marriageable material in the Excise and Customs, and about the Royal Exchange. People occupied there must be in town during a great part of the autumnal season. I have procured two sons-in-law already, who came hither a courting, with their legs pendent from the top of the Tallyho Paddington coach. On their descent, they had only to cross Fitzroy-square, and here they were. You may rely upon it, Sir, the true way of attaching society is to give people dinners when nobody else will."" I highly approve of your plan, Madam," answered I, rising to take my leave. "I will recommend its adoption to Alderman Hungerford, now on his travels in Greece in quest of Liberty and the picturesque. He has seven marriageable daughters. Our young countrymen are flocking to Athens in shoals-a dinner party in the Acropolis will infallibly do the business."

THE TOR HILL.

THIS novel is, as we anticipated, superior to Brambletye House; not in the absence of positive faults, but in the exhibition of higher beauties. Both works have imperfections, which are manifest on the most cursory perusal; but both are redeemed by felicitous traits of character, gleams of feeling and humour, and abundant brilliancy of description. In the work before us, as in its predecessor, there are occasional failures, arising from a desire to produce violent effects; but the interest is more condensed and sustained; the incidents are thrown into greater masses; and there is a unity of design and general consistency of execution, which, in the earlier romance, were wanting. Brambletye House was too much a succession of scenes-always animated indeed, and always fascinating; but somewhat too slenderly connected with each other; so that, although peculiarly amusing in perusal, the work did not leave behind an impression of power nearly equal to that actually exerted. In "The Tor Hill," our author has done himself more justice; he has reduced the number of his figures, to render them more distinct and palpable; and has completed a picture of more definite outline, and more solemn and decided colouring.

The period of history, into the heart of which we are introduced, is rich in the materials of romance. It is a portion of the reign of Henry the Eighth, commencing a little before the Reformation, and extending beyond that great event, by which the slumbering intellect of England was roused into action. The momentous changes of the political world at the time are not, indeed, presented in the foreground; the immediate objects of our interest are of a personal and domestic cast; but we hear the roar in the distance, and catch an occasional glimpse of the struggling passions and terrific actions of the public sphere through the vista of individual fortunes. One splendid picture we have of the more than kingly state of Wolsey; and some vivid glances at his atrocious master; but the energy of the Cardinal is rather shown in its results than its circumstances, and the crimes of the sovereign are touched only with indignant brevity. In

"The Tor Hill. By the Author of 'Brambletye House,' Gaieties and Gravities,' &c." 3 vols.

the picture, however, to which we allude, we see before us, moving about with all the distinctness of reality, the magnificent cardinal himself; the luxurious monarch; Anna Boleyn in the young pride of her loveliness; and the melancholy and ill-used queen, Catherine of Arragon. Had we been existing at the time, and present on the spot, we could hardly have witnessed the manoeuvres of these famous individuals more completely than we have been enabled to do by the necromancy of the novelist, who has evoked their departed figures, and commanded them to stay till we have gazed our fill, and to act over again the scenes which have been buried under the weight of three hundred years! There is Henry gloating at the fresh court-beauty, who, little thinking she was about to marry her murderer, is bridling and exulting under his amorous glances; while the poor faded queen, by engaging her rival at a game of cards, is contriving to expose to the notice of the king one or two trifling blemishes in her person.

The foreground of the novel is occupied by two objects, each noble in its kind, and both, with strict adherence to local truth, brought into a single scene:-the proud Castle of the Tor, cresting the dark and lofty eminence, and bespeaking the iron power and reckless disposition of its master; and the glorious Abbey of Glastonbury, fairest image of mild ecclesiastical grandeur, with its rich and lovely domains, soon to be laid waste by the arm of the spoiler. Here is a fine opportunity for a contrasted picture, of which the author has generally made full use; though he is evidently more at home in the valley than on the mountain. His scenes in the castle are well conceived, and adorned with the results of much antiquarian study; but there is an effort apparent in the execution; while the author luxuriates, with evident delight, among the gentle pastures of the abbey; breathes a tender atmosphere of sentiment over its venerable towers; and makes us listen, subdued with him, to the divine harmonies which echo through its aisles.

To detail the plot of a novel, which will shortly be in every body's hands, is one of the worst abuses of the critical function; for the abstract itself is necessarily dry, and yet it spoils the original for the reader. We shall, therefore, avoid the dull anticipation of a pleasing reality, and devote the little room we have to spare to a few remarks on the chief characters by whom the action of the work is sustained, and the leading peculiarities of thought and feeling which it developes.

