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His petition is a modest document, but forcibly illustrative of his unparalleled claims. The application was opposed,-need we say by whom? The occasion was a very fit one to call forth the unwonted parsimony of Mr. Bankes, the ancient member for Corfe Castle. After an elaborate inquiry by a committee, the sum of 10,000l. was finally awarded to Dr. Jenner. If this adjudication were the whole result of the investigation, it might be well said, that his cause had failed. But the committee established two important points: the vast utility and the originality of Dr. Jenner's discovery. At this period, the memoirs break off, to be resumed, however, at a subsequent opportunity.

Such was the man, such the great benefactor to his species, whose life Mr. Baron has undertaken to depict. He was intimately acquainted with the subject of his volume-all the documents and traditions which were possessed by the relations and friends of Dr. Jenner, have been placed at his disposal. He is, further, a professional man, and capable therefore of forming a sound opinion with respect to all points of importance, that may be involved in the history of Jenner and his labours. Materials too he had in abundance: indeed, he seems to have been so embarrassed by the quantity, as to have lost altogether the power of giving them to his reader with the advantage of due order; a defect which takes considerably from the produce of his great diligence and ability. A little more display also, of the partiality which he evidently feels for the person of Dr. Jenner, and which is repressed out of a timid precautionary spirit, would not have made Mr. Baron a less useful, while it would have rendered him a far more interesting biographer. At the same time, taking the man himself—his peculiar labours-the amount of particulars concerning him, and the authenticity of the account into consideration, we cannot but hail this work as a highly important gift to society.

ART. IX. De Vere; or, the Man of Independence. By the Author of Tremaine. 8vo. 4 vols. London: Colburn. 1827. THERE are some minds that will think this novel a great deal too political, too extensively engrossed with affairs of state, which seldom appear to harmonise with the lighter interests of fiction. Such spirits, and we fear that amongst them may be found many of the softer sex, will shew De Vere no mercy. They will rail at him as excessively dull and prosaic; they will not perhaps be displeased with his Grandisonian independence, until they find that it is carried to an extreme that endangers the happy consummation of the story; but then they will be downright angry with him for it, and proclaim him to be unworthy of the angelic being who reigns like a load-star over these volumes. As to his good or ill fortune throughout the political and legal vicissitudes which attend him, they will not care one farthing about it, inasmuch as one little tea

cup of scandal, the slightest hint in the world of a faux pas, has more charms for them, and, indeed, for the great mass of novel readers and magazine critics, than all the ministerial revolutions and intrigues that ever shook the recesses of Whitehall or Downing

street.

Then again there are so many conversations-discussions perhaps they will say-between statesmen, divines, men of sense and men of eccentricity, men of retirement and men of the world, and those debates, after the fashion of Tremaine, turn so much on subjects of great moral importance and utility, that they will bring against De Vere the same objections of gravity, sobriety, wisdom, and philosophy, with which they assailed his predecessor, and perhaps to a certain extent, not without the same effect.

The great popularity of Tremaine, to which we are happy to remember that we were among the first to contribute, demonstrates, however, pretty clearly, that there is also an order of minds, including too the most refined and intelligent of the amiable part of the creation, who will look upon this picture, as they did upon that, in the light of a most precious legacy, from an artist of the very highest order. They will recognise in it the same opulent and varied genius, beaming upon every subject it touches with that fine, mellow, autumnal beauty of splendour, which so much endears to the imagination some of the landscapes of Claude and Rembrandt. Experience of life, not only in its higher and more brilliant colours, but also in its massive, and all its most touching shades, speaks to us throughout this work in the earnest tone of a friend, who is truly solicitous for our happiness; and speaks in a tone often so persuasive, always so graceful, so gentlemanly, and so engaging, that we unaffectedly pity the heart which it cannot penetrate, and lament the corruption which it cannot reform. With this high purpose dignifying his labours, and exalting his talents far above the fame of the mere novelist, the author of De Vere combines much of that witchery of romance, which sheds so fascinating a spell around minds even of the most uncultivated order, but is peculiarly becoming and attractive, when we see it operating, unchecked and unreproved, upon a bright and pure intellect, polished by the most refined education, and resting on a heart so admirably attuned to all the kindly sensibilities of our nature, that nothing connected with the amelioration and felicity of his species, is indifferent to his feelings.

