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which the inexperienced swimmers trusted themselves in the water.

About two hundred yards above this, the boreen* which led from the village to the main road crossed the river by one of those old narrow bridges whose arches rise like round ditches across the road-an almost impassable barrier to horse and car. On passing the bridge in a northern direction, you found a range of low thatched houses on each side of the road; and if one o'clock, the hour of dinner, drew near, you might observe columns of blue smoke curling up from a row of chimneys, some made of wicker creels plastered over with a rich coat of mud, some of old narrow bottomless tubs, and others, with a greater appearance of taste, ornamented with thick circular ropes of straw sewed together like bees' skeps with the peel of a brier; and many having nothing but the open vent above. But the smoke by no means escaped by its legitimate aperture, for you might observe little clouds of it bursting out of the doors and windows; the panes of the latter being mostly stopped at other times with old hats and rags, were now left entirely open for the purpose of giving it a free escape.

Before the doors, on right and left, was a series of dunghills, each with its concomitant sink of green rotten water; and if it happened that a stout-looking woman with watery eyes, and a yellow cap hung loosely upon her matted locks, came, with a chubby urchin on one arm and a pot of dirty water in her hand, its unceremonious ejection in the aforesaid sink would be apt to send you up the village with your finger and thumb (for what purpose you would yourself perfectly understand) closely, but not knowingly, applied to your nostrils. But, independently of this, you would be apt to have other reasons for giving your horse, whose heels are by this time surrounded by a dozen of barking curs, and the same number of shouting urchins, a pretty sharp touch of the spurs, as well as for complaining bitterly of the odour of the atmosphere. It is no landscape without figures; and you might notice-if you are, as I suppose you to be, a man of observation-in every sink as you pass along a slip of a pig' stretched in the middle of the mud, the very beau ideal of luxury, giving occasionally a long luxuriant grunt, highly expressive of his enjoyment; or perhaps an old farrower, lying in indolent repose, with half a dozen young ones jostling each other for their draught, and punching her belly with their little snouts, reckless of the fumes they are creating; whilst the loud crow of the cock, as he confidently flaps his wings on his own dunghill, gives the warning note for the hour of dinner.

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As you advance, you will also perceive several faces thrust out of the doors, and rather than miss a sight of you, a grotesque visage peeping by a short cut through the paneless windows, or a tattered female flying to snatch up her urchin that has been tumbling itself heels up in the dust of the road, lest the gintleman's horse might ride over it;' and if you happen to look behind, you may observe a shaggy-headed youth in tattered frize, with one hand thrust indolently in his breast, standing at the door in conversation with the inmates, a broad grin of sarcastic ridicule on his face, in the act of breaking a joke or two upon your self or your horse; or perhaps your jaw may be saluted with a lump of clay, just hard enough not to fall asunder as it flies, cast by some ragged gorsoon from behind a hedge, who squats himself in a ridge of corn to avoid detection.

Seated upon a hob at the door you may observe a toil-worn man without coat or waistcoat, his red muscular sunburnt shoulder peering through the remnant of a shirt, mending his shoes with a piece of *wisted flax, called a lingel, or perhaps sewing two

* A little road.

footless stockings, or martycens, to his coat, as a substitute for sleeves.

In the gardens, which are usually fringed with nettles, you will see a solitary labourer, working with that carelessness and apathy that characterise an Irishman when he labours for himself, leaning upon his spade to look after you, and glad of any excuse to be idle.

The houses, however, are not all such as I have described-far from it. You see here and there, between the more humble cabins, a stout comfortable-looking farm-house with ornamental thatching and wellglazed windows; adjoining to which is a hay-yard with five or six large stacks of corn, well-trimmed and roped, and a fine yellow weather-beaten old hayrick, half-cut-not taking into account twelve or thirteen circular strata of stones that mark out the foundations on which others had been raised. Neither is the rich smell of oaten or wheaten bread, which the good-wife is baking on the griddle, unpleasant to your nostrils; nor would the bubbling of a large pot, in which you might see, should you chance to enter, a prodigious square of fat, yellow, and almost transparent bacon tumbling about, to be an unpleasant object truly, as it hangs over a large fire, with well-swept hearthstone, it is in good keeping with the white settle and chairs, and the dresser with noggins, wooden trenchers, and pewter dishes, perfectly clean, and as well polished as a French courtier.

