first in which he had ever seen the Earl bestow one thought on his wife, some new idea had flashed upon him, some dreadful secret had been revealed. The veil in which so carefully he had wrapped his inmost feelings, concealing them even from himself, was rent, and in this first overwhelming moment he had no power to think; he could only feel-feel like some lofty tree that the whirlwind has uprooted, but which, even in its fall, preserves a fearful consciousness of what it has been, and what it is! Isabella watched him with painful anxiety: it was some relief to her uneasiness to see composure restored to the Countess; her face was pale, but placid; and her manner, though depressed, lost none of its wonted courteousness, when she addressed her husband.

Miss Albany, accustomed from her infancy to direct her quick discernment on her own feelings, as well as on those of others, did not suppose it possible so little to know one's self, as to recover serenity without the internal consciousness that all was right. "There is but one victim here," thought she; "unrequited love withers of itself; all will yet be well.” While these flattering hopes enabled her to draw her breath more freely, the young Countess was busied accounting to herself for the momentary embarrassment which the Earl's unexpected presence had caused her. "I see him so seldom," thought she; "I was so like an intruder in his room! "'—vol. i. pp. 143–145.

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Few of our readers, we think, will disagree with us in considering that this is in the very worst style of the worst class of novels. There is neither nature, good sense, nor meaning in it, and we can hardly suppose that the simplest boarding-school girl could be persuaded into thinking it pathetic or touching. But to proceed.

Soon after the scene just described, Adolphus Montresor, duly warned and instructed by Miss Albany, on the danger of his situation, determines upon leaving both his patron's house and wife undisturbed, and he prepares for a journey accordingly. Proceeding, however, to the carriage, he has to pass a favourite bower, and there to his dismay, he finds the Countess enjoying the solitary retreat with her friend Miss Albany. He would have avoided them, but the lady faints, and we are again regaled with the picture of the hero hauling her away in his arms to place her in safety upon her horse. Having been absent for some time with his mother in Wales, he returned to London, where he became dangerously ill; and after falling into a delirium, has the delight of finding himself on his recovery, watched and attended by the Countess herself. He was removed by her to her husband's castle, and Miss Albany, who it seems was a most strange personage, immediately wrote to inform his lordship of all that was going on. hastened home, and to the horror of the lovers appeared before them when they thought him far absent in Scotland. The scene which follows affords perhaps the most interesting passage in the work, and is given with some degree of dramatic force. It must be premised, that the carriage which was to convey the Countess and her lover away, had been ordered to be in readiness in an hour, but the order has been scarcely given, when

He

The Earl himself, unannounced, entered the apartment, where the last directions for the departure were giving and executing. Adolphus was writing with his back to the door, and did not look up till the Countess shrieked. He turned round, and grew pale on beholding his guardian. This, however, was not the time to shrink; and walking steadily across the room, he said, "I am sorry to be the person, my Lord, to explain all this confusion; but, whatever may be your opinion of me, I rely on your delicacy for not detaining Lady Amesfort, when she voluntarily relinquishes your name and protection."

"You are right, Sir," said the Earl, with an energy of voice and manner, of which he seemed incapable: "I shall not detain Lady Amesfort in my house; but I shall see that she does not leave it with you.— Follow me, Aurelia-nay, instantly." The Countess recoiled as her husband approached; and throwing herself into Montresor's arms, clung to him in terror.

"If you would take her from me," he cried fiercely, " you must first take my life."

Horror and anguish, amounting to madness, were depicted on the powerful features of Lord Amesfort. "Rash boy," he cried, "will nothing unfasten your guilty hold? I would have spared you," he continued, with a sudden burst of tenderness, "for you are dear to me— -Heaven knows how dear!-but you will rush headlong on.-Adolphus! believe me-I speak not idle words,-guilt is an undying poison that will corrupt every pleasure."

"I believe you," said Adolphus, with desperate steadiness; " but the die is cast."

"Then hear me !" loudly exclaimed the Earl. "I do not throw the thunderbolt; it is you who bring it on your own head. It is no common infamy in which you are about to plunge. It is your father's wife you would seduce!"

