Then the glad spring will scatter round its sunshine and perfume;

But I shall pluck the May no more, nor see the lilac's bloom.

Last harvest-time we cleared the fields, and rode home on the wheat,

They crown'd me with the corn-flowers blue upon my golden seat:

And the dance went round the old oak-tree, until the night-bird's moans

Were mingled with the reaper's song, and stock-The dove's plaintive tones.

That was a blessed, happy time! The wild-bird on the bough

Was not more blithe than I was then; but that's

Their good old times came floating on, most elo- My love for you through endless space unaltered

THE OGILVIES:* A NOVEL.

We must confess that we feel no great veneration for our ancestors. We are very much obliged to them for the little good they have conferred upon us, and we are particularly gratified by being enabled in any degree to shake off the thraldom with which they have oppressed the minds and conduct of their descendants. The great struggle of the age appears to us to originate in an endeavour to escape from the bondage of the past-its old-fashioned doctrines, prejudices, and systems, and to mount upwards to the freedom, daring, beauty and power of Nature, and that highest kind of civilization which is the result of obedience to Nature's dictates.

All honour be unto the brave authors who are striving for our mental emancipation, and who are proving to the world that the present age is more full of genius-its designs and achievements-than any other which has preceded it, in the history of mankind.

that to which we are usually limited in our reviews of new books.

Faultlessness," says the Edinburgh Review, " is one of the privileges of mediocrity." The authoress of the "Ogilvies" can therefore very well bear to be told that her work is far from being perfect; but it exhibits so many rare qualities, and so much promise, that we venture to predict for her future endeavours no small renown, and think she will be entitled to rank among Britain's most gifted maidens. There cannot be a doubt that the "Ogilvies" is the first important production of a young woman blessed with unusual mental advantages. It is prefaced by the following touching

"DEDICATION.

"Years ago I used to say, that if I ever wrote a book, it should be dedicated to my mother.

"The possibility-then contemplated almost in jest-has now been fulfilled. The book is written :-

"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of but all else is changed. I will keep my promise

Cathay!"

We would rather have ten years of free existence in our modern times, than live for a century in any glorious Augustan period which ancient chronicles have recorded!

still.

"Let this, my first novel, which would have been a tribute of tenderest affection to the Living, become a solemn offering to the holy memory of the Dead."

We shall now impartially proceed to point The present is an age of surprises. Every out the faults and beauties of the work before month brings forth something which transcends us. We shall not attempt to draw for the reader its predecessors; and the watchful mind is cona minute outline of the story, as such an anatostantly kept in a state of homage to that divine mical sketch would give as true an idea of the creative power with which Providence has en- work as a skeleton would be an amiable and dowed the nature of man. We look forward pleasing representative of a man! Suffice it to with foreboding to the day when our sympathies say, that the "Ogilvies" is a love tale, the leadshall have grown into that beaten, narrow tracking moral of which may be summed up in a that we shall exclaim, with the conceited philosophy of middle age-"Ah! they did these things better in our young days." Better to be physically blind, than blind to the development and originalities of the law of " progress!"

We consider this a fitting introduction to a review of a work which could not have been written before the year of grace 1849, because it partakes so much of the mystical emotion and subjective ideality which have only sprung into being during these latter days by the influence of a high and new order of poets. While our old authors have been working out their oldfashioned notions, and lamenting over the birth of what they consider "a new and false taste," the world has slipped by them, and they find themselves in the rearward of a people's favour. "The Ogilvies" is so remarkable for its earnest ness and fineness of tone, and for the spirituality of the atmosphere which pervades it, that we deem it our duty to introduce it to the notice of our readers in a more prominent manner than

*THE OGILVIES: A NOVEL, 3 vols. post 8vo. (Chapman and Hall.)

