eighteen or twenty snipes or woodcocks lying within a space of twelve yards square, two or three dogs pointing in the midst of them, and the birds rising one by one, the shot rattling over them, till ten or twelve are on the ground before there is time to bag one. Neither do we see in this country the long sweeping woodlands, the impervious brake, the thick-set giant timber, above all, the untamed freshness of the scenery of the New World. But here, as in the States, the sportsman's pursuits ever carry him into the loveliest scenery, lead him to the full enjoyment of healthy and inspiriting exercise, and force upon him the out-of-door wisdom of the attributes and instincts of animated nature-enough, as Mr. Herbert justly remarks, with the pure and tranquil thoughts engendered by such pursuits, to plead a trumpet-tongued apology for all the uselessness and cruelty, so frequently, and we may add, so unjustly alleged against sports of the field. LADY ALICE; OR, THE NEW UNA.* A THOROUGH-PACED, well-written story, in advocacy of the Church of Rome, is a novelty, and attests the purpose which the author argues ought to be sought for by every work of imagination, but which he, at the same time, avers ought not to be exposed at the onset. The love-story to which "this thing, professing to be a novel," gives prominence, is connected with the fortunes of Frederick Clifford, whose baronial power dates from the Conquest, and who, more than that, "unites two qualifications not generally found in his shop-keeping and heretical country-an incontaminate faith and an immaculate pedigree;" and those of the Lady Alice Stuart, daughter of the Duke of Lennox, descendant of Robert III., King of Scotland-a Stuart in every sense, except dereliction from the faith of her ancestors. The parties are first brought together in the small episcopal city of Cava, situate on the Sorrentine peninsula, so famous in story. The acquaintanceship is renewed at Milan, at the house of a mediatised prince of the Holy Roman Empire. At a banquet given to the Duke and Duchess of Lennox by the Prince of Santisola on the eve of their departure, the Lady Alice gives a formal and decisive congé to the Marquis of Wessex, to whom she has been affianced since her childhood, and that for the sake of Frederick Clifford, with whom she holds a clandestine meeting in the duomo, where she for the first time partakes of holy-water from the tip of her lover's fingers. Already, before "love" had come to lend its aid to a wavering impulse, Alice had felt a passionate enthusiasm for the majesty of worship in the Roman Church, and "the many means of grace, the practices of piety, the devout and edifying usages which abound in the Roman Church," had taken a deep hold on a heart essentially religious and steadily practical, amid all her apparent poetical enthusiasm. The Lady Alice crosses the Simplon in her noble father's suite, in a carriage with silken linings, an inlaid floor, the rose-coloured blinds drawn down, and richly-bound volumes ("Consuelo ") reposing on a table of ivory and mother-of-pearl, which played in rods of silver. Ex uno disce omnes. From this alone the Sybaritic character of the work may be discerned. What was the volume of nature opened to the God-like in the Simplon, to the volume of sensual doctrine that can win a proselyte? Lady Alice; or, the New Una, A Novel in 3 vols. Henry Colburn. May.-VOL. LXXXVI. No. CCCXLI. L "Lady Alice" has been announced as a début; if so, it is a very remarkable one, for talent of a high order teems in every page; but the bold and openly expressed aspirations of the hero Clifford, on the grounds of his incontaminate faith and immaculate pedigree, to the hand of the then virgin queen of these realms, added to the other presumptive proofs derived from the work itself, would lead to strong presumptions at least of assistance having been derived from sources not always particular as to the means employed, so long as a given end can be attained. MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES. No person interested in the progress of Egyptian literature should be without a copy of Mr. George R. Gliddon's Otia Egyptiaca; or, Discourses on Egyptian Archæology and Hieroglyphical Discoveries. These discourses constitute in reality the text-book to a more extensive course of lectures which the author has given upon the subject of Egyptian Archæology in the United States-lectures which were attended by thousands of hearers, and which, it is to be hoped, Mr. Gliddon will be induced to publish in extenso. The present sketch of subjectmatter has been published by Mr. Madden from Mr. Burke's excellent journal of "Ethnology," and it contains more valuable information in a few pages than many volumes put together that have lately issued from the press with taking titles, or prospectuses gorgeous in their promises, but beneath the notice of the learned in their fulfilment. While upon the subject of Egyptian literature, which is making such great strides now-a-days, and to which Dr. Lepsius's discoveries are likely to give a still greater impulse, we may mention that Mr. Moxon has lately published a very cheap and useful manual for the student, being The Chronology and Geography of Ancient Egypt, illustrated by Plates of the King's names, and Maps of the Country, by Samuel Sharpe.-In connexion with the East, we have also before us A Diary in the Dardanelles, written on board the schooner "Corsair," while beating through the Straits, from Tenedos to Marmora, by William Knight, Esq., Rear-Commodore of the Royal Harwich Yacht Club; a work full of sparkling narrative, amusing anecdote, graphic description, and, at the same time, much curious and interesting information upon a pass which has never yet been made the subject of a special description. A sketch, entitled The Pirates of the Archipelago, is also added by the author, reprinted from this magazine, chiefly with the view to show that there is still a stern necessity to maintain an active naval force in the Levant for the protection of our commerce.-The Annual Miscellany for 1848, containing a Review of the Year, an Obituary, &c., &c., published by Messrs. Saunders and Otley, will, it is to be hoped, be improved as it goes on. As it stands at present, too great a prominence is given to matters of no general interest; and that which is so, is treated of in a most superficial and unsatisfactory manner.