As you leave the village, you have, to the left, a view of the hill which I have already described, and to the right a level expanse of fertile country, bounded by a good view of respectable mountains peering decently into the sky; and in a line that forms an acute angle from the point of the road where you ride, is a delightful valley, in the bottom of which shines a pretty lake; and a little beyond, on the slope of a green hill, rises a splendid house, surrounded by a park well-wooded and stocked with deer. You have now topped the little hill above the village, and a straight line of level road, a mile long, goes forward to a country town which lies immediately behind that white church with its spire cutting into the sky before you. You descend on the other side, and having advanced a few perches, look to the left, where you see a long thatched chapel, only distinguished from a dwelling-house by its want of chimneys, and a small stone cross that stands on the top of the eastern gable; behind it is a grave-yard, and beside it a snug public-house, well white-washed; then, to the right, you observe a door apparently in the side of a clay bank, which rises considerably above the pavement of the road. What! you ask yourself, can this be a human habitation? But ere you have time to answer the question, a confused buzz of voices from within reaches your ear, and the appearance of a little gorsoon with a red closecropped head and Milesian face, having in his hand a short white stick, or the thigh-bone of a horse, which you at once recognise as 'the pass' of a village school, gives you the full information. He has an ink-horn, covered with leather, dangling at the buttonhole (for he has long since played away the buttons) of his frize jacket-his mouth is circumscribed with a streak of ink-his pen is stuck knowingly behind his ear-his shins are dotted over with fire-blisters, black, red, and blue-on each heel a kibe-his leather crackers' videlicet, breeches-shrunk up upon him, and only reaching as far down as the caps of his knees. Having spied you, he places his hand over his brows, to throw back the dazzling light of the sun, and peers at you from under it, till he breaks out into a laugh, exclaiming, half to himself, half to you

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You a gintleman!-no, nor one of your breed never was, you procthorin' thief you !'

You are now immediately opposite the door of the seminary, when half a dozen of those seated next it notice you.

Oh, sir, here's a gintleman on a horse !-masther, sir, here's a gintleman on a horse, wid boots and spurs on him, that's looking in at us.'

'Silence!' exclaims the master; back from the door boys rehearse every one of you rehearse, I say, you Boeotians, till the gintleman goes past!' 'I want to go out, if you plase, sir.' No, you don't, Phelim.'

• I do, indeed, sir.'

What is it afther conthradictin' me you'd be? Don't you see the "porter's" out, and you can't go.' Well, 'tis Mat Meehan has it, sir; and he's out this half-hour, sir; I can't stay in, sir!'

You want to be idling your time looking at the gintleman, Phelim.'

'No, indeed, sir.'

I

Phelim, I know you of ould-go to your sate. tell you, Phelin, you were born for the encouragement of the hemp manufacture, and you'll die promoting it.'

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In the meantime the master puts his head out of the door, his body stooped to a half-bend'-a phrase, and the exact curve which it forms, I leave for the present to your own sagacity-and surveys you until you pass. That is an Irish hedge-school, and the personage who follows you with his eye a hedge

schoolmaster.

