1828.] C 21)7 ] 



MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 



Sayings and Doings. Third Series. 

 3 vols. 12mo , 1828 Thi^ new series has 

 more of the peculiar and best properties of 

 the writer than either of the preceding. He 

 is essentially a caricaturist the painter, 

 but in our days the incomparable painter of 

 the coarse and broad; but whenever his 

 genius pricks him to chaster scenes to the 

 serious rather than the ridiculous, his natu- 

 ral penchant compels him to deepen the 

 shades and heighten the glare beyond the 

 truths of fact, which help, at the same time, 

 to conceal the deformities of his sketches. 

 There is always, in his truest efforts, some- 

 thing of extravagance something that 

 smacks of the essence of farces and political 

 squibbings, and forces upon us the assu- 

 rance that there is his element, and almost 

 the wish that there he would continue to 

 revel and triumph. The low and the ludi- 

 crous the worthless and the profligate 

 these are the characters he delights to trace, 

 and he does trace them, it must be allowed, 

 with more of the genuine spirit of the older 

 novelists than any of his cotemporaries. 

 He has studied in the school of Smollet ; 

 and, like that great master, has not the 

 skill, perhaps not the patience, to copy 

 closely the features of nature ; his powers 

 shew more like those of the "grand carver" 

 than the anatomist, and his dexterity con- 

 sists less in separating and dissecting than 

 in slicing and slashing. He has, in short, 

 a natural tact and felicity in detecting the 

 vulgar and absurd, and, of course, out of a 

 given quantity of these choice materials, is 

 able to make more of them than others, 

 whose propensities take a more refined and 

 bearable direction. He must accordingly 

 be placed at the head of his class ; he justly 

 assumes a priority and pre-eminence in this 

 his peculiar department, and claims it in- 

 deed as all his own. We know none who 

 can at all contest the palm with him, and in 

 Gervase Skinner he has out-heroded Herod. 

 In the volumes before us, at least in one of 

 the tales, the writer assumes a bolder moral 

 tone than formerly : and occasionally even a 

 sermonizing one, which sits rather awkwardly 

 upon him. Of one of his heroines, he says 

 " she had no counsellor on earth ; she 

 had not been instructed to appeal to one in 

 heaven, who, almighty as he is, would have 

 aided, strengthened, and sustained her." 

 This language appears to him, no doubt, to 

 be full of unction pious and orthodox ; but 

 it is evidently that of one little familiar with 

 the usual style of these things so little, that 

 when he attempts a shot, the chances are 

 ten to one he misses. 



The present series comprises two tales 

 only ; the first, entitled Cousin William, is 

 the tale not so much of Cousin William as 

 of Cousin Caroline. Caroline is the daugh- 

 ter of an elderly country gentleman, a vale- 



M.M. New Series. VOL. V. No. 27. 



tudinarian, and married to a second wife, 

 devoted equally with himself to medicine 

 both disciples of Dr. Buchan, and very 

 facetiously, in consequence, called Buccha- 

 neers not only swearing by him, but 

 yielding up their souls and bowels to his 

 absolute guidance. So much is their at- 

 tention absorbed in looking after their real 

 and imaginary maladies, that the young 

 lady's propensities are lost sight of, and suf- 

 fered to pursue their growth in their own 

 direction. She is a very charming girl 

 nevertheless full of generosity and general 

 amiableness, but untaught to check her fan- 

 cies and feelings ; and, mingling scarcely at 

 all with her equals, she is little informed of 

 the decorums of life, and of course enter- 

 tains little veneration for them. She has a 

 cousin in the guards, whose visits to his 

 uncle have been frequent, and, as Caroline 

 grew up to womanhood, more frequent still, 

 till her affections, insensibly, become wholly 

 his. He is a profligate of the deepest dye, 

 but of that Caroline knows little, and what 

 she does, she is ready to palliate. He at last 

 ruins himself and his father, and his only 

 resource is a match with the heiress of a 

 noble family, but of few perfections, with 

 one eye, but thousands of acres. A few 

 weeks before the day fixed for the marriage 

 he visits his cousin, and communicates his 

 designs, and affects not to know anything of 

 the state of her feelings, but now, on disco- 

 vering the truth, he pours forth imprecations 

 and curses on his own folly ; first, in thus having 

 unwittingly engaged his charming cousin's 

 affection, and next, on the dice and the turf, 

 that have driven him to link himself with 

 the noble monope. 



Just at this period, very unexpectedly, 

 Sir Mark Terrington, of the neighbourhood 

 a spooney, as the author, if he were de- 

 scribing him in one word, would call him 

 offers his hand and fortune. The young 

 lady, passionately devoted as she is to her 

 precious cousin, is not precipitate in reject- 

 ing these offers ; she takes time to delibe- 

 rate, that is, to consult her cousin, who at 

 once advises acceptance, and secretly se- 

 cures the alliance of her own maid. With 

 this damsel, Cousin William had held a 

 brief liaison, and, in obedience to her cue, 

 she does not hesitate to suggest, that a mar- 

 riage with Sir Mark need be no impediment 

 to the progress or the indulgence of their 

 affections. The young lady, as yet com- 

 paratively unsophisticated, spurns the base 

 suggestion, but forgets to dismiss the artful 

 agent ; and considering that home is un- 

 comfortable, that Sir Mark is rich, that her 

 cousin cannot marry two wives, and there- 

 fore is lost to her, and that his new and 

 brilliant connexion will, as he tells her, in- 

 troduce her into the gay world, she finally, but 

 not unreluctantly, consents to the marriage. 



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