Next to the conscious integrity, the unsullied virtue, which would appear to mark his life, it is impossible not to admire the motives which seem to have prompted such a writer to enter the arena of authorship. The leisure which he might have devoted to the pursuits of ambition, or to the gay occupations of pleasure, he has more beneficently, and we trust more wisely, dedicated to the service of his fellow men. He has chosen the best of all channels for diffusing his precepts, and for rendering them permanently

impressive. He saw that, from whatever reason, the age is a reading, and particularly a novel-reading age; and he took advantage of that fixed propensity for administering his moral medicine in a shape in which, of all others, when properly managed, it is the most acceptable and effective.

In the work before us, he has fortunately avoided the palpable error of Tremaine. There he dealt out his precepts in too didactic and elaborate a form: an entire volume contained little more than a dissertation upon theological and ethical questions of the gravest importance. But here the Christian philosopher, and we may add the statesman and the patriot, appear through his characters, often in action, sometimes in conversations, now and then in reflections; he seldom fails to apply his incidents to the great purpose which he has in view, but he does so with a great deal less of that formality, not to say ostentation, which was the reigning fault in Tremaine. Some may think that even yet he has something to correct, and a little more tact to acquire, in the blending of the utile with the dulci. But those who have the invaluable felicity of being endowed even with the slightest warmth of a religious temperament, instead of seeing any thing to blame, in his present mixed mode of conducting his subject, will on the contrary consider it, as we certainly do, the crowning character of the work. What is more natural, what more becoming, what is there in this world more soothing to the soul, than after being enraptured with a beauteous landscape, to lift the eye to HIM who has spread the valley at our feet, and given us sensibilities to be delighted with the charms in which HE has mantled it!

But this, though the highest, is far from being the only attraction of De Vere. The story, though interrupted often, and sometimes provokingly so, is upon the whole well and most gracefully told. The commencement, the progress, and the winding up of that part of it, which all classes of readers will conspire in thinking the most interesting-that which relates to the loves of the hero and the heroine is narrated with a delicacy of expression, and conducted throughout with a degree of elegance and of reserve, which we think quite unrivalled. The Lady Constance Mowbray, an heiress of the highest rank and expectations, surrounded by all the glitter and pride of fashionable life, yet appears before us, not indeed a perfect being, but superior to all the splendour by which she is encircled, a child of meekness, simplicity, sincerity, and goodness, who though attached to De Vere, from the beginning to the end of the work, never discloses her secret even to herself in any part of it. It is just such a story of affection as a father would write, wherein a pious and beloved daughter shone as the most conspicuous figure. The language of the eyes is marked, those conclusions are insinuated which a lover would draw from a series of nameless little attentions, and which, without teazing the reader with actual disappointment, preserve him for a

while in a state of gentle and not disagreeable suspense. We know of course, being tolerably practised in such things, how the whole matter is to end from the very commencement; but yet there is an uncertainty about it, which leads us on expectantly from chapter to chapter, and towards the end rises in interest to a degree almost painful to bear, until the happiness of the parties is established.

One of the principal arts of a novelist, and, we believe, one of his greatest difficulties, is, after bringing his hero and heroine to a tolerably good secret understanding in the beginning, to prevent them from marrying until he finds it convenient to approach the conclusion of his third, fourth, or fifth volume, as the case may happen to be. There must always be a stumbling block in the way; a father or mother adverse to the match, political differences between the families destined to be united, or such an inequality of fortune on one side, as would render the junction unadvisable on the other. Any of these recipes will do very well for stopping a match during such time as the author may require, but in the present instance we have them all combined.

