tone and style of the work; they are also Trollopian, quite. A Ball is the topic of discourse in the first of our specimens :

"It was so quite unlike any other party that ever was given,' as Mrs. Compton well observed, in talking over the matter with her daughters, that it was downright impossible not to make some difference in the way of preparing for it.'

"Different! I believe it is different!' exclaimed Miss Martha (the future Mrs. Barnaby); it is the first ball we ever showed ourselves at by daylight, and I should like to know how we, that always lead every thing, are to present ourselves in broad sunshine with dyed pink muslin and tarnished silver?'

"You can't and you shan't,' replied her affectionate mother, if I sell the silver spoons and buy plated ones instead. . . . I will not have my girls disgraced in the face of two regiments at once. But, upon my life girls, money is not to be had for the asking; for truth it is, and no lie, there is not above twenty pounds in the bank to last till Michaelmas, and the butcher has not been paid these five months. But don't look glum, Martha! . . . Shall I tell you what I have made up my mind to do?'

Carry a plate round the mess-room, mamma, when they are all assembled, perhaps,' replied the lively young lady; and if you asked for aid for the sake of our bright eyes, it is likely enough you might get something; but if it is not that, what is it, mother?'

"Why, I will walk over to Compton Bassett, Martha, and ask the ram's horn, your aunt, for five pounds outright, and tell her into the bargain what it is for, and, stingy and skin-flint as she is, I can't say that I shall be much surprised if she gives it; for she is as proud as she's ugly; and it won't be difficult to make her see, this time, that I am asking more for credit's sake than for pleasure.'

"Go, mother, by all means,' replied the young lady with a sneer, that seemed to indicate despair of any aid from Miss Betsy. All I know is, that she never gave me any thing since I was born but a Bible and Prayer-book, and it don't strike me as very likely she'll begin now. Set off, however, by all manner of means; and if you come back emptyhanded, I'll tell you what my scheme shall be.'"

The next refers to a later period when Martha is no longer a Miss; no, not even a wife, but a brisk husband-hunting widow.

"Arrived at Cheltenham, Mrs. Barnaby set about the business of finding a domicile with much more confidence and savoir faire than heretofore. A very few inquiries made her decide upon choosing to place herself at a boarding-house; and though the price rather startled her, she not only selected the dearest, but indulged in the expensive luxury of a handsome private sitting-room. I know what I am about,' thought she; 'faint heart never won fair lady, and sparing hand never won gay gentleman.' It was upon the same principle that, within three days after her arrival, she had found a tiger, and got his dress (resplendent with buttons from top to toe) sent home to her private apartments, and likewise that she had determined to enter her name as a subscriber at the pump

room. The day after all this was completed, was the first upon which she accounted her Cheltenham existence to begin; and having informed herself of the proper hours and fitting costume for each of the various stated times of appearing at the different points of reunion, she desired Agnes carefully to brush the dust from her immortal black crape bonnet, and with her own features sheltered by paille de fantaisie, straw-coloured ribands, and Brussells lace, she set forth, leaning on the arm of her niece, and followed by her tiger and parasol, to take her first draught at the spring, at eight o'clock in the morning. Her spirits rose as she approached the fount on perceiving the throng of laughing, gay, and gossiping invalids that bon-ton and bile had brought together; and when she held out her hand to receive the glass, she had more the air of a fullgrown Bacchante, celebrating the rites of Bacchus, than a votary at the shrine of Hygeia. But no sooner had the health-restoring but nauseous beverage touched her lips, or rather her palate, than, making a horrible grimace, she set down the glass on the marble slab, and pushed it from her with very visible symptoms of disgust."

Mr. James, the author of the "Huguenot" must, judging from the number and variety of his books, be a ready as well as a most industrious writer. Some of them indeed exhibit strongly the blemishes of haste, one of these being quantity instead of digested quality. But in the present instance he has obviously been at pains in the selection of his materials, and careful, nay fastidious, in the serving of them up. This may be accounted for by the fact that his elaborate history of the times of Louis the Fourteenth, and his life of that monarch, have made him quite familiar with all that bears on the theme of the present production, and provided him with such a minute and accurate knowledge of the persecutions of the Huguenots, the intrigues of the court, and the character of the men that figured at that eventful era, as required little more than the labour of arrangement and the art necessary in combination.

