opinions, and fell a victim to the same mental delusions, that occasioned the horrors of the son's career. The young lady, Wieland's only sister, who is the supposed writer of the story, possessed a strength of mind, and an acuteness of penetration, which, although insufficient to prevent the mysteries that perplexed the family from disturbing her peace, preserved her from becoming the victim of that insanity into which they drove her brother. This unfortunate man, possessing a conscience of the most scrupulous description, and a heart susceptible of the most benevolent feelings, strongly attached to domestic enjoyments, is hurried on by a delusive idea of duty to the commission of the most terrible of crimes, the murder of a beloved wife and a number of endearing children. His sister, too, is destined, in his frenzied mind, for destruction, and is preserved, from his attack, only by the intervention of accident. He is arrested, tried and condemned. In an enthusiastic speech to the court, he not only confesses having perpetrated the crimes, but justifies them as meritorious, asserting, that in committing them, he obeyed the injunction of God. On account of his evident insanity, his sentence is commuted from death to perpetual confinement in a dungeon and in irons. He glories in his sufferings, because he conceives them to be the consequence of his having given a proof of obedience to the divine will, the most difficult, in performance, of any that ever was performed by man. only subject of regret, is, that it has not been in his power to render the trial of his obedience complete by the sacrifice of his sister. This haunts his imagination, and his desire to accomplish this remaining part of his task, urges him to several desperate efforts to break from his confinement. In one or two instances, by an exertion of a preternatural force, the acquirement of which, by a man in his condition, is not easily conceived, he succeeds in bursting from his prison, and rushes wild, haggard, and frantic upon his intended victim.

His

But her good fortune does not forsake her. Accident still interposes to save her, and in the last and most appalling interview with the deluded criminal, just as he is about to inflict on her the fatal blow, the same mysterious and awful voice, that had prompted him to his murderous career, commands him to "hold!"

He obeys, and he rejoices to obey. He thanks the Gracious Power for exonerating him from this remaining portion of the terrible task assigned him. It would have been well, had the person, to whom the voice belonged, stopped here. The lady's life would have been secured, and the unhappy Wieland would have returned to his prison and his shackles, with an approving conscience, and in perfect resignation to his fate.

But the man who had hitherto so unaccountably ruled his destiny, repenting the mischief he had done, now appears before the culprit, in the person of a sojourner in the neighbourhood, whom Wieland well knew, named Carwin, and avows himself to have been author of those mandates, which had been unfortunately mistaken for the injunctions of heaven. He explains the whole mystery, by stating that he possessed the power of ventriloquism, and had used it without anticipating the dreadful results that had taken place.

Wieland hears, he is horror-struck, he trembles. He has now no longer the conviction of having done his duty, to support him. Despair suddenly seizes him. He snatches up a pen-knife that is convenient, and in an instant his throat is gashed with a deadly wound.

1

After this fatal conclusion of Wieland's crimes and sorrows, Carwin, the author of the whole mischief, has the address to persuade the friends of his victim that he intended no harm; that he used his art without any malicious view, sometimes to rescue himself out of certain awkward situations in which his incaution had placed him, and at other times merely to gratify a propensity he felt for acting mysteriously.

This explication of the matter is very clumsy and unsatisfactory, especially as the reader cannot fail to remember, that, after Wieland's slaughtering his wife and children, the voice declares that the task is still incomplete; and the supposed narrator of the tale is aware that these expressions were used, and yet she, with all her other friends, manifests a conviction of the innocence of Carwin's intentions.

But this, and some other strange occurrences, such as the flame. in the temple, which destroyed Wieland's father without injuring any thing around him, and which there is scarcely any attempt

made to explain, leaves an unsatisfactory feeling in the mind, on finishing the book, which those alone will pardon who can appreciate and relish the astonishing power of mental analyzation that is displayed in every page. This writer, indeed, in all his novels, displays abundance of this power, but in none of them, we believe, to as much perfection as in this.

The energetic wielding of this analyzing faculty, indeed, constitutes the chief excellence of this writer. When we call it an excellence, we must be understood to speak of it abstractedly, without reference to the subject on which it is employed. When used in novel writing, for the causes we have already stated, we consider it a blemish; and Mr. Brown has certainly used it to an excess, which, we fear, will forever confine to narrow hounds the pleasure and the profit which the world might otherwise derive from his productions.

In itself, the analyzation of mind is a species of writing, which, when well executed, demonstrates the possession of the highest order of talents, the talent of exploring human hearts, investigating human motives, and of specifying the conduct most proper for each contingency. Every reader of Brown must confess that he was eminently gifted with this talent, and whether the occasion on which it is used pleases or not, the manner of it must command admiration. The power must be acknowledged and respected, although its use may be considered injudicious, and felt disagreeable.

