1830.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



705 



do not marvel ; have you not seen him 

 act times out of number ?" 



By the way, a key to the letters affixed 

 to the principal articles would be accep- 

 tible to many ; and more sofirst than last. 



Waverley Novels. Vol. XVIII. The 

 Monastery. Vol. I. The Monastery suc- 

 ceeded Ivanhoe. In Ivanhoe Sir Wal- 

 ter migrated to new scenes, and actions, 

 and manners, expressly to avoid weary- 

 ing his readers with eternal sameness, 

 and to repel also the possible insinuation 

 that he was at home no where but in 

 his own country. The Monastery, how- 

 ever, placed him in Scotland again, but 

 why or wherefore what reason or ca- 

 price impelled the author himself does 

 not, it seems, recollect, and surely, as 

 he himself hints, nothing can well be 

 of less importance furca expellas na- 

 turam. Fielding, we remember, in his 

 Journey to the Next World, represents 

 some doughty critic consulting Shak- 

 speare about some contested passage of his 

 " Iteally," says the dramatist, " it is so 

 long ago, I cannot tell myself what I 

 meant." The Monastery was the least 

 popular of the Waverley novels. The 

 conception of the White Lady no fault 

 could be found with the execution met 

 with little sympathy. Such imaginary 

 beings must be mixed up with gaiety 

 any attempt at the serious with them 

 must for ever fail in England. l)e la 

 Motte Fouque, in one of his most suc- 

 cessful compositions, produces a beau- 

 tiful, and even an affecting effect by the 

 introduction of a water nymph who 

 loses the privilege of immortality, by 

 uniting her lot with a mortal who treats 

 her with ingratitude. The White Lady 

 is avowedly an imitation of this success- 

 ful attempt. " She is connected with the 

 family of Avenel by one of these mys- 

 teries, which in ancient times were sup- 

 posed to exist, in certain circumstances, 

 between the creatures of the elements 

 and the children of men. Such instances 

 of mysterious union are recognized in 

 Ireland, in the real Milesian families, 

 Avho are possessed of a Banshie; and 

 they are known among the traditions of 

 the Highlanders, which, in many cases, 

 attached an immortal being or spirit to 

 the service of particular families or 

 tribes." The confession, or statement 

 rather, is made by the writer to excul- 

 pate himself from the charge of intro- 

 ducing, wantonly, a being of inconsistent 

 powers and propensities. 



With his usual good humour and good 

 taste the author thus winds up a long 



explanation " Still the Monastery, 



though exposed to severe and just criti- 

 cism, did not fail, judging from the 

 extent of its circulation, to have some 

 interest for the public. And this, too, 

 was according to the ordinary course of 



M.M. New Series VoL.X. No. 60. 



such matters ; for it very seldom hap- 

 pens that literary reputation is gained 

 by a single effort, and still more rarely 

 is lost by a single miscarriage. The 

 author, therefore, had his days of grace 

 allowed him, and time, if he pleased, to 

 comfort himself with the burden of the 

 old Scots song, 



" If it isna weel bobbit, 

 We'll bob it again." 



Maxwell, by the Author of Sayings and 

 Doings ; 3 vols. N obody is so much at 

 home as Mr. Theodore Hook in Life in 

 London. In the city with the theatre 

 among the lawyers and doctors, he is 

 in his proper element. No novelist of 

 the day enters so thoroughly into the 

 recesses of society in the middle ranks, 

 and none, as a consequence, so skilfully 

 anatomizes their tastes and feelings. 

 Though giving the form of fiction to 

 all his observations, he is essentially a 

 dealer in facts, or in what assimilates 

 admirably well with ordinary matters. 

 He spins as little as any one we know 

 from imagination merely. He only 

 modifies realities according to his taste 

 for the production of effect, which often 

 smacks of the tricks of the stage. There 

 is nothing, in short, in his pages for 

 which he could not produce authority 

 in real fact, or in common report. The 

 reader feels from beginning to end he 

 is conversing with one who knows the 

 world, by the tact, which nothing but 

 such knowledge will give, with which 

 he measures the motives of action, and 

 strips off disguises. He is no romancer, 

 and what is no slight recommendation, 

 his tales may be administered as infal- 

 lible specifics against mawkish and mor- 

 bid sentiment. 



The tale is wholly domestic the for- 

 tunes of Maxwell and his family 

 constructed on the tantalizing system. 

 The author's secrets for producing effect, 

 are suspenses and surprises. He has 

 developed his tale by analysis, but we, 

 if we sketch it at all, must reverse the 

 scheme, and proceed synthetically, or 

 we shall never bring the sketch within 

 our straitened limits. We must explode 

 the grand mystery of the tale at once. 

 Maxwell is a surgeon of eminence, in 

 full practice a lecturer on anatomy 

 also, with a school at the back of his 

 premises, as Joshua Brookes used to 

 have in Marlborough-street. One even- 

 ing a body was brought, as usual, by 

 some of the minions of the moon ; it 

 was not dead, and Maxwell recognised 

 it as the body of a gentleman, a mer- 

 chant of respectability, who had been 

 executed that morning for shooting his 

 partner. Great sympathy had been 

 excited in his favour, and Maxwell 

 especially, believed him innocent ; but 

 the evidence, though wholly circum- 

 4 U 



