Mr. Frascr versus Mr. Berkeley. 57 



the discussion of an author's work to introduce into his criticism 

 remarks or strictures reflecting on the honour of the writer or his fa- 

 mily, and calculated to wound his feelings in the most sensitive point. 



First, let us examine the merits of Mr. Berkeley's book, and con- 

 trast it with the review upon it. '* Berkeley Castle," as'our readers 

 most probably are aware, purports to be a historical romance relat- 

 ing the achievments of the Berkeley family during that ev entful 

 period of English history, when the contending houses of York and 

 Lancaster rallied around their respective standards the brave and 

 noble of the land. And here we dissent altogether from the opinion 

 expressed by the critic of this species of writing. He says, "What 

 awfully bad taste it is in Mr. Grantley Berkeley to write a book with 

 such a title ! What would be thought of Lord Prudhoe if he were to sit 

 down and give us a book upon Alnwick ? We should say it was very 

 absurd indeed." We should say, that if he possessed sufficient talent 

 to do so, he would be conferring a benefit on mankind by transmitting 

 to posterity the noble deeds of the house of Percy. Can the man 

 who deliberately traces out and perpetuates the virtues of his ancestry 

 be wicked or degenerate ? Would he not blush to call forth from 

 the tomb of oblivion the good actions of his forefathers in contrast 

 with his own baseness ? Is it likely that he would, by blazoning the 

 valour of his progenitors, proclaim his own pusillanimity? Certainly 

 not. The effect would be to stimulate him to emulate the actions, that 

 exalted the great and good men of his family. For this reason we are 

 partial to family histories : and we agree with Johnson, that " like the 

 imagines majorum of the ancients they excite to virtue ;" and we only 

 wish that those who really have blood would be more careful to trace 

 and ascertain its course. But the case is widely different, when a man 

 takes up his pen to record the delinquencies or follies of his family, 

 when he occupies three volumes with the details of the adulterous 

 amours of one of his ancestors, when we find the hero of his book, 

 Herbert Reardon, act the heroic part of a go-between for Sir Mau- 

 rice Berkeley and Isabel Mead, a married woman, and one too 

 whom he is described as having loved and sought to marry, when 

 we find in the same book a bed-room scene elaborately described be- 

 tween a certain waiting woman and a Mr. Hugh Mull, while an un- 

 fortunate groom is concealed under the bed when, in short, we dis- 

 cover throughout these volumes passages and descriptions of a cha- 

 racter that no female could read without contamination, we cannot 

 hesitate in agreeing with the reviewer in Fraser^s that the book " is 

 a bestiality towards the ladies of England, and should be flung forth 

 from the literature of our country." 



If Mr. Berkeley in eulogizing his own family degrades the cha- 

 racter of the females of England, has not his reviewer a right nay, 

 is he not compelled by every sentiment that prompts men to generous 

 and devoted acts to vindicate and rescue the character of his country- 

 women from the foul slander of their traducer ? Is he not justified 

 in flinging back on the calumniator the calumny that he has heaped upon 

 them, and exposing to the world those blemishes in his own lineage 

 which he so liberally exhibits in the pers-ons of the ladies of Bristol, 

 one of whom he describes as making an acquaintance with a gentleman 