MISS MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

loftier order proceeding from the same pen; that young writers, English and American, began to imitate so artless and charming a manner of narra tion; and that an obscure Berkshire hamlet, by the magic of talent and kindly feeling, was converted into a place of resort and interest for not a few of the finest spirits of the age.' Extending her o servation from the country village to the markettown, Miss Mitford published another interesting volume of descriptions, entitled Beljord Regis. Sae also gleaned from the new world three volumes of Stories of American Life, by American Writers, of which she remarks-The scenes described and the personages introduced are as various as the authors, extending in geographical space from Canada to Mexico, and including almost every degree of civilisation, from the wild Indian and the almost equally wild hunter of the forest and prairies, to the cuitivated inhabitant of the city and plain.' Besides her tragedies (which are little inferior to those of Miss Baillie as intellectual productions, while one of them, Rienzi, has been highly successful on the stage), Miss Mitford has written numerous tales for the annuals and magazines, showing that her industry is equal to her talents. It is to her English tales, however, that she must chiefly trust her fame with posterity; and there is so much unaffected grace, tenderness, and beauty in these rural delineations, that we cannot conceive their ever being considered obsolete or uninteresting. In them she has treasured not only the results of long and familiar observation, but the feelings and conceptions of a truly poetical mind. She is a prose Cowper, without his gloom or bitterness. In 1838 Miss Mitford's name was added to the pension list—a well-earned tribute to one whose genius has been devoted to the honour and embellishment of her country.

COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.

MISS MARY RUSSELL MITFORD, the painter of English rural life in its happiest and most genial aspects, was born in 1789 at Alresford, in Hampshire. Reminiscences of her early boarding-school days are scattered through her works, and she appears to have been always an enthusiastic reader. When very young, she published a volume of miscellaneous poems, and a metrical tale in the style of Scott, entitled Christine, the Maid of the South Seas, This lady, well known in the world of fashion and founded on the discovery of the mutineers of the literature, is a native of Ireland, daughter of Edward Bounty. In 1823 was produced her effective and Power, Esq., late of Curagheen, county Waterford. striking tragedy of Julian, dedicated to Mr Mac- At the age of fifteen she became the wife of Captain ready the actor, for the zeal with which he be- Farmer of the 47th regiment, after whose death, in friended the production of a stranger, for the judi- 1817, she was united to Charles John Gardiner, cious alterations which he suggested, and for the Earl of Blessington. In 1829 she was again left a energy, the pathos, and the skill with which he more widow. Lady Blessington now fixed her residence than embodied its principal character.' Next year in London, and, by her rank and personal tastes, Miss Mitford published the first volume of Our Vil- succeeded in rendering herself a centre of literary lage, Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery, to which society. Her first publication was a volume of four other volumes were subsequently added, the Travelling Sketches in Belgium, very meagre and illfifth and last in 1832. Every one,' says a lively written. The next work commanded more attenwriter, now knows Our Village, and every one tion it was her Conversations with Lord Byron, whom knows that the nooks and corners, the haunts and she had met daily for some time at Genoa. In 1833 the copses so delightfully described in its pages, will appeared The Repealers, a novel in three volumes, but be found in the immediate neighbourhood of Read-containing scarcely any plot, and few delineations of ing, and more especially around Three-Mile Cross, a cluster of cottages on the Basingstoke road, in one of which our authoress has now resided for many years. But so little were the peculiar and original excellence of her descriptions understood, in the first instance, that, after having gone the round of rejection through the more important periodicals, they at last saw the light in no worthier publication than the Lady's Magazine. But the series of rural pictures grew, and the venture of collecting them into a separate volume was tried. The public began to relish the style so fresh, yet so finished, to enjoy the delicate humour and the simple pathos of the tales; and the result was, that the popularity of these sketches outgrew that of the works of

*Mr Chorley-The Authors of England.

character, the greater part being filled with dialogues, criticism, and reflections. Her ladyship is sometimes sarcastic, sometimes moral, and more frequently per sonal. One female sketch, that of Grace Cassidy, a young Irish wife, is the only one of the characters we can remember, and it shows that her ladyship is most at home among the scenes of her early days. To The Repealers' succeeded The Two Friends, The Confessions of an Elderly Gentleman, The Confessions of an Elderly Lady, Desultory Thoughts, The Belle of a Season, The Governess, The Idler in Italy (three volumes, 1839-40), The Idler in France (two volumes, 1841), The Victims of Society, and Meredith. Her recollections of Italy and France are perhaps the best of her works, for in these her love of anecdote, epigram, and sentiment, has full scope, without any of the impediments raised by a story.

