[ 350 ] [MARCH, 



MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



SIR RALPH ESHER, OR ADVENTURES OF A GENTLEMAN OF THE COURT OF 

 CHARLES THE SECOND. 



IT was with considerable pleasure that the announcement of a work of fiction 

 from the pen of Mr. Leigh Hunt was made known to us. The peculiar charm 

 of by far the greater portion of his literary productions his character as an 

 acute and liberal critic the opportunities he possessed of acquiring a know- 

 ledge of men as well as books, while living at one time in an atmosphere of 

 poetry and genius, and at another in a " solitary cell" in the bosom of his own 

 family, still honoured and respected as the victim of a petty and malignant per- 

 secution his claims upon our esteem as a scholar, an essayist, a politician, and 

 a poet, in whose writings we may always perceive the enlightened spirit of 

 universal charity : these considerations led us to look forward to a " novel" 

 from his pen, with a personal interest and expectation that we cannot be sup- 

 posed to feel frequently. 



The period which the author has chosen is one in which we mingle our most 

 pleasurable, and some of our proudest recollections. The times of Milton and 

 Dryden, of Cromwell and Blake of the Commonwealth and the Restoration. 



Mr. Hunt has introduced to our notice a gentleman of ancient family, who 

 joins the court of Charles the Second in its brightest period, shortly gets into 

 high favour with all parties, is the depository of every body's secrets, while he 

 keeps his own, is made a baronet by the king, gets into all sorts of adventures, 

 and under the title of his memoirs, Sir Ralph Esher presents us with a journal 

 of all he has heard, seen, thought or done. The names which we read of in his- 

 tory, and which store our memories with pleasing reminiscences; we here see 

 their persons and their characters ; we become acquainted with their manners 

 and their actions, and the secret motives which influenced them. Cromwell, by 

 a beautiful episode which is skilfully woven in with the narrative, is brought 

 before us in a more favourable light than that in which he is generally drawn. 

 His government appears wise and impartial, and his motives considerate and 

 just ; whatever means he employed for obtaining the ends he had in view, he 

 was directed by some noble impulses, and influenced by many liberal desires. 

 He endeavoured to make all parties contented with his government at home, and 

 took decisive measures that it should be respected abroad. While he lived he 

 was successful. 



We are as much interested for Sir Philip Herne, the generous, sincere and 

 intellectual lover and friend and the beautiful, repentant, and noble Lady Mar- 

 garet as we are for the romantic Sir Ralph and his tender and affectionate 

 mistress. Sir Philip is the son of a fond mother, who is anxiously desirous that 

 her only child should possess the same religious opinions as herself, which are 

 those of the persecuted Roman Catholics, several of whose priests she secreted in 

 her own house. For one, the reader, like ourselves, we doubt not, will have 

 much respect. Though obliged to disguise her own religion, from the fanatics 

 with whom she was obliged to mingle, she had so much affection for it, that it 

 seemed to be the first wish of her heart, that her son, the inheritor of her family 

 honours, should be brought up in the like persuasion. The arguments which are 

 made use of by his mother's Jesuit counsellors to persuade the child the 

 methods they use to work upon his feelings and his fears, by disclosing to him 

 skilful representations of the future felicity of the true church, and the horrible 

 punishment of heretics, and his state of mind during the trials to which he is 

 subjected, are described with great power and effect. He afterwards endures 

 trials of equal importance, and goes through them with equal success. He be- 

 comes the friend of Sir Ralph Esher, and their friendship is honourable and un- 

 broken ; bat after the sea-fight with the Dutch, in which they were both volun- 

 teers, and where he gives his friend the narrative of his past history, which is 

 full of beautiful reflections and poetic thoughts, Sir Philip unaccountably disap- 

 pears. His friend goes in search of him in London, at the time the plague was 