'Montresor reel'd back; his distending eye-balls seemed ready to start out of his head; his white lips quivered, and his teeth ground against each other. He gasped for breath-then going close up to the Earl, he said, in a tone of horrible stillness, "Monster! was it your hand that poured out the phial of wrath on the head of my mother? Did you curse me with life, that I might grow up a blacker wretch than there are words to name me? Have you set the seal of disgrace upon us, and enveloped us all, the innocent with the guilty, in one mighty ruin? Is it for this your nephew has broken the heart of your daughter? Is it for this..." Montresor could not articulate another word, but he continued to gaze on his father and the wild fixed glare of his eye showed the chaos of an unsettling mind. The Earl felt the danger to his reason of suffering him to dwell upon these accumulated images of horror, and gently taking his hand, he pointed to Lady Amesfort. She had fainted, and lay still, pale, and deathlike. The effect was instantaneous on her lover. He uttered a cry so wild, so piercing, that his father shuddered, in doubt if it was not the note of madness. Adolphus flung himself on the floor beside her. He watched the ghastly hue vanish from her face; he listened to the long labouring sigh with which she returned to the consciousness of woe; and bending over her, he said quietly, "Poor unfortunate! she lives!" He arose, and moved towards the door. As he passed his father, he

paused. Lord Amesfort half veiled his face with his hand; but his attitude denoted such hopeless overpowering anguish, that Adolphus for a moment mourned only for his father.

"There is enough of guilt and misery," he said, in a stifled voice, "but there might have been more. The world would call your wife unsullied, for it is our hearts only that have sinned."

Lord Amesfort felt that he sought to console, not to appease him; and bowing his head, he replied, "It is well for you, my son; for me there is nothing well." The bruised heart of Adolphus gave one bound of filial affection-but he thought of his mother, and it was checked.'-vol. i. pp. 278-281.

The catastrophe of this affair was not a deadly one to any of the parties concerned, for it is said before the conclusion of the tale, that the Countess learnt to love her husband almost as well as she had loved his son.

But while this affair terminates thus quietly, and gives a lesson of most stoical philosophy to married lords, which we hardly consider very edifying; the other characters of the piece are preparing for the display of more sombre feelings. The Lord de Calmer, whose character is not very clearly described, becomes on a sudden entirely neglectful of Adolphus' sister, the cause being in fact the discovery of her illegitimacy. For a long time her brother and the family are in astonishment at this conduct on the part of the lover, but it is at length explained, and Adolphus travels about in despair and indignation, de Calmer takes to drinking, and the unfortunate forsaken sinks into a consumption. The events of the story now hasten to a conclusion. Lady Amesfort, after having undergone a regimen of husbandly care, becomes a decidedly good wife, and the vagrant de Calmer, touched with penitence and regret, determines on returning to his first love, and making atonement for his faithlessness. He hastens into Wales, flies to his mistress, clasps her to his arms, finds her no longer a blooming cheerful girl, but reduced to a skeleton. Hope and despair for a long time struggle together, and the best part of the story is the account given of the anxious and melancholy period there passed by the unfortunate lovers. The broken-hearted girl at length dies, and is soon followed by her mother. Lord de Calmer is intrusted by the latter with some papers, which in the true spirit of romance, he reads while sitting by her grave. He learns by them, that Mrs. Montresor was early seduced by the Earl of Amesfort, who was her cousin, and that she had willingly continued his mistress, when she might have been his wife. The story concludes by Lord de Calmer marrying one of the sisters of his late betrothed, and Adolphus Montresor, his friendly Mentor Miss Isabella Albany.

We need not stop to make any observation on the abundant absurdities which this tale presents. It is confusion from beginning to end; the incidents are not dependant the one upon the

other, and they are in the main such as a young barrister wouldbe glad to make his first oration upon, but too prurient for the sentimentality of any novelist to make them palatable. We have been the more particular in our notice of this piece, because it is one of a large class, which of all other kind of novels will be always the most generally read, and which might be made highly interesting, and even useful, were it kept open to the detail of other principles and circumstances, than those which concern nothing but adultery or seduction. We can find no possible excuse for the writer of this tale, whether young or old, male or female, for thus employing talents which deserve a more healthy occupation.

