undervalue their worth, as the source of the purest felicity which a man can know. "When a man," says he, "dwells in love, then the eyes of his wife are fair as the light of heaven; she is a fountain sealed; and he can quench his thirst and ease his cares, and lay his sorrow down on her lap, and can retire home to his sanctuary and refectory, and his gardens of sweetness and chaste refreshments. No man can tell but he, that loves his children, how many delicious accents make a man's heart dance, in the pretty conversation of those dear pledges; their childishness, their stammering, their little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities, are so many little emanations of joy and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society; but he that loves not his wife and children, feeds a lioness at home, and broods a nest of sorrows; and blessing itself cannot make him happy so that all the commandments of God enjoining a man to love his wife, are nothing but so many necessities and capacities of joy." One short sentence more, and we have done: A wise woman should not paint. A studious gallantry in clothes cannot make a wise man love his wife the better. It cannot but appear strangely inconsistent in us, who are every month providing temptations to our fair readers, by splendid representations of new dresses and new fashions, to lay before them, from a black-letter book, which we dare say they never saw, (we mean The Homilies, first published in the reign of Edward VI.) the following austere rebuke of such vanities; but it may be some consolation to know, that two hundred years ago, as well as two thousand, ladies studied personal decoration in spite of every thing which moralists and divines could say. "It will be here objected," saith the Homily, "and said of some nice and vain' women, that all which we do in painting our faces, in dying our hair, in embalming our bodies, in decking us with gay apparel, is to please our husbands; to delight his eyes; and to retain his love towards us. Oh vain excuse and most shameful answer, to the reproach of thy husband! What couldst thou more say to set out his foolishness, than to charge him to be pleased and delighted with the devil's tire? Who can paint her face, and curl her hair, and change it into an unnatural colour, but therein doth work reproof to her Maker, who made her? as though she could make herself more comely than God hath appointed the measure of her beauty! What do these women, but go about to reform that which God hath made? not knowing that all things natural are the work of God, and things disguised and unnatural be the works of the devil. And as though a wise and Christian husband should delight to see his wife in such painted and flourished visages ?" -"But perchance some dainty dame will say and answer me, that they must do something to shew their birth and blood, to shew their husband's riches; as though nobility were chiefly seen by these things, which be common to those which be most vile; as though thy husband's riches were not better bestowed than in such superfluities; as though when thou wast christened, thou didst not renounce the pride of this world, and the pomp of the flesh. I speak not against convenient apparel for every state agreeable; but against the superfluity, against the vain delight to covet such dainties; to devise new fashions to feed thy pride with, to spend so much upon thy carcass, that thou and thy husband are compelled to rob the poor to maintain thy costliness." 2.-Of the Epitome of English Literature, all we have to say is, that it goes on as it began; a work of limited utility, and of ambiguous value. The third volume concludes Locke's great metaphysical inquiry. We do not pretend to have collated it with a perfect copy; therefore we cannot say to what extent the mutilations have proceeded; but there are none of those paralyzing notes, which in the first volume tended so lamentably to destroy all confidence in the text, by leaving the reader in doubt whether he was perusing Paley or Mr. Valpy. As we were the only critics who noticed this radical blemish in the projected series, perhaps we do not assume too much in supposing it has been, if not avoided, at least not obtruded, in deference to the truth and force of our objections. We are quite sure the work must suffer in public estimation, as long as it lies under the suspicion of being a garbled republication of standard authors. Only imagine, for example, the close and consecutive reasonings of Locke, where every conclusion is derived from premises carefully laid down, subjected to such a process as we have exposed and condemned. Mr. Valpy may be, for ought we know, a very profound metaphysician; yet, if he be, we doubt whether he can simplify or strengthen the reasoning of Locke, by his pruning-knife. 