very few words; not that there is any fixed and definite moral tagged on to the end of the work for the edification of unsympathetic and unskilful readers; for the stern and holy lessons which it teaches are shown in the lives of the characters represented, and the consequent reflections which they excite; but one of the grand aims of the author appears to be to show the evils which result from a want of faith and truth in those who love and are beloved, and the heavy responsibilities which those people incur who hold in their keeping the destinies of their juniors, and attempt to lay down fixed rules for the forma tion and growth of their happiness. Those who have undertaken, or who are entrusted with, the guidance of youth, should beware of judging a younger generation by their own more ancient standard of nature: they should rather strive to make young instincts and young sympathies happy in their own way; and let our seniors and guardians bear in mind, that they may commit high crimes in the face of heaven by denying to those who are in any way dependent upon them the exercise of those sentiments, ideas, and emotions, which the Almighty himself originated,

they unfold beneath the sun-burst of your artistic skill, instead of pulling them open leaf by leaf with your fingers, and thus presenting to the reader your well-dissected bouquet of human-heart flowers,"

"It is only a happy home that needs no guests within its walls."

and which he created to be cultivated, not | progress of the story; shining down upon them until crushed. Nature will not bear imperious dictation-she will endure no bondage but that allowed by reverence, principle, and affection! The faults manifest in "The Ogilvies" are those which necessarily result from the apparent youth of the author. She is too apt to throw her characters into physical contortions, and to make them speak in convulsions. Her enthusiasm too often leads her into a strain of what is ironically called "fine writing;" she sometimes overlays her pathos with too much minuteness of description; and in almost every other page of a very considerable portion of the work, we meet with such mosaic as the following:-" terrible silence"-" overwhelmed with outbursts"

1

"maddening emotions”—“ "gorgeous sunsets"
"shadowy images"- freezing hearts"—" in-
explicable awe"- -" freezing horrors"-" wild
vehemence". "she clung with despair".
"weeping passionately"-" a frenzied gaze"-
"Lynedon sprang madly to his feet"" she
remained so mute, so frozen, (frozen again!)
that Lynedon was terrified"-"terrible clouds"-
"wild longings"—" shuddering fears"-"mute
agony"-" she stood immovable in her stony
silence". supernatural power”. agonised
ear”—“ burning tears"- "torrent of passion”—
"vehement intensity"- passionate dreamer"

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"terrible phantom" ""wildly prayed”. "delicious alluring awe"-" tears frozen into a glassy terror"-" intense and withering scorn,' &c. &c. This style of expression is calculated to give rise to the accusation that the work is based upon a false and visionary view of human nature, whereas no accusation can be more undeserved, for the story is full of that highest and deepest truth which originates in mental intuition and an earnest sympathy with the struggles and sorrows of humanity. As a proof that our encomium is deserved, we give the following extracts, which are very pleasing specimens of originality of thought and eloquence of expression.

"First impressions are not love; but as the first streaks of dawn foretel the glorious noon into which they at last expand, so does this faint shadowy light often brighten into the broad day of love."

"Therefore, no hand had yet lifted more than the outer fold of this young heart-trembling, bursting, and thrilling with its full, rich, passionate life; and ready at the first sun-gleam to pour forth, rose-like, its whole awakened being in a flood of perfume and beauty and love."

"There is hardly a man in the world who does not feel his pulse beat quicker, when even after a short A commonabsence he finds himself nearing home. place this often said, often written; but there are common-places, delicious, ever fresh truths, which scem the daisies on the world's highway: it is hard not to stop and gather them sometimes."

"It is a rule with novelists—and a sterling one in general-that you should never unveil your characters by elaborate descriptions of mind and person, but suffer them to develope themselves in the

"Cold age may preach them down; worldliness may make a mock at them; but still the two great truths of life are Romance and Love."

The following pieces of description are graphic and sparkling :

"She was awakened at dawn by the rooks, who

old church-yard. Katharine rose up, and the first
sight that met her eyes was the white grave-stones
that glimmered in the yet faint light. Strange and
solemn vision for a bride on her marriage-morn!
Katharine turned away, and looked up at the sky.
It was all grey and dark, for the shadow of the vil-
lage church-the church where she was to plight
her vows-came between her and the sunrise. * * *
At the little wicket-gate which formed the lowly
entrance to the village sanctuary, Katharine paused.
The church-yard was a fair sight. The sunshine
he
sparkled dazzlingly on the white stones, which had
looked so ghost-like in the dawn; and every green
nameless hillock had its flower-epitaph written in
daisy-stars. Many a cheerful sound pervaded the
spot; for it was bounded on one side by several cot-
tages, whose inmates had made this quiet resting-
place of the dead a garden for the living. A nar-
row pathway only divided the flower-beds from the
graves, and among them both the cottage children
played all day long. There was no yew nor cypress
to cast gloom on the place; but leading to the
church-door was an avenue of limes, in whose fra-
grant branches the bees kept up a pleasant murmur.