MRS S. C. HALL.

MRS S. C. HALL, authoress of Lights and Shadows of Irish Life, and various other works, 'is a native of Wexford, though by her mother's side she is of Swiss

Uma Maria Hall

descent. Her maiden name was Fielding, by which, however, she was unknown in the literary world, as her first work was not published till after her marriage. She belongs to an old and excellent family in her native county. She first quitted Ireland at the early age of fifteen, to reside with her mother in

England, and it was some time before she revisited her native country; but the scenes which were familiar to her as a child have made such a vivid and lasting impression on her mind, and all her sketches evince so much freshness and vigour, that her readers might easily imagine she had spent her life among the scenes she describes. To her early absence from her native country is probably to be traced one strong characteristic of all her writingsthe total absence of party feeling on subjects connected with politics or religion.' Mrs Hall's first work appeared in 1829, and was entitled Sketches of Irish Character. These bear a closer resemblance to the tales of Miss Mitford than to the Irish stories of Banim or Griffin, though the latter may have tended to direct Mrs Hall to the peculiarities of Irish character. They contain some fine rural description, and are animated by a healthy tone of moral feeling and a vein of delicate humour. The coquetry of her Irish girls (very different from that in high life) is admirably depicted. Next year Mrs Hall issued a little volume for children, Chronicles of a SchoolRoom, consisting also of a series of tales, simple, natural, and touching. The home-truths and moral observations conveyed in these narratives reflect great credit on the heart and the judgment of the writer. Indeed good taste and good feeling may be said to preside over all the works of our authoress. In 1831 she issued a second series of Sketches of Irish Character,' fully equal to the first, and was well received. The Rapparee is an excellent story, and some of the satirical delineations are hit off with great truth and liveliness. In 1832 she ventured on a larger and more difficult work-a historical ro mance in three volumes, entitled The Buccaneer. The scene of this tale is laid in England at the time of the Protectorate, and Oliver himself is among the characters. The plot of The Buccaneer' is well managed, and some of the characters (as that of Barbara Iverk, the Puritan) are skilfully delineated; but the work is too feminine, and has too little of energetic passion for the stormy times in which it is cast. In 1834 Mrs Hall published Tales of Woman's Trials, short stories of decidedly moral tendency,

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larity. The principal tale in the collection, The Groves of Blarney, was dramatised at one of the theatres with distinguished success. In 1840 Mrs

*Dublin University Magazine for 1840.

she would not forget it, becase the boy's her bachelor: but out o' sight out o' mind-the never a word she tould him about it, and the babby has got it natara!, and the woman's in heart trouble (to say nothing e myself); and it the first, and all.' I am very sorry, indeed, for you have got a much better wife than most men.' That's a true word, my lady, only she's fidgetty like sometimes, and says I don't hit the nail on the head quick enough; and she takes a dale more trouble than she need about many a thing.' 'I do not think I ever saw Ellen's wheel without fax before, Shane?' 'Bad cess to the wheel!-I got it this morning about that too. I depinded on John

