78 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[JAN, 



is orderly and decorous and even attends 

 family prayers. The young ladies are at- 

 tentive nurse his cough and make them- 

 selves superlatively amiable. He forgets his 

 resolution to depart he abandons his pur- 

 pose of rescuing.them from the entangle- 

 ments of learning is himself drawn into the 

 vortex ; and, instead of unteaching his cou- 

 sins, is imperceptibly seduced into sharing 

 their pursuits, and finds himself even bo- 

 tanizing with his lovely cousins. A few 

 months make him an altered man, the 

 puppet and automaton of fashion is changed 

 into a reflecting and reasoning animal 

 loathing his mother's ambitious aspirings, 

 and his sister's unfeminine levities, and ready 

 to school and lecture right and left. 



The progress of his transmutation is de- 

 spatched to a correspondent abroad ; and by 

 the time the change is complete, family 

 events occur which take him from Ireland. 

 New folks are introduced, and the author's 

 original design appears to be forgotten. The 

 new characters consist of his mother and sis- 

 ters. The mother intrigues for one of her 

 daughters, and inveigles a lord into marry- 

 ing her, chiefly by giving hints, that her 

 brother's immense property, accumulated in 

 the Indies, will be divided among her chil- 

 dren she is herself overwhelmed with debt, 

 but still contrives to keep up appearances. 

 In the meanwhile this brother, General 

 Douglas, is preparing to come to England. 

 Mrs. Howard is full of expectation, and 

 scheming how she shall monopolize his 

 .wealth and especially to keep the Irish 

 family apart. It so happens, however, that 

 .Mr. Otway is the general's most confidential 

 friend, to whom he applies to purchase an 

 estate, and prepare him an establishment 

 against his arrival. He of course takes care 

 that his friends shall be properly introduced 

 to the general. The general's health is bad, 

 and he is persuaded to try the air of the 

 Irish bogs where he becomes an inmate of 

 the Douglases. The final consequence of 

 all which is, that Mrs. Howard is defeated 

 in her grasping views, and the Douglases get 

 the bulk of the property Young Howard, 

 however, not forgotten. 



As a tale, the construction is as poor as 

 possible; and the latter part where the 

 complication of events begin is huddled to- 

 gether in a very unsatisfactory manner. The 

 story, however, was evidently a secondary 

 matter; and the characters are all of our 

 oldest acquaintance. The writer was more 

 intent upon introducing certain moral dis- 

 cussions, and to shew how well intellectual 

 pursuits, and active benevolence can be pro- 

 secuted in the heart of Ireland with little 

 more than a competency a conviction 

 among the charming cousins, which he is 

 likely to spoil by rilling their purses, at last, 

 too full. Though heavy on the whole, there 

 is much sound sense in the book, and some 

 excellent preaching ; but no getting through 

 the long conferences of the mother and the 



general, in which she describes the process, 

 by which she cured her own scepticism, and 

 finally accomplishes the general's cure. Dear 

 old Mrs. West is alive again more didactic 

 than ever ; we had thought the good lady 

 dead, and had destined the present writer to 

 occupy the vacant see. As it is, she for 

 we suppose the writer a female, by the way in 

 which ancient writers are classed " Homer 

 and Simonides," for instance can only be 

 appointed coadjutor, but the coadjutor, she 

 will remember, is always the successor. 



Whims and Oddities, in Prose and Verse. 

 Second Series. By Thomas Hood; 1827- 

 What is it that makes us laugh ? Incon- 

 gruities. Yes, occasionally so, but more 

 generally unexpected positions abrupt re- 

 semblances and not wholly so, for these are 

 sometimes alarming or revolting. In a 

 risible light, however, words are things, and 

 quaint expressions are equivalent to unlook- 

 ed-for, or out-of-the-way combinations of 

 tangible matters; low words employed on 

 elevated subjects, and solemn ones on ludi- 

 crous topics these are productive of the 

 same effects as caricature. But there are 

 limits to these matters, and the limits are 

 easily passed. Essential differences, though 

 indefinite and almost infinite as to the com- 

 plexities of things, are not so as to words ; 

 the possible varieties of verbal distortions are 

 few their analogies striking, and, conse- 

 quently, then- chances of producing the ridi- 

 culous proportionally rare we get quickly to 

 anticipate the whole range, and if once we 

 anticipate, the effect of surprise is overhand 

 we are more ready to growl than grin. This 

 is Mr. Hood's case ; he has exhausted his 

 stock of peculiarities ; we know the depth of 

 his budget, and the sum of his permutations ; 

 he has ran through his tricks ; his legerde- 

 main is failing, and he must look out for a 

 new audience, for the old one will hear no 

 more. In his former efforts, by which we 

 were highly amused, he did not depend 

 wholly upon the oddities of phraseology ; he 

 had got droll stories together, and the com- 

 bined effect of whimsical facts and whimsical 

 words was occasionally irresistible. In the 

 volume before us, all, comparatively, is ver- 

 bal effort and hard labour ; he relies almost 

 solely on his punning facilities, for his 

 stories, with one or two exceptions, are of the 

 flattest, or of the coarsest description. The 

 difference of the two series is that of brisk 

 bottled ale, and small beer, or champaign 

 up in a brimmer, and champaign down in 

 a heel-tap. 



The virtue has not however left the wood 

 Captain Head is excellent and the Re- 

 trospective Review particularly. Of the 

 stories the best perhaps is that of the Monkey 

 Martyr, who, filled with the reveries of eman- 

 cipation, resolves to visit Mr. Cross's Me- 

 nagerie, and release his fellow-quadrupeds : 



Pug hastened to withdraw 

 The bolt that kept the king of brutes within. 

 Now, monarch of the forest, thou bhaltwiu 



