1830.] 



Domestic (tnd Foreign. 



591 



condition or reserve. But he was too 

 generous to sacrifice her to coarse indul- 

 gence ; and she finally wound herself to 

 such a pitch of romance, as to contribute 

 to the promotion of his views with the 

 heiress. She assumes a soldier's dress, 

 and plays her part with feelings too mas- 

 culine for probability, but which the au- 

 thor seems to think not incompatible 

 with the fervours of an Andalusian and 

 a Moor. She goes steadily through with 

 her purpose, but winces when all is ac- 

 complished ; she begins to envy the 

 happiness she had effected, but gene- 

 rously betakes herself to another coun- 

 try to keep herself out of temptation. 

 Her brother, the slave, is as hot as the 

 clime that gave him birth, and when he 

 discovers the old Spaniard's wrongs, as 

 bent upon revenge as his faith could 

 prompt him, and escapes, in the prose- 

 cution of it, more perils than man or 

 Moor ever encountered. 



Russell, or the Reign of Fashion. 3 

 vols. I2mo. By the Author of " Winter 

 in London," #c.-Mr. Surr, like Mr. 

 Godwin, has again taken to novel writ- 

 ing, and, like Mr. Godwin too, writes 

 with all the vigour and vivacity of his 

 younger days. As of old, the complica- 

 tions of graver mystery are relieved by 

 an occasional exhibiting of the foibles of 

 aristocratic follies. " Winter in Lon- 

 don," and " Splendid Misery," were, 

 in their day, the first of their class, and 

 in reality the progenitors of our fashion- 

 able novels. Potent rivals have sprung 

 up, in the interval, to wrest from him 

 the palm, but he still shews he can keep 

 a firm grasp, and will not readily resign 

 what was once exclusively his own. 



Russell, whose birth and family are 

 utterly unknown to him, is just of age, 

 and in possession of enormous property, 

 and designated, in the slang of the press, 

 the Foundling of Fortune. He has been 

 brought up under the guardianship of a 

 Mr. Gregory, a man of business, a mem- 

 ber of parliament, a leader of the saints, 

 and of boundless wealth, acquired main- 

 ly by the command his ward's property 

 gave him in the money market. As a 

 professor of extraordinary sanctity, Mr. 

 Gregory is a prodigious hypocrite, and 

 pains are taken, in a long narrative, to 

 trace his career from the condition of a 

 bare-legged Scotch beggar boy, to a sort 

 of sovereignty in the mercantile world. 

 The development, however, of the mys- 

 tery attending the birth of Itussell is 

 the prime object of the story. As a 

 banker, Gregory succeeds to the con- 

 nections and secrets of a house of long 

 standing, in the strong-room of which 

 had been deposited an old sea-chest, and 

 on the books stood a considerable sum 

 for the safety and investment of which 

 the successor becomes of course respon- 



sible. The sum had grown verv large, 

 and Gregory, from the long silence of 

 the interested parties began to entertain 

 hopes of its finally falling into hi-.} own 

 hands. In his impatience to discover 

 the mystery attending this ancient depo- 

 sit, he" breaks open the chest, and finds, 

 indeed, jewels of value, but also a skele- 

 ton, and a Spanish MS., which he can- 

 not read, and dare not get read. Scarcely 

 had he replaced things as he found them, 

 and recovered his own tranquillity, when 

 the chest is demanded, but not the mo- 

 ney ; and by and by a child is consigned 

 to him from the East, as the future 

 owner of the accumulated property, to 

 be educated at Eton and Cambridge. 

 As the boy grows up, a person of over- 

 ruling authority corresponds with him, 

 advises, counsels, and directs, and pur- 

 poses to come and put him in posses- 

 sion of all the day he comes of age. That 

 day arrives, but not the stranger ; he 

 again puts oft' his appearance, but em- 

 powers Gregory to give the youth pos- 

 session of the property, now swollen to 

 an enormous amount r in lands, stock, 

 "and half a borough. The youth takes 

 the seat which the borough gives him 

 acts politically with the son of the Duke 

 of Lavemere,* a liberal member, his old 

 friend at school and college and to 

 whose sister he was passionately at- 

 tached. But the uncertainty which hangs 

 over his birth blights his fondest hopes, 

 and damps his best energies, when final- 

 ly, the long-expected stranger arrives, 

 and arrives in the character of an Ame- 

 rican, a man of plain, and even blunt 

 manners a very Franklin in address 

 and intelligence and tells the whole 

 tale. He is of the Lavemere family 

 the true owner of the ducal coronet 

 the direct descendant of an elder branch 

 of the family supposed to have left no 

 issue ; and what is no less singular, llus- 

 sel is also the descendant of a younger 

 brother of the same branch. But the 

 old gentleman declines disturbing the 

 duke in possession ; and, apparently, 

 llussell, content with his boundle'ss 

 wealth, and the fair Lady Jane, suffers 

 his friend to take the bauble which had 

 just dropped on his head by the death of 

 the duke. Gregory, too, at this time, 

 who had spent a life in hoarding and 

 hoodwinking, is ruined by the panic in 

 the city, and the bursting of the share- 

 bubbles, and blows out his own brains. 

 Without expanding our outline too 

 much, we could not bring in the fa- 

 shionable folks, who are, however, very 

 much like other portraits of the kind, 

 full of pretence, insolence, and in- 

 trigue. 



Narrative of a Journey overland from 

 England to India, c., by Mrs. Colonel 

 Elwood. 2vofs. Svo. Overland journeys, 