Hall issued what has been styled the best of her novels, Marian; or a Young Maid's Fortunes, in which her knowledge of Irish character is again displayed. Katey Macane, an Irish cook, who adopts Marian, a foundling, and watches over her with untiring affection, is equal to any of the Irish portraitures since those of Miss Edgeworth. The next work of our authoress was a series of Stories of the Irish Peasantry, contributed to Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, and afterwards published in a collected form. In 1840, Mrs Hall aided her husband in a work chiefly composed by him, and which reflects credit upon his talents and industry, Ireland, its Scenery, Character, &c. Topographical and sta-Williams to bring the flax from O'Flaharty's this day tistical information is here blended with the poetical week, and he forgot it; and she says I ought to have and romantic features of the country-the legends brought it myself, and I close to the spot. But where's of the peasantry-scenes and characters of humour the good? says I; sure he'll bring it next time.' 'I or pathos-and all that could be gathered in five suppose, Shane, you will soon move into the new cotseparate tours through Ireland, added to early ac- tage at Clurn Hill? I passed it to-day, and it looked quaintance and recollection of the country. The so cheerful; and when you get there you must take work was highly embellished by British artists, and Ellen's advice, and depend solely on yourself.' 'Och, extended to three large volumes. In tasteful de- ma'am dear, don't mintion it; sure it's that makes me so down in the mouth this very minit. Sure 1 scription of natural objects, and pictures of everyday life, Mrs Hall has few superiors. Her humour saw that born blackguard Jack Waddy, and he comes is not so broad or racy as that of Lady Morgan, nor to squire's new lodge," says he. "Maybe I have," sar in here quite innocent like-"Shane, you've an eye her observation so pointed and select as Miss Edge-I. "I am yer man," says he. "How so!" says 1. worth's her writings are also unequal, but in general they constitute easy delightful reading, and he;" and I'll spake to the squire for you my own self." "Sure I'm as good as married to my lady's maid," said possess a simple truth and purity of sentiment that "The blessing be about you," says I, quite gratefulis ultimately more fascinating than the darker and we took a strong cup on the strength of it-and, shades and colourings of imaginative composition. depinding on him, I thought all safe; and what d'ye think, my lady? Why, himself stalks into the place -talked the squire over, to be sure-and without so much as by yer lave, sates himself and his new wife on the laase in the house; and I may go whistle.' 'It was a great pity, Shane, that you didn't go yourself to Mr Clurn.' That's a true word for ye, ma'an dear; but it's hard if a poor man can't have a frind to depind on.'

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[From Sketches of Irish Character."]

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SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER.

Independence!—it is the word, of all others, that Irish-men, women, and children-least understand; and the calmness, or rather indifference, with which they submit to dependence, bitter and miserable as it is, must be a source of deep regret to all who 'love the land,' or who feel anxious to uphold the dignity of human kind. Let us select a few cases from our SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER is the youngest Irish village, such as are abundant in every neighson of the late General Bulwer of Haydon Hall, bourhood. Shane Thurlough, as dacent a boy,' and Shane's wife, as clane-skinned a girl,' as any in the county of Norfolk. He is said to have written world. There is Shane, an active handsome-looking verses when only five or six years old, but he has fellow, leaning over the half-door of his cottage, kick- certainly never attained to the higher honours of ing a hole in the wall with his brogue, and picking up At Cambridge, Mr Bulwer (his baronetcy was conthe lyre. His poetry is in general stiff and artificial. all the large gravel within his reach to pelt the ducks ferred upon him by the Whig government, whose with-those useful Irish scavengers. Let us speak to him. "Good-morrow, Shane !' Och! the bright policy he supported as a member of the House of bames of heaven on ye every day! and kindly wel- Commons) was the successful competitor for the come, my lady; and wont ye step in and rest-it's prize poem, and his first appearance as an author powerful hot, and a beautiful summer, sure-the was made in 1826, when he published a volume of Lord be praised!' Thank you, Shane. I thought miscellaneous poems bearing the juvenile title of you were going to cut the hay-field to-day; if a heavyWeeds and Wild Flowers. In the following year he shower comes, it will be spoiled; it has been fit for issued a poetical tale, O'Neill, or the Rebel, somethe scythe these two days. Sure it's all owing to that thing of the style of Byron's Corsair, and echoing thief o' the world Tom Parrel, my lady. Didn't he the tone of feeling and sentiment most characteristic promise me the loan of his scythe; and, by the same of the noble poet. The following lines will illustrate token, I was to pay him for it; and depinding on that, our remark:I didn't buy one, which I have been threatening to do for the last two years.' But why don't you go to Carrick and purchase one? To Carrick! Och, 'tis a good step to Carrick, and my toes are on the ground (saving your presence), for I depinded on Tim Jarvis to tell Andy Cappler, the brogue-maker, to do my shoes; and, bad luck to him, the spalpeen! he forgot it.' Where's your pretty wife, Shane?' 'She's in all the wo o' the world, ma'am dear. And she puts the blame of it on me, though I'm not in the faut this time, anyhow. The child's taken the small-pox, and she depinded on me to tell the doctor to cut it for the cow-pox, and I depinded on Kitty Cackle, the limmer, to tell the doctor's own man, and thought

