302 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[MARCH, 



was a managing woman, and ruled his 

 father, which in very early youth excited 

 the son's indignation, and roused his resist- 

 ance, and made him watchful against all 

 attempts of her to guide or influence him 

 even to a degree of obstinacy and contra- 

 dictoriness. It became enough, if she pro- 

 posed, for him to refuse ; and though she 

 was cunning, and changed her ground, he 

 pursued her changes- with a jealousy equal 

 to her cunning ; his pride was fully awaken- 

 ed ; he fairly took the bit in his mouth, and 

 ran his own course. With others he was 

 sometimes forgetfully confiding ; but almost 

 every connexion he made, in one way or 

 other disappointing him, added fuel to his 

 sensitive temper, and brought on confirmed 

 distrust. Before he was of age he accom- 

 panied some friends abroad, where, at a 

 gaming establishment, he met with a lady 

 of the most captivating manners and en- 

 chantments, and her he brought home, and 

 in the enthusiasm of his admiration, and to 

 assert his ' independence, would have mar- 

 ried, lost as she notoriously was to all cha- 

 racter. The lady was one who had changed 

 proprietors frequently, and now accepted De 

 Lisle's protection as a matter of accommo- 

 dation; and, to his surprise, mortification, 

 and disgust, left him as soon as she found a 

 change more agreeable. This desertion had 

 a most deciding effect on his after character 

 and conduct. On coming of age, on the 

 urgency of his parents, he became candidate 

 for his native county ; and the tricks, and 

 treacheries, and venalities he witnessed, in 

 fiicted another shock on the delicacy and 

 sincerity of his sentiments, and the loss of 

 the election only added another rivet to the 

 distrust which was beginning to extend to- 

 wards the whole human race. 

 He was now without occupation, and an 

 object ; and with all his apparent strength 

 of character, the" sport of every wind that 

 blew. His present indecisions ended in 

 accompanying some friends, one of them an 

 invalid, to the south, and he seemed to be 

 recovering an interest in life and society, 

 when both his friends perished, one by fail- 

 ing into the water, skating, and the other 

 by flying to his rescue; and he was thus 

 again left a lonely being without an object 

 for regard, and without a wish for life the 

 last sad events exasperating his general 

 feeling of disappointment, though not cal- 

 culated to add to his growing misanthropy. 



By this time a dissolution comes round 

 again, and he is once more involved in an 

 election contest ; and being this time suc- 

 cessful, turns his thoughts and attention to 

 Parliamentary matters, and distinguishes 

 himself as an able debater, but refuses to 

 take party. The effects of this refusal force 

 on him a conviction of the imbecility of in- 

 dividual and independent effort, and he re- 

 signs his seat, with disgust augmented, and 

 ready to overflow and inundate all with 

 whom he comes in contact. The lady, 

 however, who had first charmed him, 



though she had jilted him so carelessly, 

 had still a hold on his memory, and even on 

 his affections; and hearing something of 

 her accidentally, and at a loss also for occu- 

 pation, he resolves to go on the continent 

 in search of her not so much with any 

 view of renewing the intercourse, as to 

 ascertain why she left him, and if she had 

 ever loved him. He succeeds in tracing 

 her, and gathers from her her whole history 

 a history which is told with the most 

 graceful vivacity; and though the story be 

 in itsqlf full of improbabilities, yet is it 

 facile to the imagination, and irresistibly 

 attractive. Generally, episodes are intole- 

 rable interruptions ; but De Lisle's affairs 

 are at the time so little complicated, that 

 the reader has little difficulty in attending 

 to the fortunes of a stranger, calculated as 

 they are to absorb and satisfy. 



Quitting Madame de Lausanne, who is 

 under splendid protection, De Lisle again 

 tours from place to place without a motive ; 

 when at Rome, he visits a cottage, where 

 he remembered to have seen children, whose 

 beauty had struck him, and whose miseries 

 he had relieved, and learns that all had 

 perished but one girl, and she was at that 

 moment stretched on the tomb of her bro- 

 ther, in the full desolation of despair. Obey- 

 ing the dictates of his feelings for, with all 

 his accumulated distrusts and disgusts, he 

 was of a most kindly nature he visited the 

 grave, and soothing the poor girl with his 

 best efforts, reconciled her to life. His 

 hours were engrossed by her ; and in thus 

 labouring to withdraw her from recollections 

 of wretchedness, he was led to pay her so 

 much personal attention, that the child's 

 affections were passionately fixed upon him, 

 though his own were untouched. She was 

 pre-eminently beautiful, confiding, and de- 

 voted. He was now leaving Rome, and 

 what could he do with his prote'gee ? Her 

 fond trust and abandonment to himself 

 embarrassed him ; she refused to live, if he 

 left her; and though seeing the absurdity 

 of her accompanying him, the matter ended 

 by his taking her with him and finally in 

 her own ruin. Many months were now 

 spent in travelling from place to place ; and 

 at last, when his return to England became 

 imperative, the thought struck him of placing 

 her in a convent under the care of an ab- 

 bess, who was the sister of the friends he 

 had lost some years before in a skating ex- 

 cursion, and was well known to him. The 

 poor girl, seeing the case inevitable, con- 

 sented, mainly because it was his wish. 

 Here she pined, and finally, on De Lisle's 

 letters growing, if not cooler, yet less fre- 

 quent, she sacrificed herself to despair, arid 

 left the wretched De Lisle the victim of 

 remorse, and a prey to new disgust. 



Time moves on, and the bitterness of 

 grief passes by with it ; and De Lisle suc- 

 ceeds to the ample inlieritance of his fa- 

 thers, and returns to the family seat. New 

 personages now come upon the scene, par-; 