Besides, the subject chosen by him is evidently one of which he has been enamoured; and hence his earnestness and the historical dignity of his manner. But hence too, we presume, the heaviness, the want of playfulness, which characterise the performance. He has been called the successor of Scott; but though equalling that romancist, perhaps, in regard to an acquaintance with the annals and the manners of the times selected for illustration, he neither seems to possess such a variety of information, nor the natural power of the magician of the North, of throwing everything he touched into picturesque forms, nor of so fusing in his mind history and fiction, as to render the whole to appear consistent, compatible, and reciprocally illustrative. But we shall not extend this paper, already so protracted, beyond the space which an extract from the second work at its head will occupy. The passage refers to the interruption and assault made upon a field-meeting, of Covenanterfashion, by a party of dragoons; and our readers will naturally compare the descriptions with scenes in Old Mortality, and mark the differences :

"The words of the preacher were poured forth rather than spoken. It seemed less like eloquence than like inspiration. His full, round, clear voice was heard through every part of his large auditory; not a word was lost, not a tone was indistinct, and the people listened with that deep stern silence which causes a general rustle, like the sighing of the wind, to take place through the multitude when he paused for a moment in his discourse, and every one drew deep the long-suppressed breath.

"In the same strain, and with the same powers of voice and gesture, Claude De l'Estang was going on with his sermon, when some sounds were heard at the further part of the crowd, towards the spot where the scene was sheltered by the stunted wood we have mentioned. As those sounds were scarcely sufficient to give any interruption to the minister, being merely those apparently of some other persons arriving, the Count De Morseiul, and almost every one on that side of the preacher, remained gazing upon him as he went on with the same energy, and did not turn their heads to see what occasioned the noise.

"Those, however, who were on the opposite side, and who, when looking towards the minister, had at the same time in view the spot from which the sounds proceeded, were seen to gaze sternly from time to time in that direction; and once or twice, notwithstanding the solemn words they heard, stooped down their heads together, and spoke in whispering consultation. These appearances at length induced the Count De Morseiul to turn his eyes that way; when he beheld a sight which at once made his blood boil, but made him thankful also that he had come in such guise as even to act as a restraint upon himself, having no arms of any kind upon him.

"At the skirt of the crowd were collected a party of eighteen or twenty dragoons, who were forcing their horses slowly in amongst the people, who drew back, and gazed upon them with looks of stern determined hatred. The purpose of the soldiers, indeed, seemed, to be simply to insult and to annoy, for they did not proceed to any overt act of violence, and were so far separated from each other, in a disorderly manner, that it could only be supposed they came thither to find themselves sport, rather than to disperse the congregation by any lawful authority. The foremost of the whole party was the young Marquis De Hericourt, and Albert of Morseiul conceived, perhaps not unreasonably, that there might be some intention of giving him personal annoyance at the bottom of that young officer's conduct.

"Distinguished from the rest of the people by his dress, the Count was very plainly to be seen from the spot where De Hericourt was; and the young dragoon slowly made his way towards him through the press, looking at the people on either side with but ill-concealed signs of contempt upon his countenance.

"The Count determined, as far as possible, to set an example of patience; and when the rash youth came close up to him, saying aloud, Ha, Monsieur De Morseiul, a lucky opportunity! I have long wished to hear a prêche,' the Count merely raised his hand as a sign for the young man to keep silence, and pointed with his right hand to the pastor, who, with an undisturbed demeanour and steady voice, pursued his sermon as if not the slightest interruption had occurred, although the young dragoon on horseback, in the midst of his people, was at that moment before him."

NOTICES.

ART. XII.-The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited by Mrs. SHELLEY. Vol. I. London: Moxon. 1839.

A NEW, uniform, and elegant edition of Shelley's works, exhibiting Mr. Moxon's taste and spirit in all that regards a publisher's department, with notes by one so competent as the editress, will be cordially welcomed by all who can appreciate true poetry. Shelley was unquestionably one of the greatest poets of modern times, and a genius of the most extraordinary character. He was constitutionally eccentric and wonderfully sensitive, and by temperament such a visionary that nothing more was needed than the opposition he encountered in various ways, and the anxieties thrust upon or incurred by him, to carry him to the verge of poetic insanity. Hence his opinions about existing institutions, received creeds, and human nature, were so wild and fanciful, that the world's censure reached even the beautiful and exquisite inspirations and unsurpassed creations of the muse. The editress of his works, however, of which the present volume is the commencement, will do much to correct and to modify the public judgment in regard both to the life and writings of the poet, and to popularize many of the effusions of such a gifted son of song.

