times six weeks, and I shall be home again.' "Home! home again! eight times six weeks--A year, nearly a year! It seems eternity. Winter, and spring, and summer and winter, again-all to pass away. And for seventeen years he has scarcely been out of my sight. Oh! my idol, my beloved, my darling Ferdinand, I cannot believe it; I cannot believe that we are to part.' "Mother, dearest mother, think of my father, dearest; think how much his hopes are placed on me; think, dearest mother, how much I have to do. All now depends on me, you know. must restore our house." I "O! Ferdinand, I dare not express the thoughts that rise upon me; yet I would say that, had I but my child, I could live in peace, how or where I care not.' "Dearest mother, you unman me.' "It is very wicked. I am a fool; I never, no! never shall I pardon myself for this night, Ferdinand.' "Sweet mother, I beseech you calm yourself. Believe me we shall indeed meet very soon, and, somehow or other, a little bird whispers to me we shall yet be very happy.' "But will you be the same Ferdinand to me as before? Ay ! there it is, my child. You will be a man when you come back, and be ashamed to love your mother. Promise me now,' said Lady Armyn, with extraordinary energy, promise me, Ferdinand, you will always love me. Do not let them make you ashamed of loving me. They will joke, and jest, and ridicule all home affections. You are very young, sweet love, very, very young, and very inexperienced and susceptible. Do not let them spoil your frank and beautiful nature. Do not let them lead you astray. Remember Armyn, sweetest dear, dear Armyn, and those who live there. Trust me, oh! yes, indeed believe me darling, you will never find friends in this world like those you leave at Armyn.' “I know it,' exclaimed Ferdinand, with streaming eyes; God be my witness how deeply I feel that truth. If I forget thee and them, dear mother, may God indeed forget me.' "My darling, darling Ferdinand,' said Lady Armyn, in a calm tone, "I am better now. I hardly am sorry that I did come now. It will be a consolation to me in your absence to remember all you have said. Good night, my beloved child, my darling love, good night. I shall not come down to-morrow, dear. We will not meet again; I will say good-bye to you from the window. Be happy, oh! be happy, my dear Ferdinand, and as you say, indeed, we shall soon meet again. Eight-and-forty weeks! Why, what are eight-and-forty weeks! It is not quite a year. Courage, my sweet boy! let us keep up each other's spirits, love. Who knows what may yet come from this your first venture in the world? I am full of hope. I trust you will find all that you want. I packed up every thing myself. Whenever you want any thing write to your mother. Mind, you have eight packages; I have written them down on a card, and placed it on the hall table. And take the greatest care of old Sir Ferdinand's sword. I am very superstitious about that sword, and while you have it I am sure you will succeed. I have ever thought that, had he taken it with him to France, all would have gone right with him. God bless, God Almighty bless you, child. Be of good heart. I will write you every thing that takes place, and, as you say, we shall soon meet. Indeed, after to-night,' she added, in a more mournful tone, we have naught else to think of but of meeting. I fear it is very late. Your father will be surprised at my absence.' She rose from his bed, and walked up and down the room several times in silence; then again approaching him, she folded him in her arms, and instantly quitted the chamber, without again speaking." In the same tender, natural, and beautiful strain, is the following scene between Miss Temple and her father, immediately after she hears that Ferdinand is about to marry Miss Grandison. Observe that Mr. Temple only suspects the connexion between his daughter and Ferdinand. She has, most improperly, concealed it from him: "Some one knocked gently at her door. She did not answer; she feigned sleep. Yet the door opened; she felt, though her eyes were shut and her back turned, that there was a light in the room. A tender step approached her bed. It could be but one person; that person whom she had herself deceived. She knew it was her father. "Mr. Temple seated himself by her bedside; he bent his head and pressed his lips upon her forehead. In her desolation some one still loved her. She could not resist the impulse; she held forth her hand without opening her eyes; her father held it clasped in his. ness. "And, if you knew all, you would not hate me?" "Hate you, my Henrietta! These are strange words to use to a father; to a father, I would add, like me. No one can love you, Henrietta, as your father loves you; yet, speak to me not merely as a father; speak to me as your earliest, your best, your fondest, your most faithful friend." "She