The first personage introduced to our notice is Sir Giles Hungerford, Governor of one of the gates of Calais-a spirited sketch of a stout-hearted and most obstinate knight-who is mortally wounded in the cheek by an arrow while leading a band of marauders into the French frontier to avenge the fate of a number of their associates who had been surrounded and cut to pieces. There is a painful vividness in the description of the alternate butcheries, which we attribute to a shrinking dislike of warfare, inducing the author to slight its "pride, pomp, and circumstance," and to dwell on its physical and unalleviated horrors. Hence the scene changes to Somersetshire, where Dudley, the nephew of Sir Giles, seeks the Tor House, his uncle's mansion, to fulfil the dying wishes of his late protector. Here, after a romantic journey, and some marvellous adventures among the Mendip Hills, we become guests at the alehouse of Sib Fawcett, "The Tables," in the good city of

Wells; find ourselves seated among the jovial groups; make acquaintance with a capital friar; and quaff ale of centuries ago with a true relish. Soon the great scene opens; and we visit, by turns, the King of the Hills, Sir Lionel Fitzmaurice, and the blameless Abbot, called "The King of the Valley." Sir Lionel is a kind of Sir Giles Overreach, of even darker dye; a crafty and terrible soldier, who has usurped the inheritance of Sir Giles Hungerford's son, and attempted to confirm his title by scaring the sensitive youth into madness-an adept in craft and half a magician-scoffing at all that is holy, and suspected of an alliance with the powers of darkness. Opposed to him, in strong relief, is his victim; a youth of the finest sensibilities and tastes, who shuns military prowess, and, being violently kept from human society, wastes the kindness of his heart on inanimate nature; and who, in the issue, is ready to suffer martyrdom for the Protestant faith, which he has eagerly embraced. Each of these persons is picturesque of his kind, but neither is sufficiently real. Sir Lionel is too melodramatic, from his first introduction on his terrace directing the lightning with his rod, through all his shocking exploits, to excite much emotion. Cecil Hungerford, again, is too effeminate and too conscious; his own theories of humanity, mingled with self-congratulation that he is "crazy Cecil," are fantastical, though eloquent; and his expression of joy on hearing of his father's death, because he has a general notion that the dead are happiest, is not in keeping or in nature. The machinery, too, by which his inhuman guardian seeks to destroy his wits, scaring him with phantoms, and subjecting him to gratuitous cruelties, is altogether revolting. One's mind turns from such a spectacle of oppression exercised on weakness, and seeks relief from the atrocity of the circumstances in their want of truth. Far more pathetic is the character of Lady Fitzmaurice, a notable housewife, taking pleasure in the minutest economies of her household, but devotedly attached to her estranged and insulting husband-waiting on him with love, which nothing can weary, in the fond hope of saving him from destruction; and, at last, sacrificing reputation, and even conscience, to avert his fate.

The guitar scene, in which this amiable creature acts the principal part, strikes us as being as fine as any thing we recollect in prose fiction. Shakspeare himself might have read it with emotion: there is a combination in it of simplicity, pathos, and even of something ludicrous (for these qualities do not unfrequently lend strength to each other, even in real life,) which altogether are irresistible, and which sink deep into the heart, there to remain like an undying portion of its very experience. Sir Lionel's daughter Beatrice is a grand and commanding beauty, somewhat repulsive at first, but softening as the tale proceeds; and drawn throughout with great vigour. There is also a fine graphic picture of a family governed after the old-fashioned model of regularity and severity -made out with almost the apparent truth of Crabbe's poetry. But the most pleasing scenes, after all, are those in the domains of the Abbey, in which the feelings of antiquity, and of the bounteous exuberance of nature, are so felicitously blended.

Although the author of this novel possesses considerable dramatic power, it is easy to trace in this work the peculiar tastes and sentiments which he cherishes. It is obvious that he has little admiration for that which is usually considered as heroic; and an almost Quaker

like love of the peaceful and lowly virtues. Hence, he seldom sustains a martial tone for any duration; and hardly invests his soldiers with the noble qualities which an habitual disregard of danger and pain is calculated to engender. Nor does he excel in depicting any species of excellence which may be termed manly; but delights to dwell on meekness, patience, and long-suffering; to show the placid triumphs of resignation and constancy; and to make us feel (if we may so speak) all the mighty strength of weakness. His chief fault (a glorious fault) is, to hold women not only in highest, but almost in exclusive honour. His regular heroes are only (to use a term of Mr. Wyndham's) " pretty rascals:" witness his Jocelyn, in Brambletye House, polluted with debauchery without the slightest reason; and his Dudley, in the work before us, a mere brave coxcomb, who actually conveys an infamous proposal from the King to the woman whom he loves. In these particulars, however, our novelist is kept in countenance by Fielding. In Cecil, the author has attempted to draw a perfectly amiable youth; but there is something too feminine in the delineation. This reverence for female excellence gives, on the other hand, a peculiar charm to all his women, who are as delicate, fervid, and true-hearted, as his lighter male characters are frivolous and worthless.

