706 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[DEC. 



stantial, seemed irrefragable, anil he 

 was hanged. How he came into the 

 hands of body-snatchers is not so clear. 

 No matter Maxwell resolved to save 

 him with a full sense of the peril he 

 incurred, and the difficulty of secreting 

 the unhappy man. He accomplished 

 the hazardous attempt ; but not without 

 involving himself in a good deal of per- 

 plexity, and subjecting himself to un- 

 comfortable surmises with his family 

 especially from his midnight visits, and 

 from occasional intercourse with the 

 gentleman's daughter a most beautiful 

 girl, whom his son accidentally came in 

 contact with, fell desperately in love, 

 and all but discovered. Finally, both 

 father and daughter are shipped off 

 safely for one of the Azores. Maxwell 

 will make neither of his own children 

 confidants. Though a most indulgent 

 parent as most parents are, so long as 

 they are unopposed he was despotic 

 upon points. His daughter had caught 

 a glimpse of the resuscitated patient, 

 and was bound by her father to eternal 

 silence. The son was peremptorily 

 commanded to desist from farther 

 pursuit of the lady, as one, without 

 an explanatory word, who must bring 

 disgrace upon himself and ruin upon his 

 family. His daughter, a very charming 

 and intelligent girl, had early given her 

 affections to a very handsome youth, of 

 whom Maxwell, a Scotchman, and as 

 proud as a Highlander, disapproved, on 

 the ground of his mother's illegitimacy. 

 He contrived to pack him off to India 

 cut off all correspondence, and by falla- 

 cious statements, finally induced her to 

 accept for a husband his own broker, 

 who had gained an ascendancy over him, 

 and involved his whole property in the 

 share bubbles of the day. Though a coarse 

 fellow, the young lady, after many de- 

 lays, marries him, in compliance with 

 her father's importunity, and thinking 

 that though he was unlicked and uncon- 

 genial, he was honest, and she might be 

 comfortable, if not happy. 



The marriage took place, and never 

 was honey-moon more suddenly eclipsed. 

 The bridal party go to Brighton, and 

 the very next day an Indiarnan lands 

 Somerford, her old lover, whom she 

 had been told was dead, before her own 

 eyes. He had returned with a full 

 purse, and a full purpose of marrying 

 the fond object of his early affections. 

 An explanation follows, and in the agi- 

 tations which ensue, comes alarming 

 news from the city. The broker hastens 

 to London ; the case is desperate ; all is 

 lost, and Maxwell with his son and 

 daughter fly to the Madeiras, to escape 

 his creditors. The broker driven to 

 his last shifts, commits an act of forgery, 

 and is also forced to fly. At the Ma- 

 deiras, Maxwell and his family are 



warmlv and hospitably welcomed by the 

 son of the man he had restored to life. 

 Filled with grateful feelings, he takes a 

 deep interest in Maxwells fortunes 

 gives Maxwell's son half his business, 

 and proceeds himself to London to in- 

 quire into the actual state of his affairs. 

 They prove to be not so bad as the 

 broker had represented them he had 

 not, in fact, been able to complete his 

 villanous intentions. While gathering 

 the wreck of Maxwell's fortunes, the 

 young man discovers his father's clerk 

 under sentence of death for forgery 

 he confesses to the murder for which his 

 master had been executed, and the 

 honour of the family is thus restored. 

 Somerford, in the meanwhile, seeking 

 some relief for his disappointments, 

 withdrew to Cheltenham, where he fell 

 in with a nobleman, who turned out to 

 be his grandfather the legitimate father 

 of his supposed illegitimate mother. 

 Somerford succeeds to the title and 

 estates. While driving to a villa of his 

 at Richmond, he encounters the Max- 

 wells, on the road towards town the 

 young lady is in mourning she had just 

 heard of the death of the worthless 

 broker her husband of a day the wi- 

 dow, of course, becomes my lady, and 

 is repaid for all her sufferings ; and old 

 Maxwell, of course, too, no longer op- 

 poses his son's union with the lovely 

 daughter of the resuscitated merchant 

 whose honour is proved to have been 

 unsullied. 



A friend of Maxwell a Dr. Moss, a 

 singular mixture of coarseness and acute- 

 ness of real or affected cynicism, and 

 undoubted good feeling, is, it must be 

 supposed, a portrait nobody ever ima- 

 gines such eccentricities. 



Tlie Bereaved Kenilworth, c. by the 

 Rev. E. Whitfield. A very sweet and 

 gentle tone of sentiment pervades this 

 little tale. Though the poetry exhibits 

 no fertility of fancy, it is full of deep 

 feeling if plaintive it is not sickly, and 

 the melancholy has always the ratio suf- 

 ficiens. The story is told gracefully, 

 and the versification is easy and melo- 

 dious. The Bereaved loses a beautiful 

 wife while yet in the bloom of youth. 

 She leaves behind an infant child, the 

 recollection of which first lifts him from 

 the depths of despair, when it seemed 

 relief was nowhere to be found. 



'Twas found convulsive heaved the breast, 

 To which the lovely babe was prest 

 Sudden it stretched its little hands, 

 As if to clasp in such weak bands 

 A father's neck ; the artless child, 

 Then, like a cherub, sweetly smiled : 

 Enough o'er all his trembling frame 

 The feelings of the father came ; 

 Shone in her face his sainted wife, 

 Spake in that smile, and waked to life 