pressed his hand, but answer, that she could not. "Henrietta, dearest, dearest Henrietta, answer me one ques"I tremble, Sir." tion.' "Then we will speak to-morrow." "Oh no, to-night, to-night. To-morrow may never come. There is no night for me; I cannot sleep. I should go mad if it were not for you. I will speak; I will answer any questions. My conscience is quite clear except to you; no one, no power on earth or heaven, can reproach me except my father.' "He never will. But, dearest, tell me; summon up your courage to meet my question; are you engaged to this person?' "I was.' "Positively engaged? "Long ere this I had supposed we should have claimed your sanction. He left me only to speak to his father.' "This may be the idle tattle of chattering women?' "No, no," said Henrietta, in a voice of a deep melancholy; my fears had foreseen this dark reality. This week has been a very hell to me; and yet, I hoped, and hoped, and hoped. Oh! what a fool have I been!' "I know this person was your constant companion in my absence: that you have corresponded with him. Has he writ ten very recently? "Within two days.' "And his letters?" "Have been of late most vague. Oh! my father: indeed, indeed I have not conducted myself so ill as you perhaps imagine. I shrunk from this secret engagement; opposed by every argument in my power, this clandestine correspondence; but it was only for a week, a single week; and reasons, plausi. ble and specious reasons, were plentiful. Alas! alas! all is explained now. All that was strange, mysterious, perplexed in his views and conduct, and which, when it crossed my mind, I dismissed with contempt; all is now too clear.' "Henrietta, he is unworthy of you.' "Hush hush! dear father. An hour ago I loved him. Spare him, if you only wish to spare me.' "Cling to my heart, my child, my pure and faultless child! A father's love has comfort. Is it not so? "I feel it is; I feel calmer since you came and we have spoken. Father, I never can be happy again; my spirit is quite broken. And yet, I feel I have a heart now, which I thought I had not before you came. Dear, dear father,' she said, rising and putting her hands round Mr. Temple's neck and leaning on his bosom, and speaking in a sweet yet very mournful voice, 'henceforth your happiness shall be mine. I will not disgrace you; you shall not see me grieve; I will atone, I will endeavor to atone, for my great sins, for sins they were, towards you.' "My child, the time will come when we shall remember this bitterness only as a lesson. But I know the human heart too well to endeavor to stem your sorrow now; I only came to soothe it. My blessing is upon you, my sweet child. Let us talk no more. Henrietta, do me one favor; let me send your maid to you. Try, my love, to sleep; try to compose yourself." "These people, to-morrow, what shall I do? "Leave all to me. Keep your chamber until they have gone. You need appear no more." "Oh! that no human being might again see me!' "Hush! sweetest! that is not a wise wish. Be calm; we shall yet be happy. To-morrow we will talk; and so good night, my child, good night, my own Henrietta.' "Mr. Temple left the room. He bid the maid go to her mistress in as calm a tone as if, indeed, her complaint had been only a headache; and then he entered his own apartment. Over the mantelpiece was a portrait of his daughter, gay and smiling as the spring; the chair near the fire, and gazed for some time abstracted upon the room was adorned with her drawings. He drew the flame, and then hid his weeping countenance in his hands. He sobbed convulsively." After reading these extracts the reader may be at a loss to understand why it is that Mr. D'Israeli is so little of a favorite with the English public. We shall offer one conjecture on the subject, and, in so doing, shall find occasion to add all that it remains for us to say of this work. In this day there are parties in every thing; and to Henrietta,' he at length said, in a tone of peculiar sweet-Scott's merits as a novelist began to be questioned by stand weil with all parties is not given to man. Even "Oh! do not speak, my father. Do not speak. You alone have cause to reproach me. Spare me; spare your child.' "I came to console, not to reproach,' said Mr. Temple. But, if it please you, I will not speak; let me, however, re main." Father, we must speak. It relieves me even to confess my indiscretion, my fatal folly. Father, I feel; yet why, I know not; I feel that you know all!' "I know much, my Henrietta, but I do not know all.' the worshippers of the great Juggernaut of Europe, as soon as his life of Napoleon appeared. With less than transcendant power he would have been decried as a mere scribbler by all the members of that church. Now, it is Mr. D'Israeli's misfortune that there is something about him offensive to all parties, and therefore he VOL. III.-42 |