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Eternal air-and thou, my mother earth,
Hallowed by shade and silence—and the birth
Of the young moon (now watching o'er the sleep
Of the dim mountains and the dreaming deep);
And by yon star, heaven's eldest born-whose light
Calls the first smile upon the cheek of Night;
And beams and bodes, like faith beyond the tomb,
Life through the calmn, and glory through the gloom;
My mother earth-and ye her loftier race,
Midst whom my soul hath held its dwelling-place;
Rivers, and rocks, and valleys, and ye shades
Which sleep at noonday o'er the haunted glades
Made musical by waters and the breeze,
All idly dallying with the glowing trees;

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And songs of birds which, ever as they fly,
Breathe soul and gladness to the summer sky;
Ye courts of Nature, where aloof and lone
She sits and reigns with darkness for her throne;
Mysterious temples of the breathing God,
If mid your might my earliest steps have trod;
If in mine inmost spirit still are stored
The wild deep memories childhood most adored;
If still amid the drought and waste of years,
Ye hold the source of smiles and pangless tears:
Will ye not yet inspire me?-for my heart
Beats low and languid-and this idle art,
Which I have summoned for an idle end,
Forsakes and flies me like a faithless friend.
Are all your voices silent? I have made
My home as erst amid your thickest shade:
And even now your soft air from above
Breathes on my temples like a sister's love.
Ah! could it bring the freshness of the day
When first my young heart lingered o'er its lay,
Fain would this wintry soul and frozen string
Recall one wind-one whisper from the Spring!

In the same year (1827) Mr Bulwer published his
first novel, Falkland, a highly-coloured tale of love
and passion, calculated to excite and inflame, and
evidently based on admiration of the peculiar genius
and seductive errors of Byron. Taking up the style
of the fashionable novels (rendered popular by Theo-
dore Hook, but now on the wane), Mr Bulwer came
forward with Pelham, or the Adventures of a Gentleman
-a novel full of brilliant and witty writing, sarcastic
levity, representations of the manners of the great,
piquant remark, and scenes of deep and romantic
interest. There was a want of artistic skill in the
construction of the story, for the tragic and satirical
parts were not harmoniously combined; but the
picture of a man of fashion, so powerfully drawn,
was irresistibly attractive, and a second edition of
'Pelham' was called for in a few months. Towards
the close of the year (1828), Mr Bulwer issued The
Insowned, intended by the author to contain scenes
of more exciting interest and vivid colouring,
thoughts less superficially expressed, passions more
energetically called forth, and a more sensible and
pervading moral tendency.' The work was consi-
dered to fulfil the promise of the preface, though it
did not attain to the popularity of Pelham.' Deve-
reux, a Novel, 1829, was a more finished performance.
"The lighter portion does not dispute the field with
the deeper and more sombre, but follows gracefully
by its side, relieving and heightening it. We move,
indeed, among the great, but it is the great of other
times-names familiar in our mouths-Bolingbroke,
Louis, Orleans; amidst manners perhaps as frivolous
as those of the day, but which the gentle touch of
time has already invested with an antiquarian dig-
nity: the passions of men, the machinery of great
motives and universal feelings, occupy the front;
the humours, the affections, the petty badges of
sects and individuals, retire into the shadows of the
back-ground: no under-current of persiflage or epi-
curean indifference checks the flow of that mournful
enthusiasm which refreshes its pictures of life with
living waters; its eloquent pages seem consecrated
to the memory of love, honour, religion, and unde-
viating faith. In 1830 Mr Bulwer brought out
another work of fiction, Paul Clifford, the hero being
a romantic highwayman, familiar with the haunts
of low vice and dissipation, but afterwards trans-
formed and elevated by the influence of love. Parts
are ably written; but the general effect of the novel
was undoubtedly injurious to the public taste. Our
author's love of satire, which had mingled largely