And the merry rookery close by was never silent
from dawn till eve. It was a place that made death
beautiful, as it should be.”

The description of the cathedral city is so interesting, and so full of truthful fancy, that we shall make no apologies for giving it entire to our readers.

"There is, in one of the counties between Devon and Northumberland, a certain cathedral city, the name of which I do not intend to reveal. It is, or was until very lately, one of the few remaining strongholds of High-Churchism and Conservatism, political and moral. In olden days it almost sacrificed its existence as a city for the cause of King Charles the Martyr; and ever since has kept true to its principles, or at least to that modification of them which the exigencies of modern times required. And the loyal and ancient' town-which dignifies itself by the name of city, though a twenty minutes' walk would bring you from one extremity to the other-is fully alive to the consciousness of its own deservings. It is a very colony of Levites; who, devoted to the temple-service, shut out from their precincts any unholy thing. But this unholiness is an epithet of their own affixing, not Heaven's. It means not merely what is irreligious, but what is ungenteel, unaristocratic, un-Conservative.

"Yet there is much that is good about the place and its inhabitants. The latter may well be proud

of their ancient and beautiful city-beautiful not so much in itself as for its situation. It lies in the midst of a fertile and gracefully-undulated region, and consists of a cluster of artistically irregular and deliciously old-fashioned streets, of which the nucleus is the cathedral. This rises aloft with its three airy spires, so light, so delicately traced, that they have been christened the Ladies of the Vale. You may see them for miles and miles, looking almost like a fairy building against the sky. The city has an air of repose, an old-world look, which becomes it well. No railway has yet disturbed the sacred peace of its antiquity, and here and there you may see grass growing in its quiet streets-over which you would no more think of thundering in a modern equipage than of driving a coach-and-four across the graves of your ancestors.

"The whole atmosphere of the place is that of sleepiness and antique propriety. The people do everything, as Boniface says, soberly.' They have grave dinner-parties, once or twice in a year; a public ball, as solemn as a funeral; a concert now and then, very select and proper; and so it is that society moves on in a circle of polite regularities. The resident bishop is the sun of the system; around which deans, sub-deans, choral vicars, and clerical functionaries of all sorts, revolve in successive orbits with their separate satellites. But one character, one tone of feeling, pervades everybody. L―― is a city of serene old age. Nobody seems young there not even the little singing-boys.

on its own fading model, and the soul of God's making and nourishing which lives in His sunshine and His dews, fresh and pure, never grows old, and bears flowers to the last.

"There, in that still garden, you might sit for hours, and hear no world-sounds to break its quiet, except the chimes of the cathedral-clock drowsily ringing out the hours. Now and then, at servicetime, there would come a faint murmur of chanting, uniting the visible form of holy service with Nature's eternal praises and prayers-and so blending the spiritual and the tangible, the symbol and the expression, in a pleasant harmony. Dear, beautiful garden! No dream of fiction, but a little Eden of memory-let us rest awhile in thy lovely shades before we people them with the denizens of this our self-created world. Oh, pleasant garden! let us go back in spirit to the past, and lie down on the green sloping bank, under the magnificent old tree, with its cloud of white blossoms, (no poet-sung hawthorn, but only a double-cherry)-let us stroll along the terrace-walk, and lean against the thick low wall, looking down upon what was once the cathedral moat, but is now a sloping dell, all trailed over with blackberries-let us watch the sun-lit spires of the old cathedral in a quiet dreaminess that almost shuts out thought! And, while resting under the shadow of this dream, its memorial pictures shall be made life-like to us by the accompaniment of solemn music-such as this:

O earth so full of dreary noises,
O men with wailing in your voices;
O delved gold--the wailer's heap:
O strife-O tears that o'er it fall,
God makes a silence through you all!
And giveth his beloved sleep."