3. We have been grievously disappointed in this volume of the Family Classical Library; and we shall briefly state the grounds of our disappointment. Mr. Valpy promised us an Appendix to Francis's Horace, which was to contain translations of various pieces by Ben Jonson, Cowley, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Addison, Swift, Porson, &c. &c. and, " by some of the most eminent poets of the present day." In the last number of The Royal Lady's Magazine, we applauded this intention, assigning our reasons for so doing, and adding, " let adequate taste and discernment be employed in making the selection, and the addition will be truly valuable." Well-the Appendix is before us-but not so the "adequate taste and discernment." We have, to be sure, some specimens of translations from Horace, by Ben Jonson, Milton, &c. &c.; but when we turn to the effusions of the "most eminent poets of the present day," whom does the reader suppose we find associated with the mighty masters of the lyre above enumerated? Even such "eminent persons as Mr. Leigh Hunt, and Mr. Robert Montgomery, and Mr. B. W. Procter, and Lord Thurlow, and Mr. Merivale, and a Mr. T. Bourne, and a Rev. C. A. Wheelwright, and a Mr. N. L. Torre, and a Mr. John Taylor, and a Henry Hall Joy, and about half a score more of similar "eminences," some of whom we never heard of before, while others among them we know, indeed, but know to be errant blockheads. As good, nay a better, selection of translations might have been made by sweepings from the magazines for the last half-century. We know not who has the superintendence of the Classical Library; but if this be a fair sample of his qualifications to judge of what is good, we marvel we have fared so well as we have hitherto, though there is no security for equally judicious management in the time to come. We had the curiosity to look into the performance of our dear friend Mr. Robert Montgomery of Lin. Coll. Oxon. (p. 108), and the very first stanza proclaimed its parentage: See! whiten'd into whelming snow, The last stanza, too, bespeaks its lineage: and so forth. For now the laugh's delicious wile From lurking damsel, hid awhile, Verily these, and "warring trees hush'd in a leafy slumber" (stanza 3) are abundantly "betrayful," of the Miltonic muse of the poor Literary Gazette. We hope all our readers are readers of Milton; and if so, they will remember, his exquisitely beautiful version of Horace's ode to Pyrrha, beginning, What slender youth, bedew'd with liquid odours, Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave, Pyrrha? For whom bindest thou In wreaths thy golden hair, Plain in thy neatness? Mr. Valpy's editor, to show his taste, (much in the same way as it would have been shown had he placed by the side of the Apollo Belvidere, a stonemason's figure, or one of Mr. Sievier's chiselled blocks, in imitation of it,) has followed this production of Milton by the same ode, done into English by Leigh Hunt!Milton and Leigh Hunt! O ye Gods!-Shakspeare and the author of the last farce d-d with universal consent at Covent Garden, or the Adelphi, would be just such another association of names.-Read, and laugh immoderately. Leigh Hunt-cockney poet, and the poet of cockneys, par excellence-thus girdeth up the loins of his genius to run a race with the blind bard of Paradise: Pyrrha, what ardent stripling now Mr. Valpy must take better care in future, and not injure a really valuable undertaking by making it the receptacle for the trashy scribbling of the Montgomerys, Leigh Hunts, and Literary Gazette geniuses of the day. THE FIVE NIGHTS OF ST. ALBANS.* Ir we belonged to that happy fraternity of reviewers who content themselves with belabouring, or bepraising in general terms, we should get rid of the troublesome and teasing task now before us. Many very talented critics who reviewed the first edition of this work, have already confessed the difficulty of analyzing or criticising it, and have vied with each other in strength of language merely, by which they were to mete out or rather lavish their unqualified approbation. Those who have read the admirable papers, entitled First and Last, which, while they appeared, gave a new and distinguished feature to Blackwood's Magazine, will expect, and assuredly they will find, something out of the hacknied rules of romance in a tale which occupies three volumes. And truly they must travel over the whole as they would wander through an unknown wilderness of sweets; each step brings them upon some new combination, where nature, in her wild and varied fantasies, delights and charms the senses-not a single beaten track disturbs the succession of romantic beauties, the mind moves on and on with those feelings which border upon veneration. The conviction that no