Among Mrs. Shelley's notes, a number, if we are to judge from the specimen before us, will be biographical; but she appears to have made up her mind to avoid a connected memoir. She says, "This is not the time to relate the truth; and I should reject any colouring of the truth." Still, in allusion to circumstances in the poet's life, she declares that "No account has ever been given at all approaching reality in their details, either as regards himself or others, nor shall I further allude to them than to remark, that the errors of action committed by a man as noble and generous as Shelley, may, as far as he only is concerned, be fearlessly avowed, by those who loved him, in the firm conviction that were they judged impartially, his character would stand in fairer and brighter light than that of any contemporary.

Now this is not letting us know anything more than that Mrs. Shelley's partiality and tender recollections are enduring and strong. We admit, however, that the character and life of the young man she so affectionately remembers, was amiable, deeply interesting, and his entire carreer such as must in future enlist the sympathies of all who make themselves acquainted with his writings and his life in his behalf.

The two following specimens of notes are much more precise than what we have already quoted. The first throws some light upon Shelley's studies, powers, habits, and sensitiveness:

"He had considered at one time whether he should dedicate himself to poetry or metaphysics, and resolving on the former, he educated himself for it, discarding, in a great measure, his philosophical pursuits, and engaging himself in the study of the poets of Greece, Italy, and England. To these may be added a constant perusal of portions of the Old Testament -the Psalms, the book of Job, the Prophet Isaiah, and others, the sublime poetry of which filled him with delight.

"As a poet, his intellect and compositions were powerfully influenced by exterior circumstances, and especially by his place of abode. He was VOL. I. (1839.) No. III.

I I

very fond of travelling, and ill health increased this restlessness. The sufferings occasioned by a cold English winter made him pine, especially when our colder spring arrived, for a more genial climate. In 1816 he again visited Switzerland, and rented a house on the banks of the lake of Geneva; and many a day, in cloud or sunshine, was passed alone in his boat-sailing as the wind listed or wettering on the calm waters. The majestic aspect of nature ministered such thoughts as he afterwards enwove in verse. His lines on the Bridge of the Arve,' and his Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,' were written at this time. Perhaps for a period his genius was checked by associations with another poet, whose nature was utterly dissimilar to his own, yet who, in the poem he wrote at that time, gave tokens that he shared for a period the more abstract and etherealised inspiration of Shelley. The saddest events awaited his return to England."

We are told that in the spring of 1815, an eminent physician pronounced that he was dying rapidly of a consumption; that abscesses were formed on his lungs, and that he suffered acute spasms. Suddenly a complete change took place, and every symptom of pulmonary disease vanished. These alternations could not but work strongly upon nerves that were naturally so fine. But we haste to the second passage alluded to before, which contains a sad retrospect. Who can read these words, "I have lived to be older than my father," without experiencing tender regret and intense sympathy?

"He had not completed his nine-and-twentieth year when he died. The calm of middle life did not add the seal of the virtues which adorn maturity to those generated by the vehement spirit of youth. Through life also he was a martyr to ill health, and constant pain wound up his nerves to a pitch of susceptibility that rendered his views of life different from those of a man in the enjoyment of healthy sensations. Perfectly gentle and forbearing in manner, he suffered a good deal of internal irritability, or rather excitement, and his fortitude to bear was almost always on the stretch. And thus, during a short life, he had gone through more experience of sensation than many whose existence is protracted. If I die to-morrow,' he said, on the eve of his anticipated death, I have lived to be older than my father.' The weight of thought and feeling burdened him heavily; you read his sufferings in his attenuated frame, while you perceived the mastery he held over them in his animated countenance and brilliant eyes.

The poems contained in the present volume are three in number, and are, perhaps, the most remarkable of Shelley's works, not merely extraordinary as compositions that were chiefly produced before the writer could be called a man in regard to years, but as a record of the poet's early fancies and opinions. The pieces are Queen Mab; Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude; and The Revolt of Islam. The first, not merely as it came from the hands of the author,but as given in the edition now under consideration, requires that we say a few words about it.

It is well known that Queen Mab, which was never published by Shelley, but only printed for private distribution, contained some of the most startling dogmas of atheism, while the sentiments upon several other topics were frequently most objectionable and dangerous. Now the editress has purged the poem of the most offensive parts, stating that were the poem in manuscript, "even less might be given;" adding that-" as it is, such portions