1828.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



83 



tohismoodiness, a friend who was with him 

 an old colonel proposes to visit General Mont- 

 gomery, in a distant county. He consents. 

 The general's family consists of himself and 

 the two ladies Lorimer, with some three or 

 four friends, who for one reason or another 

 have the run of the house. He is himself a 

 good-humoured, excellent sort of person . 

 kind, and gentle, and contented fond of the 

 country, and enjoying its quiet pursuits. Of 

 the nieces, the elder, Lady Frances, has run 

 -the gauntlet of a London winter or two, and 

 is thoroughly imbued with fashionable follies 

 a perfect exclusive loathing the country, 

 and panting to inhale again the incense of 

 admiration ; the younger has not been so 

 introduced she has escaped pollution, by not 

 being exposed to it ; her feelings are all of 

 the purest kind, and her pursuits equally so 

 all kindness and gentleness and exhibiting a 

 rare simplicity and truth and fervour of feeling, 

 that charm all who meet her and is besides, 

 the very young lady, whose bonnet Lord 

 Mowbray had rescued. 



My Lord makes some stay. Lady Frances 

 makes a dead set at him ; but he is of course 

 drawn insensibly towards the younger, though 

 carefully abstaining from too marked an 

 attestation of his feelings. Things go on in 

 this way for some time, till at length an invi- 

 tation comes for the whole party, to attend a 

 splendid christening of some parvenu family 

 in the neighbourhood where is to appear the 

 new prima donna of the opera. Lord Mow- 

 bray shews some little alarm at the announce-' 

 ment, but when Lady Emily is so much 

 struck by the elegant and lady -like appearance 

 of the singer, as to express a wish that Lord 

 Mowbray, from whom an acknowledgment 

 of former acquaintance with her was extorted 

 would introduce her, he has no resource 

 but flight ; he quits the company suddenly, 



leaves a note for his host, and flies to town 



Rosalinda, the singer, was in reality a lady of 

 family and fortune, in Italy, where Lord 

 Mowbray had met with her, and admired her, 

 but who was himself still more admired en- 

 thusiastically so by her so much so, that she 

 sought his society, and an intercourse ensued, 

 which ended as such intercourses sometimes 

 will. The lady recovering from the trance 

 into which the warmth of her affections had 

 thrown her, expected marriage, from which 

 Lord Mowbray shrinking, took refuge in 

 flight his vanity, rather than his affections, 

 had all along been concerned. The lady 

 followed, with no intention of vindicating her 

 claims, but solely for the satisfaction of now 

 and then catching a hasty glance at him, or 

 at least of treading the same soil with him. 

 Her long absence from home forfeited her 

 property, and she betook herself to the stage 

 for subsistence. In this character she met 

 his eyes, and awakened again the stings of 

 remorse. To cut the story short the in- 

 tensity of her feelings wasted the springs of 

 existence, and she soon after died in London, 

 not, however, before Lord Mowbray's old 



tutor had discovered her, and brought about 

 an interview, where he received the poor 

 lady's final forgiveness. Now he was at 

 liberty but where was Lady Emily ? General 

 Montgomery had suddenly broken up his 

 establishment alleging the entire destruction 

 of his property, and the loss of his nieces' for- 

 tunes without communicating the cause to 

 any soul breathing being under an oath to 

 conceal it. Lady Frances, by this time, giving 

 up all hopes of Mowbray, had entrapped the 

 Marquis of something, and notwithstanding 

 the loss of fortune was accepted by the Duke 

 his father. She pursued her career ; marriage, 

 instead of restraining her love of admiration, 

 only seemed to bring her greater freedom, 

 which ended very shortly in intrigue, deser- 

 tion, poverty, and a miserable death. The 

 General, with Lady Emily, withdrew to a 

 small farm-house, in the neighbourhood of 

 Bristol, and spent a whole winter in solitude 

 and obscurity till, in short, Lord Mowbray 

 accidentally discovered their residence 

 visited and took them to his castle ; and the 

 very day he made Lady Emily the offer of his 

 hand and fortune, the old general discovered 

 all his fears were groundless, and the parties 

 are, of course, supremely blest she, after 

 passing nobly the ordeal of poverty and priva- 

 tion, and he purified from the old stain, and 

 qualified to appreciate the virtues of Emily, 

 and live a life of rational pursuits, apart from 

 the follies, &c. &c. 



The Mummy, 3 vols. I2mo. 1827 This 

 is surely the wretchedest production that ever 

 crazy understanding engendered. It is utterly 

 without an object, unless the venting of ex- 

 travagances be taken as one. If it be intended 

 for satire, it is a telum imbelle the weapon 

 is without a point and hits nobody, if for a 

 prophecy, it has none of the promptings of 

 inspiration if for sport, it has neither play- 

 fulness nor vivacity, neither frolic nor fancy 

 a mere mass of crudities and absurdities 

 a dead take-in. The writer is unable to con- 

 catenate or combine. If he starts a concep- 

 tion he cannot pursue it an inch. His ideas 

 have nothing adhesive or cohesive about them. 

 They are like the atoms of Democritus all 

 tending perpendicularly all falling to the 

 ground, without the possibility of making 

 conjunctions in their descent ; and the writer 

 wants the tact even of Epicurus, whose stu- 

 pidity in physics was proverbial, to endow 

 them with inclining propensities to bring 

 about occasional coalitions. With the affec- 

 tation of familiar acquaintance with science, 

 the fact must be, he is utterly ignorant of its 

 laws and purposes ; but, with a quickness of 

 apprehension not uncommon among fools, he 

 has gathered up a few of its phrases, and the 

 empty possession has tempted him to make 

 this idle flourish. He has, besides, pretty 

 evidently been accustomed to let his tongue 

 run at random to shoot with the long bow 

 and indulge in caricature so much readiness 

 does he shew of evasion and expedient quite 

 unattainable, but by long practice in the art 

 31 -1 