-The Rock of Rome; or, The Arch-Heresy, by James Sheridan Knowles, published by Newby, will be extensively read, if only from the fame of its author. But the work merits perusal on other grounds. It is a bold, fearless, uncompromising attack upon a Church which is working its way insidiously, but effectively, in this land of Protestantism, and which, nevertheless, can ill afford to bear such hard blows as are here dealt to its unchristian-like claim to supremacy.-Mr. Olinthus Gregory Downes has rendered a service to general knowledge by his translation of Mr. Quetelet's celebrated letters On the Theory of Probabilities, as applied to the Moral and Political Sciences. These researches have been made known through various cheap publications in a superficial manner, but the more careful reader will be glad to have the whole theory now set before him in a tangible shape.-That Mr. Anderson's Practical Mercantile Correspondence, a Collection of Modern Letters of Business, &c., &c., published by Effingham Wilson, should have reached a fourth edition, fully attests its value to the more youthful in the community, to which the work especially addresses itself. Ince's Outlines of General Knowledge, of English History, and of French History, in little shilling volumes, have been forwarded to us by Mr. James Gilbert, and appear to be really well adapted for the purposes intended-the education of youth. The provincial press appears to be not behind the metropolitan in its sense of the humorous. We have received several numbers of a very diverting weekly publication, somewhat upon the plan of Punch, and bearing the felicitous title of Jones. We are very happy to make Mr. Jones's acquaintance, and think him an uncommonly pleasant fellow. A MESMERIC SOIRÉE. BY CHARLES HERVEY, Esq. PROSPECTS OF the LegitimISTS IN FRANCE LITERATURE.-The Lottery of Marriage. By Mrs. Trollope.- Maxims of Sir Morgan O'Doherty, Bart.-Crichton. By William Harrison Ainsworth, Esq. Third Edition.-Seven Tales by Seven Authors. Edited by the Author of "Frank Fairlegh."-Rizzio; or Scenes in Europe during the Sixteenth Century. By the late Mr. Ireland. The Dean of York's "New System of Geology."-Mabel Carrington.-The Pro- Now ready, complete in One Vol. Medium 8vo, bound in cloth, price 16s. CRICHTON. An Historical Romance. BY W. HARRISON AINSWORTH, ESQ. WITH EIGHTEEN MAGNIFICENT ILLUSTRATIONS IN STEEL. BY HABLOT K. BROWNE. "This exciting romance is now bound up in one splendid volume-typographically and pictorially splendid. The author places the Admirable Crichton' in the most favourable and most interesting points of view, and paints him a demi-god of knightly times. He is thrown into Paris amongst the students at the time of the League, and is the prominent actor at the period of the intrigues of Catherine de Medicis, and the gallant struggles for supremacy of the great Bearnais, afterwards Henri Quartre. The stirring events of this most attractive period of French history are described with graphic grandeur by Mr. Ainsworth; and the romance before us reads like a continuous chronicle, penned by one acquainted with the language and the law of the Middle Ages as a Brantome or a Holinshed. Mr. Ains worth's enthusiasm for the things of those days makes him write with the correctness of a contemporary and the intensity of an actor, vaunting quorum pars magna fui. The Admirable Crichton is the observed of all observers' in a most admirable historical romance."-Observer, May 27. CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STRAND. MR. AINSWORTH'S NEW ROMANCE. THE SECOND EDITION OF THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES. A Romance of Pendle Forest. BY W. HARRISON AINSWORTH, ESQ. HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. NOTICE. In the article on the Falkland Islands, by Captain Sulivan, which appeared in the May number of the New Monthly, the name of the gentleman who purchased the land on the southern peninsula was erroneously printed Lafarce, instead of LAFONE. NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. GORE HOUSE. BY AN AMERICAN TRAVELLER. AMONGST the many things to fix the attention of an inhabitant of the United States of America when he travels in Europe, there is, perhaps, nothing which strikes him more than the decay or break-up of old institutions, political or social, moral or material. We are so much accustomed to progress in the New World, that almost the only change we look for is that caused by a wider expansion of views, a continual enlargement of means. Our course is so directly onward, that we never pause to think of those who fall behind in the race; or if we occasionally witness the ruin of an ample fortune, we ascribe it, in all probability, to the right cause-an incautious speculation; consoling the sufferer, if we offer consolation at all, with the assurance that in a new country there is always plenty of opportunity for a man to begin again. The displacement even of the Indian tribes, one of the few facts that speak of the history of the past in America, goes for nothing in our account; the scanty mementoes which they have left exciting our sympathy in an infinitely smaller degree than the void which they have made for new enterprise affects our desire for advancement. We are But on this side of the Atlantic the case is quite different. spectators of the play, not actors in it. We come here to observe upon men and manners-to examine with an equal eye both the past and the present, reserving the future for ourselves in our own land, in the hope of creating that which one day may become a glorious past. It has personally been my fortune, during previous visits to Europe, to witness some remarkable mutations. I shall say nothing of political occurrences or altered opinions, as I have no desire at this moment to enter upon a grave disquisition on such subjects. I prefer rather to speak of changes that have interested me more nearly than the general events which belong to history. I will not, therefore, like King Richard, Make dust my paper, and with rainy eyes but tell what I have to say in a less uncheerful spirit. When last I was in England, the subject which chiefly engrossed conversation, as a question of society, was the great sale at Strawberry Hill; the dispersion of the countless objects of art and virtù which the taste and antiquarian zeal of Horace Walpole had for half a century been occupied in collecting. Like many more of my countrymen, I wandered through the pasteboard Gothic galleries of the reviver of mediaval art, criticising the man while I admired the result of his exertions; but June.-VOL. LXXXVI. NO. CCCXLII. M |