"But the sanctum sanctorum, the penetralia of the city, is a small region surrounding the cathedral, entitled the Close. Here abide relics of ancient sanctity, widows of departed deans, maiden descendants of officials who probably chanted anthems on the accession of George III., or on the downfall of the last Pretender. Here, too, is the residence of many cathedral functionaries who pass their lives within the precincts of the sanctuary. These dwell-room of the British Museum: ings have imbibed the clerical and dignified solemnity due to their neighbourhood. It seems always Sunday in the Close; and the child who should venture to bowl a hoop along its still pavement, or play at marbles on its door-steps, would be more daring than ever was infant within the verge of the city of

Take also the following sketch of the reading

"I do not think any poet or novelist has ever immortalised that curious place, well known to all dabblers in literature or science, the Reading-room at the British Museum. Yet there is hardly any spot more suggestive. You pass out of the clear daylight into large, gloomy, ghostly rooms, the "In this spot was Mrs. Breynton's residence. walls occupied by the mummied literature of some But it looked down with superior dignity upon its centuries, looking out from glass cases. You see neighbours in the Close, inasmuch as it was a de-ranged at various tables scores of mute readers, who tached mansion, inclosed by high walls, gardens, sometimes lift up a glance as you pass, and then, and massive gates. It had once been the Bishop's like Dante's ghosts in purgatory, relapse into their palace, and was a beautiful relic of the stately mag-penance. Indeed, the whole scene, with the specnificence of old. Large and lofty rooms, oak-tral attendants flitting to and fro, and the dim vista panelled and supported by pillars-noble staircases beyond the man who takes the checks, (alas for recesses where proscribed traitors might have hid-poetic diction!) might easily be imagined some gloomy bed-chambers with spectral furniture, meet Hades of literature, where all pen-guiders and brainfor the visitation of legions of ghosts-dark pas- workers were doomed to expiate their evil deeds by sages, where you might shiver at the echo of your an eternity of reading. Not only the lover of own footsteps;-such were the internal appear-poetic idealisation, but the moralising student of ances of the house. Everything was solemn, still, human nature, would find much food for thought age-stricken. in the same reading-room. Consider what hun"But, without, one seemed to pass at once from dreds of literary labourers have toiled within these the frigidity of age, to the light, gladness, and fresh- walls! Probably nearly all the clever brains in the ness of youth. The lovely garden was redolent of three kingdoms have worked here at some time or sweet odours, alive with birds, studded with vel-other-for nobody ever comes to the reading-room vety grass-plots of the brightest green, interwound by shady alleys-with here and there trees which hid their aged boughs in a mantle of leaves and flowers, so that one never thought how they and the grey pile which they neighboured had come into existence together. It was like the contrast between a human mind which the world teaches and builds

for amusement. If a student had moral courage enough to ask for the last new novel, surely the ghosts of sombre ponderous folios would rise up and frown him into annihilation. The book of signatures-where every new comer is greeted by the politest of attendants, handing him the most detestable of pens-is in itself a rich collection of

autographs, comprising almost every celebrated | uncomfortable until I have mastered it, or at least name which has risen year by year, and many-oh, how many!-that the world has never chronicled at all.

"The Reading-room is fertile in this latter class -meek followers of science, who toil after her and for her, day by day, and to whom she only gives her livery of rags. You may distinguish at a glance one of these habitués of the place, shabby in attire, at times almost squalid, plunged up to the ears in volumes as rusty and ancient as himself. At times he is seen timidly propitiating some attendant with small fragments of whispering conversation, listened to condescendingly, like the purring of a cat which has become a harmless household appendage. Perhaps the poor old student has come daily year after year, growing ever older and shabbier, until at last the attendants miss him for a week. One of them perhaps sees in the papers a death, or some mournful coroner's inquest; and recollecting the name, identifies it as that of the old book-worm. Then probably there is a few minutes' confab by the ticketkeepers' den at the end of the rooms-one or two of the regular frequenters are told of the fact, and utter a careless "Poor old fellow, he seemed wearing out!"-the books put by for his daily use are silently replaced, and one more atom of disappointed humanity is blotted from the living world.

know enough of it to form a judgment on the remainder. You would be astonished at the heterogeneous mass I have here'-here, as usual, he pointed to his forehead- and I'm still working on. Indeed, I should feel something like Alexander the | Great at the world's end, if I thought there were no more sciences for me to conquer. But that is not likely,' said the philosopher, with an air of great consolation, as he eyed affectionately the pile of books that surrounded him.

