Now, what shall we say, after all, of Mr. Waterton? That he has spent a great part of his life in wandering in the wild scenes he describes, and that he describes them with entertaining zeal and real feeling. His stories draw largely sometimes on our faith: but a man who lives in the woods of Cayenne must do many odd things, and see many odd things-things utterly unknown to the dwellers in Hackney and Highgate. We do not want to rein up Mr. Waterton too tightly-because we are convinced he goes best with his head free. But a little less of apostrophe, and some faint suspicion of his own powers of humour, would improve this gentleman's style. As it is, he has a considerable talent at describing. He abounds with good feeling; and has written a very entertaining book, which hurries the reader out of his European parlour, into the heart of tropical forests, and gives, over the rules and the cultivation of the civilized parts of the earth, a momentary superiority to the freedom of the savage, and the wild beauties of nature. We honestly recommend the book to our readers: it is well worth the perusal. GRANBY.* THERE is nothing more amusing in the spectacles of the present day, than to see the Sir Johns and Sir Thomases of the House of Commons struck aghast by the useful science and wise novelties of Mr. Huskisson and the chancellor of the exchequer. Treason, Disaffection, Atheism, Republicanism, and Socinianism—the great guns in the Noodle's park of artillery, they cannot bring to bear upon these gentlemen. Even to charge with a regiment of ancestors, is not quite so efficacious as it used to be; and all that remains, therefore, is to rail against Peter M'Culloch and Political Economy! In the meantime, day after day, down goes one piece of nonsense or another. The most approved trash, and the most trusty clamours, are found to be utterly powerless. Two-penny taunts and trumpery truisms have lost their destructive omnipotence and the exhausted commonplace-man, and the afflicted fool, moan over the ashes of Imbecility, and strew flowers on the urn of Ignorance! General Elliot found the London tailors in a * Granby. A Novel in Three Volumes. London, Colburn, 1826. Ed. Rev., Feb., 1826. state of mutiny, and he raised from them a regiment of light cavalry, which distinguished itself in a very striking manner at the battle of Minden. In humble imitation of this example, we shall avail ourselves of the present political disaffection and unsatisfactory idleness of many men of rank and consequence, to request their attention to the Novel of Granby-written, as we have heard, by a young gentleman of the name of Lister;* and from which we have derived a considerable deal of pleasure and entertainment. The main question as to a novel is-did it amuse? Were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten, and twelve for eleven? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not-story, language, love, scandal itself, cannot save it. It is only meant to please, and it must do that, or it does nothing. Now Granby seems to us to answer this test extremely well; it produces unpunctuality, makes the reader too late for dinner, impatient of contradiction, and inattentiveeven if a bishop is making an observation, or a gentleman lately from the Pyramids, or the Upper Cataracts, is let loose upon the drawing-room. The objection, indeed, to these compositions, when they are well done, is, that it is impossible to do anything, or perform any human duty, while we are engaged in them. Who can read Mr. Hallam's Middle Ages, or extract the root of an impossible quantity, or draw up a bond, when he is in the middle of Mr. Trebeck and Lady Charlotte Duncan? How can the boy's lesson be heard, about the Jove-nourished Achilles, or his six miserable verses upon Dido be corrected, when Henry Granby and Mr. Courtenay are both making love to Miss Jermyn? Common life palls in the middle of these artificial scenes. All is emotion when the book is open-all dull, flat, and feeble, when it is shut. Granby, a young man of no profession, living with an old uncle in the country, falls in love with Miss Jermyn, and Miss Jermyn with him; but Sir Thomas and Lady Jermyn, as the young gen This is the gentleman who now keeps the keys of Life and Death, the Janitor of the world.-Author's Note. Thomas Henry Lister, 1801-1842, held the office of Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Besides Granby, Mr. Lister published Herbert Lacy, a Novel; Epicharis, an Historical Tragedy, performed in 1829, at Drury Lane; the Life and Administration of Edward, First Earl of Clarendon, and other writings. He was brother-inlaw of Lord John Russell. 178 POWER OF A NOVELIST. tleman is not rich, having discovered by long living in the world, and patient observation of its ways, that young people are commonly Malthus-proof and have children, and that young and old must eat, very naturally do what they can to discourage the union. The young people, however, both go to town-meet at balls— flutter, blush, look and cannot speak-speak and cannot look— suspect, misinterpret, are sad and mad, peevish and jealous, fond and foolish; but the passion, after all, seems less near to its accomplishment at the end of the season than the beginning. The uncle of Granby, however, dies, and leaves to his nephew a statement, accompanied with the requisite proofs-that Mr. Tyrrel, the supposed son of Lord Malton, is illegitimate, and that he, Granby, is the heir to Lord Malton's fortune. The second volume is now far advanced, and it is time for Lord Malton to die. Accordingly Mr. Lister very judiciously despatches him; Granby inherits the estate—his virtues (for what shows off virtue like land?) are discovered by the Jermyns-and they marry in the last act. Upon this slender story, the author has succeeded in making a very agreeable and interesting novel; and he has succeeded, we