1 832.] Monthly Review of Literature. \ 1 1 



variety, the brilliant dialogue, the innumerable sketches of character, the lights 

 and shadows of life, " the logic, and the wisdom, and the wit/' that constitute 

 a charm of which we scarcely grow weary for an instant throughout the whole 

 of the first and second volumes, it is in the third that the reader must look for 

 evidence of L. E. L.'s decided and undeniable power as a novelist of a high 

 order. In the other parts of her work she has shewn us what she can do with 

 individual scenes and separate groupings : in the last she enters upon a new 

 course, and displays her capability of conceiving, combining, and working-out 

 her incidents, with a skill that few living writers possess. This is in itself a 

 tale of deeply-imaginative power a picture finely composed and exquisitely 

 coloured. Of the characters, we object only to the Higg's family a group 

 pourtrayed with little of the fine taste and ability observable in the other por- 

 traits ; and of the opinions, we can find particular fault merely with one or 

 two passing observations unfavourable to the more enlightened and liberal 

 characteristics of the age. Women are timid and averse to great national 

 advances ; we are afraid that more than one-half of them are Tories at heart* 

 Upon glancing at what we have written, we must confess it to be but a meagre 

 description of " Romance and Reality ;" but we have no space either for 

 analysis or extract and fortunately both are superfluous ; for the work will be 

 read by every body, whether realists or romancers. 



HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF WOBURN AND ITS ABBEY, &c. BY J. D. 



PARRY, M.A. 



We need not inform our readers that the beautiful Abbey of Woburn has 

 been the seat of the illustrious house of Russell since the year 1547, when the 

 grant was made to Lord John Russell, afterwards Earl of Bedford, by 

 Edward VI., its princely revenues having attracted the rapacious monastic 

 plunderers in the reign of his predecessor. The Russells are one of England's 

 historic families, and their name alone would throw an interest around Woburn 

 even had they not made such an extensive repertory of the most beautiful 

 specimens of art. Flattering, however, as the subject may be, we do not 

 understand Mr. Parry's dread of exposing his inability for such a simple task 

 as that of giving a short notice of the ancient abbey ; a list of revenue, &c. ; a 

 rapid genealogical view of the Russell family, and lastly a catalogue of the 

 pictures and statues contained in the Duke of Bedford's princely collection. 

 We must however own, in justice to Mr. Parry, that his work includes a very 

 comprehensive variety of objects, viz., from Woburn Abbey and its noble 

 tenants, to the dairy and pig-stye ; from Homer and the tale of Psyche (vide 

 p. 263), to a dissertation on the " superior consideration formerly enjoyed by 

 that useful animal of the class Mammalia, genus Bellua, species sus, now recog- 

 nized by that unharmonious and unhonoured monosyllabic cognomina of Hog 

 or Pig." It would be ungrateful to Mr. P., to complain of the lavish profusion 

 with which he showers his classic and antiquarian research on us, and we dare 

 say, many of his numerous subscribers, will be amused even with long remarks 

 of pigs, for the elucidation of whose domestic policy, Doomsday Book, Homer, 

 Walter Scott, &c., are laid under contribution. The catalogue of the contents 

 of the noble picture and sculpture galleries are, to us, not the least tempting 

 portion of the work. Some of our readers may be pleased to read the origin of 

 this illustrious house, thus told by Mr. Parry : 



" The earliest records of this family extend back to the long period of eight hun- 

 dred years, when they were settled in Neustria or Normandy, in which country 

 they are described as being the younger branches of the Barons of Briquebec, who 

 were potent Seigneurs ; and this part of the family possessed the fiefs of Bamemlle 

 and Rozell, or Rosel, near the bay of the same name, in the Bailiwick of Coutances. 

 Two years before the Norman Invasion of England, a Hugh de Rosel gave in aid 

 of the foundation of the Abbey of Caen, certain lands in Granville and Grocei. He 

 accompanied the Conqueror to England, and was rewarded with possessions in 

 Dorsetshire ; the principal of which were Kingston, afterwards called Kingstpn- 

 Kussell, and Berwick, the latter of which is still in the possession of the family. 