Philip, fearful of interrupting his work, said so. “Bless you, no! I can settle to it again directly.'

"This would seem a capital place for the study of human nature,' observed Philip, 'I never saw such a collection of odd people;' and then he checked himself, and coloured with sensitive apprehension, on account of his companion.

"But Drysdale only laughed, 'Yes! I believe we are an odd set-we don't care at all for our outward man. There lies the difference between your man of science, the regular old book-worm, and your man of refined genius-a poet, for instance. Their minds may be equally great, but are of a totally opposite character. The latter sort has the best of it, for with him the soul has greater influence over the body. I never knew a genius yetmind you! I use the word in its largest sense-who did not carry about with him, either in face, or person, or in a certain inexplicable grace of manner, the patent of nobility which heaven has bestowed upon him; while the hard-working grubbers in science and acquired learning often find the mud sticking to them! Their pursuits are too much of this world to let them soar like those light-winged fellows. One class is the quicksilver of earth-the other, its plain useful iron. You couldn't do well without either, I fancy-eh ?' "And the old philosopher rubbed his hands, and pausing in his oration, sat balancing himself on the

"This illustrative exordium may be considered as heralding the advent of a new Museumite in the person of Philip Wychnor. Speculations something like the foregoing occupied him during the time that he was awaiting the asked-for book, and trying to discover among the thick-set plantation of headsbrown, black, fair, red, and gray-young, old, ugly, handsome, patrician, and plebeian-the identical cranium of his new acquaintance, David Drysdale. First, he thought of promenading the long alleys, and peering over every table; but this sort of running the gauntlet was too much for his nerves. So, inquiring of the head attendant-the tutelary Lar of the place, who knew everybody and helped every-edge of one of those comfortable chairs with which a body-a sort of literary lion's provider, with good- benign government indulges Museum-frequenters. nature as unfailing and universal as his information Philip, much amused, tried to draw the conversa- Philip soon learned the whereabouts of old tion into its original channel. Drysdale.

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"You have a few fair students also; I see a sprinkling of bonnets here and there.' Drysdale shrugged his shoulders. Ah, yes! Much good may it do them! Some of them seem to work hard enough, poor little souls! but they had far better be at home making puddings. I don't like learned women in general; not that I mean women of intellect and feeling, regular work

"There he was, with his bald head peering from a semicircle of most formidable books; looking by the daylight a little older and a little more rusty in attire. He greeted his young friend with a pleased look, and began to talk in the customary Museum undertone. It was a drowsy murmur, such as a poet would liken to the distant humming of the Hybla bees; and perhaps the simile is not inapters in literature; but small philosophers in pettiwith regard to this curious literary hive.

"Glad to see you here, my young friend-very glad-shows you're in earnest,' said Drysdale.

'Ever been here before?'

"Philip answered in the negative.

"Isn't it a fine place-a grand place? Fancy miles of books, stratum upon stratum: what a glorious literary formation! Excuse me,' he added, smiling, "but I've been reading geology all the morning, and then I always catch myself" talking shop," as some would elegantly express it. You don't study the science, I believe?'

"No,' said Philip; the earth's beautiful outside is enough for me: I never wished to dive beneath it.'

coats, just dipping their pretty feet into the sciences, and talking as if they had taken the whole bath. Here's one of them!' added the old gentleman, with visible discomfiture, as a diminutive dame, in all the grace of fashionable costume, floated up the centre-aisle, we were about to write, and may still do so, considering what a great temple of literature we are now describing.

"Ah, Drysdale! you are just the very person I want,' lisped the new comer; and Philip at once recognised both face and voice as belonging to the lady he had once glanced at in Mr. Pennythorne's hall. He began to notice with some curiosity the well-known Mrs. Lancaster. Rather surprised was he to find so stylish a dame on terms of condescending familiarity with old David Drysdale. But Philip did not know that lion-hunters often prefer for their menageries the most rugged and eccentric animals of that royal breed. Besides, the shabbiness and