human footstep has fallen on the sward--no eye even glanced at the space-imparts a relish which the noblest scenery would fail to give if the hand of man were visible in the composition. But to pursue our simile, it is not merely the beauties of untrodden wilds that we are called upon to notice. The author has chosen scenes in which wonders as well as beauties burst upon the sight, a continuity of interest and a succession of surprises enslave the senses; three-fourths of our journey is through labyrinths so intricate that they inspire doubts as to the termination. It is not the least merit of the tale, that up to the very close all is deep impenetrable mystery, and that the last few pages remove the clouds with which the whole fiction is enveloped, and complete as perfect a tale of diablerie as any romance-reader can desire to peruse. As a powerful work of fiction, The Five Nights of St. Albans is without an equal. We know of nothing that makes even a respectable approach. The dramatis personæ are numerous but distinct in character, each a perfect sample of a particular genus; and so graphically correct in outline, so finished in touch and tint, that the individual stands before the reader in form and feature, that one might almost recognise the whole in a crowd. Nor is there much difference in the style of drawing; one feels naturally more attached to some than others, but it is not because they are better described, it is the attachment of mind to the subject and not to the artist. We sympathize with the beauteous and suffering Helen; but she is not better brought before us than twelve or fourteen others, who occupy prominent situations on the stage. Some of our predecessors have made a discovery which we confess all our sagacity does not enable us to recognise, namely, that the tale is founded on the story of the Wandering Jew. We can trace no similarity, * 3 Vols. post 8vo. Second Edition. W. Kidd; and Sherwood & Co. no feature by which such conclusion is at all justified. We must, however, leave our marvel-loving readers to judge for themselves, and with one extract dismiss our task, which, had the Royal Lady's Magazine existed when the first edition appeared, would have been much more elaborate. Our readers will think, perhaps, that power of invention and description can scarcely be carried further than in the following extract; and, although it suits our purpose, and is almost the only one of manageable length, it is mere child's play to some of the scenes of diablerie which are brought before us in the work. The hag now bade the serpent give the charmed blood, drop by drop; and no sooner had the gorged creature, rearing its wreathed neck, distilled the warm gore from its opening jaws, than Helen's ears were assailed by the most dismal wailings, and by deep, hollow groans beneath her feet. The walls shook-the earth trembled the loathsome objects which formed the circle leaped and danced about-skulls rattled against skullsthe iron teeth chattered-the low red flames issuing from the unhallowed human fat and flesh, blazed like torches-the thunder pealed, and the blue lightning flashed-and there were loud howling and screaming, as if the place were filled with ravening wolves and famished eagles. In the midst of this wild tumult of unearthly noises, the voice of Margery was heard, crying aloud, "Arise, Alascon!-Alascon arise !-Ascend, mighty spirit of the future!" Helen's eyes grew dim: but she could faintly discern, in the centre of the circle, a bright shadow slowly ascending, clothed in purple and gold, with flowing hair of the colour of amber, and bearing a glass in its hands. A thin vapour floated round the spectre, which, though it did not obscure, was sufficient to veil the features. A profound and awful silence succeeded to the terrific din which had just prevailed. Helen scarcely breathed. The dread moment had arrived! She stood on the brink of knowledge which her heart now quaked to learn. Her hereafter-the destiny that awaited her was to be spread open before her. A marble statue, chiselled to the life, might have cheated the beholder into a belief that it breathed, sooner than the bloodless cheeks, fixed eyes, and motionless figure of Helen should have been pronounced alive. She looked a form of monumental alabaster. "I am here! fell enchantress!" exclaimed the spirit-" and would be gone!" "Now, maiden, speak!" said Margery. "Ask-and be resolved of what you ask!" Helen started. She was bewildered: she knew not what to say. "Speak! speak!" repeated the hag-" Quick!-Quick!-I cannot hold him while a swallow skims thrice o'er the mantled pool." "The abbey!-my father!