530 



Month/.)/ Review of Literature, 



[MAY, 



formed. The wives and sisters of these men, and 

 their brothers, who are otherwise employed, arc 

 not thus mis-shapen. An example of an opposite 

 kind is seen in Paris, where, as there are no side 

 pavements in the streets, and the ladies conse- 

 quently walk almost constantly on tip-toe, the 

 great action of the muscles of the ealf has given a 

 conformation of the leg and foot, to match which 

 the Parisian belles proudly challenge all the world. 

 They are not aware, probably, that it is a defect 

 in their city to which the peculiarity of their form 

 is in part owing. 



DC J'ere, by the Author of Tremainc. 

 4 vols. I2mo.;1827 An attempt is mani- 

 festly making; to puff this very superior moral 

 performance into a sort of political portrai- 

 ture, for which the venerable and very ac- 

 complished writer surely never destined it, 

 calculated as such an attempt is to ruin its 

 present utility and permanent reputation. 

 Ambition is the stuff of the book; and he 

 illustrates and exemplifies the bastard and 

 legitimate species of it, by exhibiting how 

 could he do otherwise ? the characters and 

 careers of the leaders of political parties 

 some prompted by selfish profligacy, and 

 others aspiring to the purest and most ele- 

 vated patriotism. Premiers, and secretaries, 

 and chancellors cannot of course bespoken of, 

 even as imaginary .shadows, without recalling 

 realities ; and accordingly the reader, in the 

 tale before us, insensibly, and, if the fact be 

 previously asserted, perhaps resolutely takes 

 them for portraits; and portraits, in some of 

 the features, they undoubtedly are. The fea- 

 tures of ministers, from Bolingbroke to Pitt, 

 are traceable distinctly enough ; but one of 

 the most conspicuous, Mr. Wentworth, the 

 patriot minister, the daily prints and some 

 of the literary journals, most absurdly and 

 stupidly will have to be Mr. Canning. Mr. 

 Canning, indeed just now, is the hero of the 

 liberal prints, and an act of oblivion seems 

 by consent to have been past on all his long 

 and habitual support of the worst' corruptions 

 of a corrupt system, controlled by a pre- 

 dominating oligarchy, the weight of whose 

 iron hand he is himself now feeling, and 

 which, should he even shake it off for the 

 present, will eventually crush him. Heaven 

 forbid, that we should refuse to Mr. Can- 

 ning all title to patriotism but he must be 

 judged by Lis acts. This Mr. Wentwoith of 

 the novel, is pourtrayed as a man resolved 

 upon introducing a new and more liberal 

 system of government upon setting his face 

 steadily against official or family intrigues 

 upon administering a government of '' mea- 

 sures, not men" that is, of shaping public 

 measures for the benefit of the community 

 at large, great and small, and not of one of 

 its orders, <fec. Now, really to think of Mr. 

 Canning in this light is quite ridiculous. 

 What, in the existing system of representa- 

 tion, can a government be but one of poli- 

 tical intrigue one of exchange of buying 

 and selling ; and who has ever from first to 

 List been half so resolute, and so turbulent 

 nd insolent an opponent of reform as Mr. 



Canning ? He has gloried in this opponency ; 

 and no man can rationally expect a change 

 in this respect; ;md if not in this respect, 

 none in the general system of administration 

 none essentially and efficiently and for 

 any tiling else we care not a straw. 



We do not however for a moment believe 

 that the writer had individuals, known and 

 tried, specifically and wholly in view; if be 

 had, and Mr. Wentworth be the foreign 

 secretary, then he must either have the eyes 

 of a lynx, or be as blind as a bat. But he 

 is no blind man ; and we therefore the more 

 wonder and must wonder at the uncon- 

 cerned, unhesitating tone in which he speaks 

 of borough influence, as if it never entered 

 his thoughts as a matter deserving of cen- 

 sure ; and nothing, we conceive, but the long 

 and hardening possession of office could have 

 brought, a man of his high moral purity of 

 principle which strikes us at every turn, and 

 is every where else consistently, beautifully, 

 and feelingly enforced not only not to re- 

 probate, but by implication to approve of the 

 corrupting effects of it. But to the novel : 



De Vere is the descendant of the noble 

 family of that name, the younger son of a 

 general officer of very small property, and 

 left by the death of his father to the tender 

 mercies of an elder brother. This elder 

 brother studiously neglects him ; and in his 

 boyhood he finds himself the sole occupant 

 of the ancient tumbling-down mansion, with 

 no other attendance than the old servant 

 who has the care of the house and grounds. 

 He is thus suffered to run wild and unlicked 

 remote from all acquaintance with the 

 elegancies of life, and possessing scarcely 

 its ordinary comforts ; his education is ut- 

 terly unattended to ; his manners roughen ; 

 and he is in manifest danger of sinking fast 

 into the coarsest habits, and of never reco- 

 vering the position in society to which his 

 birth entitles him, and which his natural 

 abilities, could they be cultivated, seem 

 destined to adorn. In spite of the brother's 

 cruel and insidious neglect in spite of all 

 resolves to depress him below his caste, the 

 noble disposition and lurking talents of the 

 lad, interest one of his father's friends one 

 of his guardians with nothing but-thep^r- 

 son to guard and after the failure of many 

 attempts, at last an old retired and eccentric 

 Oxonian is persuaded to tnke charge of him ; 

 and, under his instruction, he picks up, if not 

 polished manners, at least some useful clas- 

 sical knowledge. 



As his mind opens, and his moral qualities 

 develope, firmness and resolution appear to 

 be the chief characteristics of his nature. He 

 was now sixteen, and had not seen his mo- 

 ther from infancy the elder brother's policy 

 the principles, or at least the purpose, of 

 which are not very satisfactorily defined 

 had interrupted all intercourse between the 

 mother and the son. This separation, and the 

 general oppression he labours under, kindle 

 his indignation, and prompt him to expostu- 

 late roundly. He will see her, and he does 



