Educated families, if more refined than they were, are also more reserved; hospitality now prefers selection to generosity; and indiscriminate access is abolished with the democratic principles which had awakened the claim. The different classes of society and of character intermingle less: rank has extended its intrenchments: if there has been a loss of ease and cordiality, there is no doubt some gain of precision and propriety; and, if taste was inspiring a more attractive, religious feeling is teaching a severer, virtue. Order has its grace, and decorum it's beauty, though purchased with something of formality and something of coldness. In consequence of these changes, the traits of individuality in the higher classes are become less marked and prominent; and few now ridicule the vulgarity of an acquaintance, because few have an acquaintance who is vulgar. Delineations of character, which would formerly have appeared near enough to reality for the upper apartments of genteel comedy, would at present be banished into the basement-story of farce; and the novelist, like the dramatist, in order to be quite fashionable, must invite his company out of visitable houses. We have occasionally been fearful, while perusing this truly varied, original, and interesting novel, that some of the vulgar personages, such as young farmer Gooch, or Miss Pierson, (in the third volume,) appear before us too long, or too repeatedly, or in circumstances too critical, for fastidious readers. Without the recent opportunity of observing what constitutes the genteel in metropolitan circles, or in those higher families which waft into the provinces the aromatic odour of the great world, it is not easy to catch and to collect that nameless perfume which scents a book for the hand of fashion. It is not enough that pictures of the past are executed with vital fidelity; they must be regarded with the eye of the present; and a tone of criticism or commentary must be insinuated, such as vibrates in the atmosphere of to-day. The Wanderer is supposed to seek an asylum in this country during the ascendancy of Robespierre: but she finds society here more on the footing of its march ten years before than ten years after that period. The fable or plot is, however, on the whole, well imagined. It opens, like an epopea, in the midst of things. A boat, which is flying with a crew of intimidated refugees from the coast of France, naturally and probably assembles the principal personages of the story. The heroine is absolutely anonymous; she has reasons for concealing her real name, and is too scrupulous to assume a false one: after her landing, a letter reaches her directed to, L. S. and this occasions her being called Miss Ellis. Her mysteriousness excites among the female passengers doubts doubts of her conduct: she loses her purse; and she feels herself penniless in places new to her," and dependent for her immediate wants on a charity which the women from suspicion do not volunteer, and which, if accepted from the men, would seem to authorize proposals of libertinism. Notwithstanding her endless embarrassments, difficulties, and mortifications, so many amiable qualities and so many high accomplishments are continally unfolding, that she is insensibly surrounded by much rank and fashion; and, while teaching music for a maintenance, or subsisting in the more obsequious station of a companion, she is still making conquests both of friendship and of love among the noblest of the noble. One of the gentlemen in the boat was a Mr. Harleigh, who had been to the south of France to escort home Miss Elinor Joddrell, a young lady of fortune sent thither for her health, to whom his brother is betrothed. Miss Joddrell has studied in the school of the rights of women; and, having conceived a higher idea of the Mr. Harleigh with whom she is travelling, than of the Mr. Dennis Harleigh to whom she is engaged, she declares her passion to the elder, and dismisses the younger brother. Unhappily, but not unusually, her forward affection is coldly returned; and she has the mortification to discover a rival in the obscure and mysterious Miss Ellis. Furious with disappointment, Elinor goes to a concert in which Miss Ellis was appointed to sing in the presence of Harleigh, and there stabs herself with a poignard. The wound, however, is not mortal but the insane fit returns; and a similar attempt is. renewed in a church, to which she had contrived to summon the two objects of her jealousy and love. This second abortive suicide, which Harleigh comes prepared to prevent, appears to us better contrived than the preceding: the circumstances are more likely, and the surrounding scenery is more in unison; and, as the repetition of so violent an incident too much interrupts the tone of a narrative which is frequently comic, we should have preferred the entire omission of the bloodshed at the concert. By degrees, the history of the heroine unfolds; and we learn that she is the daughter, by a private marriage, of the eldest son of a British peer. It was necessary to conceal the marriage during the father's life; and the death of the wife rendered the avowal of it avoidable, on the attainment of the title. Juliet, the name of our heroine, had been placed for education in a French nunnery. While she was there, her father died; and, though the executors discovered traces of his first marriage, they were not anxious to bring the progeny to light on the contrary, they offered a compromise of six thousand pounds to be paid on Juliet's marriage with a foreigner, if all farther claims on the estate were renounced. Nunneries being afterward suppressed in France, Juliet found an asylum in the house of a bishop, who prepared to send over to England the vouchers of her legitimate and noble descent. Robespierre, however, having acquired ascendency, a Commissary of the National Convention was sent to extort money from this venerable ecclesiastic; and the bishop being thrown into prison, his papers were examined. The Commissary having discovered that, by a marriage with Juliet, he might obtain six thousand pounds, he instantly ordered out the guillotine for the priest, and made the safety of the old man to depend on Juliet's acceptance of his hand. She determined to save her benefactor, and went through a civic marriage with the Commissary. The released bishop then advised and assisted her immediate flight to England; which constitutes the opening of the story. In proportion as these circumstances are evolved and authenticated, the prospects of our heroine seem to brighten. She forms, in her unknown character, an affectionate intimacy with Lady Aurora Granville, her half-sister; and from Lord Melbury (her