-what danger?" stammered Helen-but her voice was choaked! "Idiot! traitress!" exclaimed Margery, stamping her foot furiously, "speak what thou would'st, or I'll tear that treacherous tongue out, and waste your young body, that thou shalt be more years dying than thou hast yet lived! My own fate hangs upon you!" Helen, terrified by the frantic looks and words of the hag, who raved like a maniac, rallied her sinking spirits. "Tell me, if thou can'st," said she, "what these mysterious signs in the abbey portend?" "A mighty triumph-or a dire evil," replied the spirit. "Who shall win the triumph?" said Helen. "He who wins thee!" "How shall the dire evil be avoided?" By the blood, which is precious to the hand that sheds it.” "What is the triumph ?" Redemption !" "Of what?" "A symbol." "What is the evil?" "The tears of the orphan and the widow. No more! I would be dismissed!'"' "One question more!" exclaimed Helen, firmly. "Are the days of my father's life numbered?" The spirit was silent. "He will not answer that," said Margery. "The lights burn low-are you satis fied?" Helen remembered the signet. It was impossible she could return ignorant of the only thing for which she had undergone this terrific scene. Not a moment was to be lost. VOL. II. E “If thou refuse answer to earth-born powers," exclaimed Helen, with an overwrought energy, bordering almost on frenzy, "I command thee-OBEY THE SIGNET!" and she stretched forth her hand. At these words, the same wailing and howling, the same violent motions, the same agitation of the elements, and the same unearthly noises, took place, as when the hag's blood was dropped into the cauldron. Margery herself grovelled on the earth, at the feet of Helen, as in worship of some mighty, though unseen, power. But now, all the low red flames that burned on the ground were extinguished, and the place was in total darkness, save a cloud of radiant light which enfolded the form of the spirit. Helen stood trembling and silent. All that she hoped or feared, all that she cared to live for, quivered on the next instant! "Wilt thou be answered by one greater than myself?" exclaimed Alascon; "or shall thine eyes behold in this glass, that which thou would'st know ?" "Let mine eyes behold!" replied Helen. "Then look!-Lo, shadows appear!" A mist obscured the glass for a moment. As it faded away, Helen perceived the likeness of Fitz-Maurice, kneeling, in the attitude of devotion, at her own feet. It vanished: and then she saw herself unfastening a ponderous chain, which hung about the neck of Fitz-Maurice. This disappeared: and Fitz-Maurice was again seen clad in complete armour, bearing a cross in one hand, and with the other, thrusting a spear through the body of a hideous monster, half human, half brute, which lay overthrown upon the ground. Another vision!-It was a sepulchre: and on it, in large silver letters, were inscribed, Helen Lacy!-The tomb slowly opened, and she saw herself, in her graveclothes, extended on a bier! Her spirit sunk within her; but, even as she gazed, the fleeting shadow passed away, and she beheld with horror her father writhing on the earth-his countenance full of agony, yet mingled with an expression of reproachful sorrow. A vulture was gnawing at his heart! But-oh! horror upon horror!-the vulture gradually melted from her sight, and in its place grew the figure of herself, thrusting a poniard where the beak of the vulture had appeared buried in the heart of her father. She saw no more. She uttered a loud shriek, and fell senseless. When she recovered, she found herself supported by Fitz-Maurice, and in the open air. The moon was shining with mild lustre above her, and myriads of stars spangled the blue sky. Her faithful Bridget was bathing her hand, which she held in hers, with her warm tears. From this specimen, taken as it is under every disadvantage to the author, the expectation of a reader will be greatly raised, and we hesitate not to say that on reading the work it will be more than realized. THE EDITOR'S ROOM. 1.-A Compendious German Grammar, with a Dictionary of Prefixes and Affixes Alphabetically arranged according to the recent Investigations of J. Grimm and other distinguished Grammarians. By A. Bernays. 2.-Familiar German Exercises, or Practice on the German Language, adapted to the "Compendious German Grammar," with an Appendix. By A. Bernays.* 3.-Tales of a Physician. Second Series. By W. H. Harrison. Jennings and Chaplin. 4.-The Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society. C. Tilt. 5.-The Watering Places of Great Britain, and Fashionable Directory. I. and II. I.T. Hinton. Parts 6.-The Turning of English Idioms into French at Sight, &c. By Monsieur L. P. R. Fenwick de Porquet. 1, 2.-We have examined very attentively these two elementary works, and have no hesitation in pronouncing them well adapted to facilitate the acquisition of the German language. The dictionary of prefixes and affixes at the end of the Gram Treuttel and Co. |