334 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART, 



of Hamilton, with its " lights and shadows/' stands out in striking contrast 

 to the purity and noble-mindedness of that of Catharine; and the mode in 

 which the intercourse arid feelings of these two beings is painted, shews 

 the authoress to be possessed of an intimate knowledge of the human 

 heart, more especially of the heart and sensibilities of woman. 



It is not alone in the painting of character that the authoress particularly 

 shines. The work has literary merits of a very high order. Its style is 

 chaste and classical, and is what the writing of a woman ought ever to 

 be full of grace and feminine feeling. We might extract copiously, did 

 our limits permit us to do so, satisfied that the best recommendation which 

 the book can have will be found in its own language. 



With what force and propriety the following passage comes from a fe- 

 male pen, and how admirable are the truths which it inculcates ! " Of all 

 the evils attendant on a luxurious state of society, he thought the celibacy 

 to which, from its multiplied artificial wants, it condemns a large portion 

 of the female sex, and the consequent selfish and profligate habits it pro- 

 duced among men, one of the most unhappy in its effect. He considered 

 marriage as the only state in which human beings could be as virtuous as 

 rational, and as happy as the diversities of human life and the trials for 

 which we enter upon it, will admit of. Much of the celibacy which he re- 

 gretted to see so prevalent, Mr. Neville attributed to the short-sighted 

 ambition of parents in the middle ranks of life ; inducing them first to 

 educate their daughters on a scale inconsistent with their own position in 

 society, and then banishing them from their paternal roof all the spring-time 

 of their life, to hide their bloom and consume their youth, in seclusion and 

 dependence, as governesses in some titled or fashionable family, the habits 

 of which must ever afterwards unfit them for their natural station. Far, 

 rather, would Mr. Neville have seen his own daughters, with the simplicity 

 of patriarchal times, spin their linen at his fireside, and wash it in the 

 nearest brook, than he would have spent the whole of what little he could 

 spare for them, in a superficial acquirement of showy accomplishments to 

 qualify them for becoming servants in every sense but the most advanta- 

 geous one, all the best part of their life, and return in the decline of it, 

 every way incapacitated for managing a home of their own. He had always 

 advised the wealthier farmers, and others among the more substantial of 

 his parishioners, from giving way to this imaginary gentility, which was 

 sure to return their daughters single and sad : when they might have been 

 happy wives and tender mothers, had they remained at home, occupied in 

 their domestic employments. These, after all, set the female character in 

 its most attractive and endearing light, and are so far from interfering with 

 real mental refinement, that many of our brightest and most solid examples 

 of female talent are to be found in the retirement of domestic life, and in 

 the active superintendence of its duties." 



This is sound philosophy and sound morality ; and we wish to heaven that 

 the truth it inculcates was more widely acted upon, and more generally 

 held up before mothers and daughters. 



Throughout the work the authoress also shews a very fine perception of 

 the beauties of natural objects, and with much ability describes the de- 

 lightful influence they exercise upon us. 



But there are other points where the talented writer will tell more 

 powerfully upon the reader's mind. The development of Catharine's love 

 for Hamilton himself a hardened man of the world, but having some 

 bright gleams of better things about him is most admirably pourtrayed. 

 She shews woman in her noblest character, namely, as having the power to 

 sublimate and refine man's coarser and more mechanical moral qualities. 

 So long as he is beside Catharine, his thoughts and actions reflect her own 

 purity, and the entire details connected with their personal history we look 