The novel of Arthur Mervyn has more diversity of incident, but less unity of plot than that of Wieland. It is less complete in its plan, but it is more engaging in its details. It will, perhaps, interest more readers, though it will excite the applausive of fewer critics. It is a longer work, but it is at least one third longer than it should be. Had it ended shortly after the destruction of the bank bills in Welbeck's chamber, by briefly disposing of that wretch, and marrying Arthur Mervyn to Eliza Hadwin, the plot would have possessed sufficient unity, and the whole story could not have failed to give infinitely more satisfaction than it now does.

As we now have it, the last third of the work, which should always be the most interesting portion of such a composition, is a

heavy, gratuitous, and ill-constructed appendage, connected but in a very slight degree with the tale so ably related in the preceding portion. Characters altogether new, some of whom are to make a considerable figure in these last scenes, are introduced. Even a new heroine is brought forward, against whose intrusion we have every right that either feeling or justice can give us, to protest. Eliza Hadwin has already engaged our partiality. We think that, take her all in all, she is the most interesting female in the work. She has most of the tangible character of common life. Few of the other characters have indeed much of this. She is Mervyn's first love, and with all a woman's confiding, and endearing weakness, she confesses to him that his affection is returned with ardour, and he has sufficient proof that it is with fidelity. Yet he forsakes her for the hand of a Jewish widow, lately arrived from England, who is, indeed, richer, knows more of fashionable life, and can talk better philosophy than her rural rival; but is in no other respect, that we can discover, half so amiable or attractive. At all events she is an infinitely less suitable match for Mervyn; nor is it at all in consistence with the general simplicity and integrity of his character, that he prefers her. We wish that the whole of this part relative to Mrs. Fielding had been omitted. It adds nothing to the elucidation of the preceding mysteries, and totally destroys the unity of the plot.

Arthur Mervyn's character is well conceived, and, except in his faithlessness to his first and apparently fondest love, well executed; and he is well suited to become the interesting hero of a novel. Except in the instance just mentioned, his whole career exhibits a rare and engaging union of integrity, simplicity, and natural good sense. Domestic grievances drive him from his father's house, in Chester county, to the city of Philadelphia, which he enters poor, unfriended, and unknown. After passing through a variety of disastrous scenes, some of which are truly singular and romantic, when at the lowest point of distress, he falls in with one Welbeck, who is destined to be the villain of the tale; and a more original and complete one never figured in ro

mance.

This man takes Mervyn into his service to be his amanuensis, as he tells him, although it does not appear that he ever emVOL. I.-No. I.

7

ploys him as such. Welbeck at this time is in possession of a magnificent establishment, which he had obtained by the fraudulent use of a large sum of money entrusted to his care, for the use of a young and beautiful Italian lady, whom he not only defrauds, but seduces, and retains in his establishment in the capacity of a mistress. This character manifests throughout his career of wickedness many compunctions of conscience, which afford to the motive-balancing talent of the author frequent opportunities to display itself in its best style.

The intimacy between Mervyn and Welbeck seems to origi nate and maintain itself, on the part of the latter, from no very adequate motives. Compassion for Mervyn's forlornness, when they first met, we cannot suppose to have had much influence in the mind of such a patron, and his necessity for an amanuenses appears to be little else than a chimera; at least, it was not of such urgency as to induce him to bring into his house a person who would be in every respect a spy on his actions. The character of Mervyn himself, notwithstanding his fickleness in love, is by far the most interesting of any that Brown has drawn in the works before us. The dangers into which he voluntarily plunges, amidst the appalling terrors of the Yellow Fever, of 1793, picture him in the most engaging light, as a noble and fearless philanthropist, who is determined to do his duty to his fellow men, no matter what may be the consequence.

Perhaps one of the most striking incidents in the book is the burning of the bank notes by Mervyn, under the belief that they were forged, which Welbeck had excited in his mind for the purpose of inducing him to resign them. We think so well of the passage that we extract it for the perusal of our readers.

"This scene lasted, I know not how long. Insensibly the passions and reasonings of Welbeck assumed a new form. A grief, mingled with perplexity, overspread his countenance. He ceased to contend or to speak. His regards were withdrawn from me, on whom they had hitherto been fixed; and wandering or vacant, testified a conflict of mind, terrible beyond any that my young imagination had ever conceived.

"For a time, he appeared to be unconscious of my presence. He moved to and fro with unequal steps, and with gesticulations, that possessed an horrible but indistinct significance. Occasion