600 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 



" buoyantly, triumphantly." In one point the author cruelly disappoints us : 

 in a moment of reckless profusion conscious of his mental affluence, he 

 gratuitously throws in a character (Mr. Ezra Pearl), which, after having been 

 treated for a short period by his powerful hand, gleams forth a perfect gem : but 

 just as we begin to be conscious of its value, with the waywardness of genius, 

 he withdraws it from our further contemplation. Let him in charity write 

 another novel for Smith and Elder, and let its title and subject be " Ezra 

 Pearl, the Attorney!" The "passages" of his life, given in the present vo- 

 lume, convince us that his " Rise and Fall," by John Gait, would be one of 

 the most fascinating works of modern times. 



THE PURITAN'S GRAVE. By THE AUTHOR OF "THE USURER'S DAUGHTER." 

 3 VOLS. SAUNDERS AND OTLEY. LONDON. 1833. 



IN the present dearth of good sterling novels, we hail with pleasure the 

 appearance of "The Puritan's Grave." Here is no pandering to the vicious 

 tastes of fashion, no six-page descriptions of a coxcomb's accomplishments, 

 or a coquette's attractions ; man is dealt with as the offspring of his Creator, 

 not as the creature of a drawing-room. The mind of youth will not be 

 vitiated by the perusal of this book ; on the contrary, it will be refined, ex- 

 alted, and enlightened. The story is simple, and may be briefly told. A 

 Puritan, deprived of his pastorship, in consequence of his non-conformity, on 

 the restoration of Charles II., suffers various hardships and temptations, 

 which are at length happily terminated. He has two daughters, Mary and 

 Anne Faithful ; the latter of whom falls in love with Henry St. John, a 

 cavalier, whom she ultimately marries, after being assured that he is neither a 

 libertine nor an assassin, which circumstances had induced her father for a 

 while to suppose him. Before the union takes place, however, she has, in the 

 supposition that her lover has become the husband of another, and out of an 

 imperious sense of duty and gratitude, consented to accept the hand of her 

 father's benefactor, a merchant of a certain age ; but who, discovering the 

 object of her former affection, not only gives her to St. John, but makes the 

 latter his heir. There is a blustering drunken cavalier, Sir Thomas Merri- 

 vale, and his daughter Adelaide, together with a sort of half-fool half-knave 

 nondescript called Peter Longstaff, who make up the rest of the persona : all 

 are very characteristically described. Those who peruse the whole, will find 

 themselves amply rewarded. The style, allowing for a few intentional pecu- 

 liarities, is as simple and graceful as the end of the author is noble and 

 sublime ; he attributes all good to its Omnipotent giver, but whilst he ad- 

 monishes, he neither sneers at, nor despises man, for his pursuit of evil. 



A LETTER TO THE KING, ON A SOUND AND CONSTITUTIONAL CHURCH RE- 

 FORM. BY SAMUEL PERRY, MASTER OF SHENFIELD ACADEMY. LONDON. 

 HATCHARD AND SON. 



THIS is one of the thousand-and-one inane and pompous pamphlets on the 

 question of the Church, which, at the present time, are issuing from the 

 press, for the benefit of the trunkmaker. We give, in the following extract, 

 the substance of the farthing reform, proposed by the schoolmaster of Shen- 

 field. " By abolishing pluralities and non-residence altogether to make it 

 imperative, by law, on all beneficed clergymen, to take their divinity degree, 

 and to give a divinity statute to Oxford and Dublin, similar to that at Cam- 

 bridge University, appear to me all the enactments really necessary to secure 

 a sound academical and church reformation." 



This schoolmaster has not been abroad very recently, we fear ; and little 

 understands the tendency of public sentiment upon the mighty subject which 

 he has presumed to handle. He may be typified by a goose grasping Jove's 

 thunderbolt. 