We ought not to omit to mention that prince of heartless rattlers, Sir John Dudley, whose love of court promotion and foreign dainties is exceeded by nothing but his passionate admiration of the excellencies of his own indivisible self, whom he affectionately calls "his friend Jack Dudley." This worthy becomes afterwards the Duke of Northumberland, father-in-law to the unfortunate girl, Lady Jane Grey; and his manoeuvring in that fatal plot, which first crowned and then beheaded its innocent victim, is only the final developement of the sordid and meanly ambitious character, of which the early manifestation is so cleverly unfolded by the present writer.

The picturesque power displayed in this novel, is almost always of a high order; and the style is generally idiomatic and elegant. Some of the passages put into the mouth of Cecil Hungerford, and the account of his progress when incited by religion and love, border on poetry, without any intermixture of bombast; and (not to mention the great amusement to be derived from the scenes and characters) the whole moral spirit of the work bespeaks a sympathy with all that is honourable and of good report, and with all generous aspirations for the advancement and happiness of mankind.

CHEAP CELEBRITY: BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THE LATE

ACKERSTONE BOWERSCOURT FIP.

THERE is not a remote village in the empire which has not, time immemorial, possessed an eighth wonder of the world, either in its curate or its apothecary. This fact is amply attested by any one of what may now be termed the old-fashioned Magazines. Together with the charade, the tale interminably "continued," the song "set by an eminent hand," the never-failing view of a country church, so scratchy and wiry that it sets one's teeth on edge to look at it; its arithmetical puzzles, queries from ignorant correspondents, and new patterns for ruffles; each succeeding month inflicted a contribution, by Nov. VOL. XVII. NO. LXXI.

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some Constant Reader, or Sincere Admirer, of "a Biographical Sketch of the late Rev.," or "A Life of the late ingenious Mr. (a favourite epithet in those days,) persons whose very existence was till then a profound secret to all that unfortunate portion of the world not immediately within hearing of those celebrated persons' parish bells. For a long series of years, so regular was the appearance of a monthly record of the extinction of some village prodigy, that at length it amounted to an absolute certainty; and, together with a solo on the oboe by Mr. Parke in every new overture, and an event of too solemn a nature to be more than alluded to in these pages, formed a triad of the only circumstances of which it could be positively predicated-"That must occur." Then was celebrity acquired upon very moderate terms; and a month's immortality in the columns of any one of the periodicals might be had for asking. Great geniuses were so abundant that they regularly died at the rate of twelve a year for each of the magazines; and it is not a little to the glory of that time, that each of these geniuses respectively was the greatest genius in Europe. The curate was the biographer of the apothecary, or the apothecary of the curate; and it is not to be wondered at, that the most eminent man of his village should be considered, by the little world around him, as the most eminent man in the universe; nor that they, in the simplicity of their hearts, should deem the history of his life and achievements worthy of being handed down to posterity. Let us substitute a city or a kingdom for the village, and transform our curate into a poet, a painter, or a general, and we shall find that the same error, upon a larger scale, is committed every day. But when we consider the present improved state of our periodical literature, and the exorbitant demands made by the public upon their purveyors of intellectual recreation, it cannot but be a motive of astonishment to us to remember that, for nearly the whole of the eighteenth century, that most enlightened of all possible centuries, there existed in the metropolis itself a numerous class of readers, who were content with such materials as those provided for them, and desired nothing better or more interesting than a memoir of some supereminently unknown-even for their "leading article!"

But however beneficial, in all essential respects, may be the vast improvement, which has been so rapidly accomplished, in both the matter and manner of the periodicals, it has, nevertheless, like most improvements, inflicted a serious injury upon a considerable number of considerable men: the "ingenious writers," "intelligent correspondents," and "amusing querists," who figured with great éclât in the magazines of twenty or thirty years ago. These it has degraded from their "high estate." It has dimmed the brightness of those stars, which were wont to enlighten the hemisphere of the "Polite Miscellany,” and the Town and Country." The mental appetite of readers has been so strongly excited by high relishes, that it has lost its taste for such plain homely food as Description of the Parish Church of Little Winklebury in Somersetshire." Even so piquant a treat as My first is a fruit-tree, my seconda bird;

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Pray put these together, and tell me my third;"—

even that might fail to stimulate the sense of a fastidious epicure of 1826; and, indeed, it may admit of doubt whether he would be inte