brother), and from Sir Jaspar Herrington, she receives flattering attentions. On a sudden, however, she is seized at an inn by a foreign ruffian, who orders her to accompany him to France, and who appears to be the Commissary her husband. The distress now rises to the highest: but, as the Commissary chooses to apply before his departure for the six thousand pounds, and as this circumstance brings on all the requisite explanations, he is led to renounce his wife, and returns home, where he is guillotined. At last, Juliet accepts the hand of Harleigh. Among the more admirably drawn episodical characters of this agreeably intricate and busy novel, may especially be noticed Sir Jaspar Herrington and Mrs. Ireton; the former a most benevolent and the latter a most malevolent personage. In the arts of ingeniously serving, and ingeniously tormenting, each is respectively a proficient: while both display in their conversation the resources of wit and genius. The ground is perhaps too much crowded with figures in low life, and we may discern something of repetition in their forms of display but the author has imparted to her characters a strict consistency, a dramatic distinctness, an ample variety, an appropriate talk, and a living naturalness, (if we may make such a word,) that give them all a hold on the memory and on the sympathy. Something of exaggeration is to be forgiven, nay required, in every painter of manners: that which is beautiful must approach nearer to the ideal, and that which is comic must approach nearer to caricature, than reality would strictly warrant. The traits which memory would select are those which the artist has alone to pourtray. From a work in many respects so classical, yet more adapted, we suspect, for permanence than for immediate popularity, it is proper to make some extract. We will select that which we consider as the critical and most tragic moment of the piece, the appearance of the Commissary to claim Juliet as his wife: Harleigh would have remonstrated against this rude detention ; but he had no sooner begun speaking, than Juliet, finding that she could not advance, retreated; and had just put her hand upon the lock of a door, higher up in the gallery; when another man, dressed with disgusting negligence, and of an hideous countenance, yet wearing an air of ferocious authority; advancing by large strides, roughly seized her arm, with one hand, while, with the other, he rudely lifted up her bonnet, to examine her face. ""C'est bien !" he cried, with a look of exultation, that gave to his horrible features an air of infernal joy; "viens, citoyenne, viens ; suis moi."" Harleigh, who, when the bonnet was raised, saw, what as yet he had feared to surmize,—that it was Juliet; sprang forward, exclaiming, "Daring ruffian! quit your hold!" Ose tu nier mes droits?" cried the man, addressing Juliet; whose arm he still griped; -"Dis! -parles! — l'ose tu?" + Juliet was mute; but Harleigh saw that she was sinking, and bent towards her to save her fall; what, then, was his astonishment to perceive that it was voluntary! and that she cast herself at the feet of her assailant ! Thunderstruck, he held back. The man, with an expression of diabolical delight at this posture, cast his eyes now upon her, now upon her appalled defendant; and then, in French, gave orders to the pilot to see four fresh horses put to the chaise: and, in a tone of somewhat abated rage, bid (bade) Juliet arise, and accompany him down stairs. “Ah, no!—ah, spare-ah, leave me yet!" in broken accents, and in French, cried the still prostrate Juliet. The man, who was large made, tall, and strong, seized, then, both her arms, with a motion that indicated his intention to drag her along. A piercing shriek forced its way from her at his touch: but she arose, and made no appeal, no remonstrance, "Si tu peus te conduire toute seule," said the man, sneeringly, "soit! Mais vas en avant! Je ne te perdrai plus de vu.” ‡ • Juliet again hid her face, but stood still. *"'Tis well! come, citizen, come along! follow me."" thou?" "If you can walk alone, well and good; but go on first. I shall lose sight of you no more.” ' <«The The man roughly gave her a push; seeming to enjoy, with a coarse laugh, the pleasure of driving her on before him. Harleigh, who saw that her face was convulsed with horrour, fiercely planted himself in the midst of the passage, vehemently exclaiming, "Infernal monster! by what right do you act?" "De quel droit me le demandez vous ?" cried the man; who appeared perfectly to understand English. "By the rights of humanity!" replied Harleigh; "and you shall answer me by the rights of justice! One claim alone can annul my interference. Are you her father?"" "Non!" he answered, with a laugh of scorn; d'autres droits !” † "mais il y a "There are none !" cried Harleigh, " to which you can pretend; none!" ""Comment cela? n'est-ce pas ma femme? Ne suis-je pas son mari?" "No!" cried Harleigh, "no !" with the fury of a man seized with sudden delirium; " I deny it! - 'tis false and neither you nor all the fiends of hell shall make me believe it !" Juliet again fell prostrate; but, though her form turned towards her assailant, her eyes, and supplicating hands, that begged forbearance, were lifted up, in speechless agony, to Harleigh. Repressed by this look and action, though only to be overpowered by the blackest surmizes, Harleigh again stood suspended. Finding the people of the inn were now filling the stair-case, to see what was the matter, the foreigner, in tolerable English, told them all to be gone, for he was only recovering an eloped wife. Then, addressing Juliet, " If you dare assert," he said, "that you are not my wife, your perjury may cost you dear! If you have not that hardiness, hold your tongue and welcome. Who else will dare dispute my claims ?""" "I will!" cried Harleigh, furiously. "Walk this way, Sir, and give me an account of yourself! I will defend that lady from your inhuman grasp, to the last drop of my blood!" "Ah, no! ah, no!" Juliet now faintly uttered; but the man, interrupting her, said, "Dare you assert, I demand, that you are not my wife? Speak! Dare you?" Again she bowed down her face upon her hands, -her face that seemed bloodless with despair; but she was mute. "I put you to the test;" continued the man, striding to the end of the gallery, and opening the last door: "Go into that chamber!" She shrieked aloud with agony uncontrollable; and Harleigh, with an emotion irrepressible, cast his arms around her, exclaiming, "Place yourself under my protection! and no violence, no power upon earth shall tear you away!" By what right do you enquire ?" ""How so? Is she not my wife? Am I not her husband?" REV. APRIL, 1815. E e • At |