character and describing both action and scenery, his work would have been entitled to one of the highest places in romance. But Mr. Stephens has destroyed the effect of his work by the prodigality of his incidents and personages, and by the confusion of his method of dealing with them. There is matter for four different plots, with a hero and heroine to each, in his one romance. He gives evidence of a learned research and historical knowledge; we find also a puzzling array of names, not unlike that which is to be found in Robert Browning's "Sordello." There are, besides, too many quotations, and the fault is the less pardonable in a writer of such great original power.

We have said that there is a fine power of description in this author. In attempting an illustration, we are puzzled where to choose, so many present themselves. The following beautiful and poetical passage must suffice. A man pure in character but maligned on earth has appealed to the spirit of his dead wife for sympathy:

Spirit of the departed! do you know that I am innocent?

"He raised his eyes, and a curdling thrill crept through his veins ! for, lo the prayer, that, almost silently, had welled up from the sanctuary of his soul, had reached its aim, and had an answer. The far depths of the room became gradually brightened with a glory, not of this world; and a dim, thin, human shape, slowly developed its indistinct and shadowy outline, by insensibly divesting itself, as it

were, of one immortal shroud after another, till it stood, pale and confessed, in ethereal repose."

Manuscripts of Erdely, vol. i. p. 307.

Mrs. Shelley has published, besides "Frankenstein," a romance entitled "Valperga," which is less known than the former, but is of high merit. She exhibits in her hero, a brave and successful warrior, arriving at the height of his ambition, endowed with uncommon beauty and strength, and with many good qualities, yet causes him to excite emotions of reprobation and pity, because he is cruel and a tyrant, and because in the truth of things he is unhappy. This is doing a good work, taking the false glory from the eyes and showing things as they There are two female characters of wonderful power and beauty. The heroine is a lovely and noble creation. The work taken as a whole, if below "Frankenstein" in genius, is yet worthy of its author and of her high rank in the aristocracy of genius, as the daughter of Godwin and Mary Wolstonecraft, and the widow of Shelley.

are.

ROBERT MONTGOMERY.

"Parnassus is transformed to Zion Hill,

And Jewry-palms her steep ascents do fill.
Now good St. Peter weeps pure Helicon,
And both the Maries make a music-moan;-
Yea, and the prophet of the heavenly lyre,
Great Solomon, sings in the English quire,
And is become a new-found Sonnetist!"

BISHOP HALL. Satire 8.

Mr. P.-" My friend!-(patting his shoulder)-this is not a bell. (Patting

the tin bell.) It is a very fine Organ!"

Drama of Punch.

ROBERT MONTGOMERY.

HUMOUR may be divided into three classes; the broad, the quiet, and the covert. Broad humour is extravagant, voluble, obtrusive, full of rich farce and loud laughter:-quiet humour is retiring, suggestive, exciting to the imagination, few of words, and its pictures grave in tone:-covert humour, (which also comprises quiet humour,) is allegorical, typical, and of cloven tongue-its double sense frequently delighting to present the reverse side of its real meaning, to smile when most serious, to look grave when most facetiously disposed. Of this latter class are the comic poems of the ingenious Robert Montgomery, a humourist whose fine original vein has never been rightly appreciated by his contemporaries. He has been scoffed at by the profane for writing unmeaning nonsense, when that very nonsense had the most disinterested and excellent moral aim; he has