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MONTHLY 11EVJUW OF LITEKATUltE AND ART. 109 



the bosom of his peaceful church. We would willingly dwell upon 

 the merits of this book, a pleasanter one than which we have not read 

 since "Maxwell" disturbed our gravity. In both the stories we 

 have mentioned, a dissenting preacher figures as one of the principal 

 personages. The first of these gentlemen is very elaborately deli- 

 neated, by no means caricatured,, but certainly a most laughter-pro- 

 voking worthy laughable, not from any innate fun in his composition, 

 but from his self-satisfaction and entire admiration of his own prowess. 

 He rejoiced in the cognomen of lllingham, was one of those countless 

 uniques who are born ready taught, was so very wise that he knew 

 not what ignorance meant except by report ; he had the satisfaction 

 of believing all regularly-educated men to be profound blockheads ; 

 never met with a difficulty or stumbled over an objection in the 

 whole course of his life ; had a great admiration for " genius " (every 

 uproarious zany consoles himself with the notion that his braying is 

 the harmonious breathings of " inspiration" and ft genius"); and was 

 so tremendously enlightened that he could discover the meaning of a 

 proposition as soon as started, or before, for that matter. His intellect 

 was of the veni, vidi, vici order, and no more need be said. This 

 character, though apparently so very novel on paper, will be found 

 to be but too easily recognized in the most ordinary life. In the 

 second preacher we have one of those miserable compounds of atro- 

 city and idiotcy who are also unfortunately but too numerous in many 

 parts of England we could mention, and whose furious and impious 

 devotion (if we can so speak) is more rapidly undermining the re- 

 ligious feelings of our peasantry than all other circumstances put 

 together. The wild zeal and dolorous folly of those tumultuous bat- 

 terers at heaven's gate those assaulters of the Godhead those insane 

 clamourers and outrageous bellowers for salvation for one, and damna- 

 tion for thousands are rapidly propelling the minds of our agricul- 

 tural poor into the opposite extreme ; and who can say but such is a 

 very natural sequence? We recommend such of our readers as 

 are ignorant of those matters, to read " Trials and Triumphs/' In 

 addition to much sentiment, exquisitely conveyed, without any of its 

 insufferable namby-pambyisms, this volume contains much sound and 

 interesting information in the development of characters not very 

 familiar to the book-reading public of the metropolis. The author 

 indirectly lets us into a knowledge of his political opinions, which we 

 recognise to be Toryist in his riducule of liberality. However, he is a 

 very unobtrusive stickler for old abuses, and in his pleasantry and 

 naivete we forget his politics, and merely recommend him not to be 

 too much given to the use of such jargon as " locust swarms of poli- 

 tical economists." 



POEMS, SACRED, DRAMATIC, AND LYRIC. BY MARY ANN CUR- 

 SHAM, AUTHORESS OF " NORMAN ABBEY," &c. LONDON : HA- 

 MILTON, ADAMS, AND Co. 



IF, passion, feeling, pathos, elegance, and grace are required to 

 the conformation of a poet then assuredly Miss Cursham may take a 

 high place among her " Sister Muses" she has taken nature for her 