English Fashionables at Home,' is another novel so exactly similar in form, stature, and feature, to the fashionables of every other kind, that our readers will not require a much longer description of its character. Let them imagine themselves doomed to spend a certain time every day in hearing affected women, and not over-sensible lords, talk in their very worst style of affectation, and they will have a tolerably correct idea of the pleasure they may derive from the perusal of Fashionables at Home.' Let us take a specimen of the animated dialogue with which three-fourths of the work is filled.

Lady Tralee was lounging in a large chair, reading the last new novel: Miss Fitzosborne was attempting to copy a bad landscape; Jenny was writing letters; Mrs. Smith hemming a muslin frill; and Betsy loitering about from one to the other, occasionally thrusting herself sideways upon one of her sister's chairs, and at other times drumming her fingers on the table, in time to a sauteuse she was humming out of tune. Upon my word, Maria, that fore-ground looks for all the world like spinach and eggs," observed Betsy.

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Spinach and eggs! and for all the world too! What a vulgar phrase. You will never be distinguée," responded Maria.

Distinguished from you and Jenny, at all events, I hope; la—rala-la-la-la-la-" &c. continuing her sauteuse.

""You distract my attention," said Lady Tralee. "I desire, Betsy, go and practise your music."

you will

"Faith, and that I will."

The look of horror from her sisters, and of indignation from her mamma, was lost upon the young lady. She crept round to the back of Mrs. Smith's chair, and climbing up on it, unceremoniously laid her two hands on her head, and turning it half round, impressed a very affectionate kiss on the pallid cheek, at the same time whispering in her ear—“ I think now I have paid them off for you; they'll never talk of your brogue after mine." She then resumed the eternal sauteuse, and danced out of the room.

6

Jenny's letters were finished, and she had time to devote to her present as well as absent friends. "I have been thinking, Maria, what dresses we shall wear to-day. What say you?

?"

"I mean to go all in white. I am not in high colour to-day," answered Maria, casting a look at the mirror, which of course stood behind a white marble console, at the end of the room.

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Then, I think, I'll wear my blue crépe› lisse. You know the last time we were dressed alike, that disagreeable Mrs. Mitchell asked us if we, bought our silks by the piece."-vol. ii. pp. 15-17.

We cannot for the life of us discover, how either character, manners, or any thing else, can be learnt from such sad trash as this. Novelists should remember, that it is not all kinds of conversation, or every scene, either in fashionable or vulgar life, that may display their characteristics. It requires, indeed, a much finer touch than the greater part of such writers would make us believe, to lift up the veil that is every where spread over the gay world. Even where external manners only are to be described, it must be done with a pen over which a more than ordinary degree of good sense has control.

We are now come to Life in India,' a novel, which for the most part is nothing more than a familiar picture of British habits and manners in a new frame work of oriental decoration. The characters are all British, and indeed seem to be as little affected in their natures by a translation to Calcutta, as people in real life are understood to be changed by migration at all. Again, there is an almost culpable monotony in the selection of them, for they are principally derived from one particular class, and that an exceedingly limited one too, as to diversity of pursuit and disposition; we mean the officers and their families who are engaged in the military service of the East India Company. Neither in the chief story, nor the incidents, is there any thing to be discovered beyond the common place histories of which, under so many disguises, the Minerva press has been the prolific parent. Fathers and sons in this novel, are just as reciprocally amiable as they are described to be at home: and the unfailing business of the tender passion is carried on with all the temperance 66 of an affair of the heart" in Leadenhall Street, and apparently without being in the slightest degree affected by the high pressure quality of an Indian climate. To those, however, who are interested in obtaining a distinct and impressive view of the mode of life, with all its pleasant as well as its almost intolerable contingencies, which a connection with the military service of the East India Service entails on many of our English families, this book, evidently the composition of an observing and intelligent actor in the scene which he describes, will afford sufficient to gratify their curiosity. The preliminary memoir, descriptive of a voyage to the East Indies, will be found, we believe, to convey a tolerably accurate notion of the general circumstances which are likely to be met with by those condemned to undertake that adventurous enterprize. So that to the attractions of a pleasing narrative, this part of the work will be found to unite the advantages of useful instruction.

The third volume opens an entirely new scene, by transferring us from the society of our countrymen at. Calcutta, to the northern provinces of Hindostan, there to witness a series of novel and