Edinburgh Review for 1832.

in all his novels, took a more definite shape, in 1831, in The Siamese Twins, a poem satirical of fashion, of travellers, of politicians, London notoriety, and various other topics, discussed or glanced at in sportive or bitter mood, in verses that flow easily, and occasionally express vigorous and lively thoughts, but are wholly destitute of the elixir vitæ of poetical immortality. A few months afterwards we had Eugene Aram, a Tale, founded on the history of the English murderer of that name. In this work Mr Bulwer depicted the manners of the middle rank of life, and was highly successful in awakening curiosity and interest, and in painting scenes of tenderness, pathos, and distress. The character of the sordid but ingenious Eugene Aram is idealised by the fancy of the novelist. He is made an enthusiastic student and amiable visionary. The humbling part of his crime was, he says, its low calculations, its poor defence, its paltry trickery, its mean hypocrisy: these made his chiefest penance.' Unconscious that detection was close at hand, Aram is preparing to wed an interesting and noble-minded woman, the generous Madeline; and the scenes connected with this ill-fated passion possess a strong and tragical interest. Throughout the work are scattered some beautiful moral reflections and descriptions, imbued with poetical feeling and expression. Mr Bulwer now undertook the management of the New Monthly Magazine (which had attained a high reputation under the editorship of Campbell), and published in that work several essays and criticisms, subsequently collected and issued under the title of The Student. In 1833 appeared his England and the English, a series of observations on society, literature, the aristocracy, travelling, and other characteristics and peculiarities of the English people. Some of these are acute and clever, but many are tinged with prejudice, and a desire to appear original and sarcastic. The Pilgrims of the Rhine-a fanciful and beautifully illustrated work-was Mr Bulwer's next offering, and it was almost immediately afterwards succeeded by one of his best romances, The Last Days of Pompeii. This brilliant and interesting classic story was followed by one still more vigorous and masterly, the tale of Rienzi, perhaps the most complete, high-toned, and energetic of all the author's works. With industry as remarkable as his genius, Mr Bulwer went on preparing new works of fiction. Ernest Maltravers (1837) illustrates what, though rare in novels, is common in human life-the affliction of the good, the triumph of the unprincipled.' The character of Maltravers is far from pleasing; and Alice Darvil is evidently a copy from Byron's Haidee. Ferrers, the villain of the tale, is also a Byronic creation; and, on the whole, the violent contrasts and gloomy delineations of this novel render it more akin to the spurious offspring of sentimental romance, than to the family of the genuine English novel. A continuation of this work was given in the following year, under the title of Alice, or the Mysteries, with no improvement as to literary power or correct moral philosophy, but still containing some fresh and exquisite descriptions, and delightful portraiture. His next work was Athens, partly historical and partly philosophical-a book impressed with fine taste and research. In the same year (1838) we had Leila, or the Siege of Granada; and Calderon the Courtier-light and sketchy productions. Passing over the dramas of Bulwer, we come to Night and Morning, Day and Night, Lights and Shadows, Glimmer and Gloom, an affected title to a picturesque and interesting story. Zanoni (1842) is more unconnected in plot and vicious in style than the previous fictions of Bulwer, and possesses no strong or permanent interest. Eva, the Ill-Omened Marriage,

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