The father of Constance, Lord Mowbray, is described as a nobleman, pre-eminently aristocratic, who, having been dedicated to office by his father, had made political ambition his idol, and had already attained to a seat in the cabinet, being placed at the head of an extensive and important department. He was a man of no abilities, and a mere slave of the king and premier. Need it be added, that he was a Tory of the first water? His sister, the Lady Eleanor De Vere, was rather Whiggishly inclined. She is presented to us as a noble gentlewoman, who, though little smiled upon by fortune, was intrenched in respectability of every kind.' She had early lost her husband, General De Vere, in battle, and was left with two sons, the younger of whom, Mortimer (the elder having very seasonably departed this life), is to be our hero, having for his sole fortune a small estate, scarcely sufficient to educate and support him.

Shall we own it ?-this same Mortimer, though Whiggish too, is not at all a favourite of ours. We could not for the life of us shake hands with him. He is a haughty, stiff, impracticable sort of a country gentleman, constantly talking of his independence, and veiling himself within the mysteries of an exaggerated pride. He may have been an Adonis in person for aught we know, but we are half angry with the author for giving such a person to the angelic Constance. But it is time we should introduce the lady.

It was at the ball of the Litchfield races that De Vere's heart was doomed to meet its virgin encounter; and he was not the less excited, or the less pleased, from the circumstance that his admiration was kindled by an object, at the moment when he saw her, perfectly unknown to him. "He had arrived too late for the first day's sport, or indeed to dine with his uncle, Lord Mowbray, as was expected. He dressed therefore at his inn, sending a compliment to his uncle, whom he said he would join in

the ball-room. To this he repaired, as dancing had begun; and as Lord Mowbray did not appear, and he was known to no one, he gave his eyes and ears to the dancers in pure lack of employment.'-vol. i, pp. 207, 208. After gazing on the dancers for some time, he

longed more than ever for the arrival of his uncle's party, when he beheld a young lady led up to the top of the dance, on whom he found his eye could not look without instant emotion. The most perfect form he had ever beheld, set off by the most graceful manner he had ever admired, challenged his curiosity, and gratified all his sentiment. Had she been plain, this would have been the instant effect upon one of De Vere's particular taste, which sought for its pleasure more in elegance of shape and address than even in beauty itself. But her face and features were illumined with a meaning of such powerful expression; there were in them such sense and softness united, that a man of sense could not fail to admire, a man of feeling, to love.

'Her complexion might be said to be naturally pale, but of such dazzling fineness, that you hardly wished for colour, till it came. Then, indeed, the animation which it caused, and the intelligence which flashed from a dark and languishing eye, gave her a loveliness of expression, such as we may suppose to belong to the angels. Luckily, the least exercise, and even the play of her mind in conversation, always called up this beautiful colour.

'De Vere was upon his legs in a moment. He had no eyes, but for this lovely vision for such it seemed. He could not even ask her name, so much was he fixed; for, from being all eye, he could find no tongue. When she began to move, his peculiar taste was peculiarly pleased; for never were grace and dignity so exemplified. Perhaps, she might have been thought too serious in her dancing by those who did not, like De Vere, mark the elasticity of her foot, and a something, as the strain of the music changed, which amounted almost to playfulness.

Those who may have seen the dancing of the Ladies L―, in their girlhood, or of Lady Eleanor F, can alone have an idea of it, by supposing the beautiful style of each united. It is this perfection of cheerfulness and grace conjoined, which our critical neighbours over the water have, with a happiness of language, described under the phrase of "le beau tranquille."

'De Vere followed her from the top of the dance to the bottom, and from the bottom to the top, and was pleased to observe the respect which, when modest retenue is joined with grace, attends upon it almost as by a natural law. The rural thanes and their families opened every where to give her place, all apparently actuated with the same admiration as De Vere. It seemed, indeed, as she floated through the mazes of the figure, that all were content to acknowledge her superiority, and gazed upon her as if she had been

his

"A fairy vision

Of some gay creature of the element,

That i' the colours of the rainbow lives,

And plays i' the plighted clouds."

'We may suppose how this told upon the senses of De Vere ; nor were eyes charmed more than his mind, on observing the easy, yet correct

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