think, chiefly, by the very easy and natural picture of manners, as they really exist among the upper classes; by the description of new characters, judiciously drawn and faithfully preserved; and by the introduction of many striking and well-managed incidents; and we are particularly struck throughout the whole with the discretion and good sense of the author. He is never nimious; there is nothing in excess; there is a good deal of fancy and a great deal of spirit at work, but a directing and superintending judgment rarely quits him. . . . . ...... Tremendous is the power of a novelist! If four or five men are in a room, and show a disposition to break the peace, no human magistrate (not even Mr. Justice Bayley) could do more than bind them over to keep the peace, and commit them if they refused. But the writer of the novel stands with a pen in his hand, and can run any of them through the body—can knock down any one individual, and keep the others upon their legs; or, like the last scene in the first tragedy written by a young man of genius, can put them all to death. Now, an author possessing such extraordinary privileges, should not have allowed Mr. Tyrrel to strike Granby. This is ill-managed; particularly as Granby does not return the blow, or turn him out of the house. Nobody should suffer his hero to have a black eye, or to be pulled by the nose. The Iliad would never have come down to these times if Agamemnon had given Achilles a box on the ear. We should have trembled for the Æneid, if any Tyrian nobleman had kicked the pious Æneas in the 4th book. Eneas may have deserved it; but he could not have founded the Roman empire after so distressing an accident. PUBLIC-HOUSES AND DRINKING. WHAT the poor shall drink-how they shall drink it-in pint cups or quart mugs. hot or cold- in the morning or the evening —whether the Three Pigeons shall be shut up, and the Shoulder of Mutton be opened—whether the Black Horse shall continue to swing in the air-or the White Horse, with animated crest and tail, no longer portend spirits within: all these great questions depend upon little clumps of squires and parsons gathered together in alehouses in the month of September-so portentous to publicans and partridges, to sots and sportsmen, to guzzling and game. "I am by no means a friend to the multiplication of publichouses," says a plump perdricide gentleman in loose mud-coloured gaiters, bottle-green jacket and brass buttons. Perhaps not; but you are a friend to the multiplication of inns. You are well aware, that in your journeys to Buxton, Harrowgate, and Bath, the competition of inns keeps down the price of your four post-horses, and secures for you and yours the most reverential awe, from Boots upward to the crafty proprietor himself of the house of entertainment. From what other cause the sudden and overwhelming tumult at the Dragon? Why the agonizing cry of first inn! Why is cake and jelly pushed in at the window? Why are four eyeless, footless, legless horses, rapidly circumscribed by breeching and bearing-reins? Why are you whisked off, amid the smiles of sallow waiters, before the landlord has had time to communicate to you the sad state of turnips in the neighbourhood? Look now a little to the right as you proceed down the main street, and you will behold the sign of the Star and Garter. Make your bow to From an article on the "Licensing of Ale-Houses."-Ed. Rev. Sep., 1826. 180 WINE-DRINKERS AND ALE-DRINKERS. the landlord, for to him you are indebted for the gratification of your wishes, and the activity of your movements. His waiters are as sallow, his vertebræ are as flexible his first turns as prompt and decisive. Woe to the Dragon if he slumbers and sleeps! Woe to the Star if it does not glitter! Each publican keeps the other in a state of vigilant civility; and the traveller rolls along to his journey's end, lolling on the cushion of competition! Why not therefore extend the benefit of this principle to the poor villager or the needy traveller-which produces so many comforts to the landed and substantial Justice? There are two alehouses in the village, the Red Horse and the Dun Cow. Is it common sense to suppose that these two publicans are not desirous of gaining customers from each other? — and that the means they take are not precisely the same as those of important inns - by procuring good articles, and retailing them with civility and attention? We really do not mean to accuse English magistrates of ill nature, for in general there is a good deal of kindness and consideration among them; but they do not drink ale, and are apt to forget the importance of ale to the common people. When wine-drinkers regulate the liquor and comfort of ale-drinkers, it is much as if carnivorous animals should regulate the food of graminivorous animals — as if a lion should cater for an ox, or a coach-horse order dinner for a leopard. There is no natural capacity or incitement to do the thing well-no power in the lion to distinguish between clover and cow-thistles - no disposition in the coach-horse to discriminate between the succulence of a young kid, and the distressing dryness of a superannuated cow. The want of sympathy is a source of inattention, and a cause of evil. The immense importance of a pint of ale to a common person should never be overlooked; nor should a good-natured Justice forget that he is acting for Liliputians, whose pains and pleasures lie in a very narrow compass, and are but too apt to be treated with neglect and contempt by their superiors. About ten or eleven o'clock in the morning, perhaps, the first faint, shadowy vision of a future pint of beer dawns on the fancy of the ploughman. Far, very far is it from being fully developed. Sometimes the idea is rejected, sometimes it is fostered. At one time he is almost fixed on the Red Horse; but the blazing fire and sedulous kindness of |
